Monday, June 16, 2008

Unhappy Recap: Rangers 8 Mets 7

When is Willie Randolph going to learn that he has to leave the starters in when they are in trouble. The bullpen blows it way too often for him to rely on them. The Mets actually had a chance in this game until 5 runs scored on the bullpen's watch. He has to let the starters go deeper or this is going to keep happening.

Another thing Willie has to do is let Reyes steal more. He was on in the first and 5th to lead off the inning and he didn't even try to steal.

I'm not going to make the leap that the Mets would have won if the bullpen could have cut off a few more runs, because everything else would have changed. The Rangers pitched much differently because they had a 6-run lead. There's no guarantee the Mets would have scored 7 runs if the Rangers only had 6.

That said I was impressed by 2 great rallies they put together in the 8th and 9th. The only problem was two rally-killing double plays. The first one was totally Sandy Alomar Sr's fault. He should have sent Schneider on Tatis's single. The Rangers probably wouldn't have even let the ball go through because it would have put the tying run on second base if Schneider scored. Also, worst case scenario Schneider gets thrown out, the Mets still have 2nd and 3rd. Instead Alomar held him, but had him tag on a shallow fly ball by Reyes and he was out by 10 feet killing a rally.

In the 9th, 5 of the first 6 batters to come up reached base, the only one who didn't was the awful Carlos Delgado who grounded into a crushing double play.

Getting big hits in this game were: Fernando Tatis, Ramon Castro and Carlos Beltran.

Delgado did have a homer and another run-scoring single.

Just like Oliver Perez, the Mets are 7-7 in games started by John Maine. The only difference is when Maine loses, he gives up 3 or 4 runs, and when he wins it's 1 or 2. As oppoesd to Perez who pitches shutouts or gets bombed. Either way, the Mets win about half the times those pitchers start. They are 2 and 3 in this rotation, so this is where the Mets need to make up wins in order to improve from below .500.

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