State of the Mets August 4th

Remember this dashing young fellow. His name is Kazuo Matsui, the man who the Mets let play shortstop while forcing Jose Reyes over to second base. He also has a sweet semi-orange Oriento-mullet. He enjoys sushi, watching old American westerns, and raping children (note: these things may or may not be true). You may remember him as the man who hit a homerun in his first at-bat three seasons in a row from 2004-2006 (including an inside-the-parker). You may also remember him as being the Japanese guy who sucked at baseball so bad and got booed so mercilessly that we fondly looked back on the abortions that were Tsuyoshi Shinjo and Masato Yoshi. And he also just fucking killed the Mets during a three game series in Houston, including a ridiculous bomb. Speaking of which, let's take a look at how the Mets fared last week (I may make this a regular feature every Sunday night, but I only rarely blog anymore so who knows):

Record: 1-5; 1-2 at Marlins, 0-3 at Astros
Starting Place: 57-48, 1st place, 1 game ahead of Phillies, 2 games ahead of Marlins
Finishing Place: 58-53, 3rd place, 3 games behind Phillies, 1/2 game behind Marlins

Team Offense: .264/.322/.351, 19 runs scored. 45 men left on base.
Team Pitching: .291/.355/.518 (these are Avg/Obp/Slg against). 31 ER in 50.2 IP for a 5.51 ERA. 2.56 K:BB, 1.58 WHIP.

Best Player: Carlos Delgado with his .364/.400/.591 line, including the two-run homer that won the game against the Marlins. Reyes also hit .407 for the week, which is pretty good.

Worst Player: Well, Billy Wagner had a 9.00 ERA in a couple appearances, including a blown save against Houston. Heilman had a 13.50 ERA in 3 appearances (he got 2 losses this week), including a grand slam to Mark Loretta that lost that game. Joe Smith was not to be outdone with a 21.60 ERA in 1.2 IP over 4 games, including a loss against Florida. And yet this week the award goes to Mr. Scott Schoeneweis and his shiny 15.43 ERA in 3 appearances. Yea Smith was worse, but Schoeneweis has a track record of being a piece of shit scumbag asshole, and he gave up a bomb to a certain Asian fellow.

Most memorable game: The 10 inning loss at Houston that included a sick leaping catch by Danny Murphy in his MLB debut (and he doubled off the runner), then some little league movie bullshit where two Astros scored at the same time with Mark Lorretta trucking Castro with Hunter Pence sliding in behind him, and then a walk off sac fly where Tatis dove AFTER HE FUCKINNG ALREADY CAUGHT THE FUCKING BALL, allowing the guy to score from third.

Injuries: John Maine went on the DL with a sprained uterus, and Billy Wagner got an MRI today on his huntin' shoulder. Marlon Anderson also went on the DL with arthritis of the skeleton.

Conclusions: The Mets' bullpen sucks at pitching. These games were eerily reminiscent of every fucking game from last September, where the starters would come out after 5 or 6 with leads and the bullpen would blow it every time. Eddie Kunz, who was a closer on Oregon State like a year and ahalf ago when they won the College World Series was just called up and may immediately be our best reliever. Danny Murphy got called up and appears to have entered a platoon with Nick Evans in LF. This just plays into Omar's roster construction and player development technique: fill team with old shitty guys who bring "veteran leadership" and if they get hurt simply promote really young players before they are ready to advance in order to crush their confidence and lessen their value before trading them away for some more old players. Where is Valentino Pascucci?!!