What to do at backup catcher? Put Castro on short leash
According to several reports throughout Spring Training, the Mets had been trying to trade backup catcher Ramon Castro. As opening day approached, Castro was still on the Mets and they were forced to keep him on the roster for the regualar season.
Since the season started, Castro has hit very poorly, batting a dismal .192. Castro has one homer, but other than that he has done nothing at the plate, including an inability to pick up RBI’s with only three this season.
Castro is not only a problem at the plate, but he is a liability behind the plate. He has shown several signs of laziness, failing to turn his glove over and get on his knees on a ball in the dirt, then jogging to retrieve the ball behind home plate while the runners just fly around the bases.
It seems that Castro’s only strong point as a catcher so far this season is when it comes to throwing runners out. He is 2-for-4 this season on throwing runners out and shows his strong, accurate arm when he throws down to second.
I’m not saying that the team should dump Castro or trade him right away, but if he continues to struggle all-around, they need to let him go and keep Omir Santos, who hit a grand slam last night, on the roster as a backup catcher.
Rumors indicate coaches may be fired, but is it their fault?
UPDATE – 10:01 PM: I mistakenly overheard the wrong piece of information over the radio and skimmed the NY Daily News a bit too fast prior to writing this story. Manuel never threatened to fire coaches, it was something that was likely said and released by a higher level executive. I apologize for the miscommunication.
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Mets’ manager Jerry Manuel recently threatened to fire his coaches and demote his struggling pitchers to the minor leagues. While many people may think this is just a scare tatic, others may fall for Manuel’s idea that the lack of consistency for the Mets should be blamed on the coaches.
I, and I hope many other Met fans, believe that it is not only too early to think about firing coaches, but that it isn’t their fault that they are clueless at times.
Just because the pitching coach and the other assistant coaches are failing to fix these mistakes their players make, doesn’t exactly mean it is their fault. It is Omar Minaya’s fault for putting them there.
Omar Minaya’s magical offseason acquisitions in the mid 2000’s more or less made everyone think so highly of him that they would never have to question another move of his again. Well, in the past few seasons, the Mets have failed miserably when it comes to living up to expectations.
The Mets lost an NLCS series in 2006 that everyone expected them to win, they collapsed and missed the playoffs in two consecutive seasons, 2007 and 2008, and fired their manager all since 2006.
Yes, you could go ahead and say that Omar wasn’t the one holding a bat on his shoulders to lose game 7 of the NLCS, you could say Omar wasn’t on the mound when Tom Glavine self-destructed in the first inning of the final game of 2007, and you could say that Omar wasn’t on the mound when the Mets repeated the same thing in 2008.
However, you can blame Minaya for just about every problem the Mets have ran into. The Mets should not have fired Wille Randolph, ESPECIALLY in mid-season, when the team hadn’t even reached the All-Star break. Jerry Manuel is nowhere near as valuable as Randolph was as manager. Actually, when I was bat boy and was sitting between Marlon Anderson and Manuel, I heard Marlon ask Manuel what he knew about Cameron Maybin from the Marlins. Manuel was basically clueless, responding with a weak “Uhh… I heard he has good skills.”
No joke.
Manuel really knows the opposition inside and out, doesn’t he?
Last time I checked, you weren’t supposed to go ahead and win a World Series in the same season when your team just fired their manager in the middle of the year after a win… so why would Minaya think that would benefit the team? Got me there.
Minaya has lacked the ability to make the important moves. Instead, he just tries to make the big moves, even if the players aren’t desperately needed compared to other position needs. Perfect example of this: This off-season, the Mets needed one or more key starters for their very shaky starting rotation. Instead, Minaya gets TWO, yes, you read correctly, TWO, closers instead of at least one or more starting pitchers.
Then, when he nearly missed out on the mediocre Oliver Perez, he was forced to pay big in order to even get him back to the team as a last resort.
So what does this all conclude to? Well, for starters, an ERA over 9 thus far for Perez, a string of shaky starts by John Maine that has prompted Manuel to toy with the idea of sending him down to AAA, and a remaining rotation that’s lucky if they are able to get out of the fourth inning.
This puts all the pressure on Johan Santana, another big-name acquisition by Minaya that holds little value considering Minaya never fortified the pitching staff surrounding Santana. This makes the Mets’ see-saw rotation look more lopsided than ever when you line up a pitcher who has given up one run this season next to several pitchers who have ERA’s higher than the rest of the league.
From now on, when you are looking for someone to blame when the pitchers fail to get out of the fourth inning, point the finger at the man in charge of getting these pitchers. It is quite obviously his fault.
Murphy flops as Mets drop series opener to St. Louis
With the game tied at 4 in the late innings, JJ Putz was looking to shut down the Cardinals 1-2-3. Instead, he watched a fly ball not only sail over left fielder Daniel Murphy’s head, but watched Murphy slip to the ground after he failed to read the angle of the fly ball.
I said this before the season and I will say it again: Murphy was overhyped in the first place. Now, everyone who called me silly and those who fail to realize that Spring Training doesn’t define who you are, now are facing the reality and truth that Murphy is inexperienced. He only came into the majors in the last couple months of last year, and now all of a sudden is expected to be a starting left fielder? Right…
That mistake by Murphy was easily the turning point of the game, as the Cardinals went on to score two more runs, making it a total of six unanswered following the Mets’ blown 4-0 lead held into the fifth.
Of course, Oliver Perez went from one extreme to the other. Tell me something I don’t know. Perez was cruising through the first four innings, then was hit by a train in the fifth by Albert Pujols and co., blowing the 4-0 lead entirely.
With the score tied at 4 in the eighth inning, Carlos Beltran had just pulled into third when the ball ricocheted to the area near the pitchers’ mound. Beltran saw the ball and jumped off the base, sprinting for home immediately, appearing he would easily be safe until Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina blocked the base and tagged Beltran to end the inning. A missed opportunity for the Mets, but coming in a situation where Beltran shouldn’t have ran anyway. On the same token, the Mets did have two outs and not much room to work with. Either way, he took a gamble and lost.
It seems no matter how well the Mets fix their pitching in the offseason, they still are not able to find a way to get through a game without blowing a lead in some way or another. This time, it was the outfield’s fault. Next time, who knows?
The Mets continue their series with St. Louis tomorrow night at 8:15 p.m. Eastern Time, before concluding the series on Thursday with a 1:40 p.m. start.
Mets set to take on Brewers for three as Willie returns
Following their series loss to visiting San Diego, who was expected at season’s beginning to finish the season with triple digits in the loss column, the Mets will try again when the Milwaukee Brewers come to town for a three-game series beginning tonight.
Livan Hernandez will make the start for the Mets in the opener, facing Dave Bush, who pitched very effectively in his first start, a no decision against the Cubs. Hernandez came out firing on all cylinders after winning the fifth starter job out of Spring Training, holding the hot Marlins to two runs in 6 2/3 innings during his first start in Miami. This was better than any of the Mets’ previous starters up to that point in the season, a pretty sad statistic.
If Hernandez can hold the Brewers off and give the Mets the victory in the opener, it sets the table for the ace Johan Santana in game two. Santana, coming off a brilliant start where he received no run support whatsoever, returned to the team after taking a few days away as his wife gave birth to their newborn son, Johan Jr.
Willie Randolph will be returning to the team he was fired from as manager last summer, merely three months into the season. Randolph, who is serving as bench coach for Milwaukee basically took the job to stay involved in baseball until he finds another job as manager. He obviously did not take the job for the money, as the Mets are still paying him for this season that he was under contract for.
Second series of CitiField, should be fun to watch. First pitch – 7:10 p.m.
Mets lose, but CitiField’s opening was main focus
It seems that the Mets can’t win a game on a day that they open or close a stadium.
About a half year after the Mets closed Shea Stadium in an embarrassing, losing fashion to fall one game short of the playoffs, they opened CitiField with a loss to the San Diego Padres. It’s a good thing this whole CitiField opening thing more or less canceled out the importance of winning the game.
The excitement began when hall-of-famer Tom Seaver came through the outfield gate with future hall-of-famer Mike Piazza, waving to the fans in attendance. As the two were paired up for the first pitch of CitiField, Seaver took the mound and threw a perfect strike to Piazza.
Minutes later, the game began and the crowd roared. Before half the fans at home were able to find time to sit down to watch the game, Padres leadoff hitter Jody Gerut had launched a home run in the first at-bat of CitiField.
The Padres went on to score a total of four runs before the Mets crossed the plate for the first time in the second inning. Shaky Mets starter Mike Pelfrey was rouged up for a total of five earned runs while he labored through his five innings of work.
David Wright picked up the team’s first hit of CitiField, a double in the bottom of the first inning. He came back around later with a three-run homer in the fifth inning to tie the high-scoring game at five.
Just when the future started to look bright for this game, the Padres broke things open a half inning later with a four-run fifth. That was all they needed, as the Mets crossed home plate only once more in this game.
Despite the loss, the real highlight of the day came before it even started. The Tom Seaver – Mike Piazza combination to kickoff the stadium was by far the best part of the day.
The Mets will finish the final two games of the series with the Padres before welcoming the Milwaukee Brewers into the Big Apple for the weekend series.