Monday, July 11, 2005

Lesson Learned

When my undermedicated cousin, "Vox in Silvam (voice in the woods?)" tells me to write about something, I damn well better write about it.

He alerted me this morning, via a no doubt enormously self-satisfied email, that Vinny at No Joy in Metsville has picked up on Kang v. Cowbell Man, including its controversial nonappearance here.

I shied away from the story for several reasons:

1. I don't know Bryan M. Kang.
2. I'm only vaguely familiar with Cowbell Man.
3. My only source was this virulently anti-religious rabble rouser.
4. I just didn't care that much.

Of course, had I known enough to expect the usual fallout in the comments section, I might have done differently.

Anyway back to the baseball team at hand...

As everyone is well aware by now, Friday's 6-5 loss was an absolute fiasco. As I've said before, Looper may not be nearly as good as he was last year. He might, ya know, suck. His peripherals are getting downright Rueteresque (3.93 K/9).

Then there was a Kaz Ishii start, and we all know how those tend to go. Actually, Ishii was only responsible for 4 of Pittsburgh's 11 runs. Straight Flushing fave Heath Bell (4 R in 0.2 IP), and miserable excuse for a big league reliever Danny Graves (3 R in 0.0 IP) made sure that no Met comeback would be in the offing.

Yesterday was a lot better, as Pedro locked down his tenth win in dominating fashion, supported by a solid offensive performance which of course included the obligatory Carlos Beltran home run.

It's a little disheartening to be at .500 at the break, which is even worse than last year, but a lot of teams are in worse shape... sure, none of them are in our division, but still...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Brian- Just a comment on "Loop-Hole"
I never thought he was good, he appeared to be better than he was last season because the team was so sub par-mediocre to bad players always look better than they are on horrendous teams. Look at DeJean last year-He had over a 6.00 ERA with Baltimore and when he got to the Mets he didn't seem that bad. Well they both in reality suck-I always say there was a reason Jack McKeon took the closer away from him in Florida.

Brian Doyle said...

You're probably right that Looper looked a little better last year for being surrounded (both in the pen and in the rotation) by some pretty awful performances.

His pitching was also drastically better in '04 than it ever was in Florida, but with RP seasons being such a small sample, I think it's looking more and more like a blip on an otherwise unimpressive career.

Anonymous said...

Yeah I would tend to agree with you there,
whatever good he has done in 2004 was a "blip" that the perfect word for it.

If the Mets are serious about making a run at any kind of play off berth, Looper can't be a part of the picture. I know no one has any ultra-reliable closers thats why I feel it's time for the Mets to start cultivating their own out of the minors.

Anonymous said...

part of the problem is that people want our minor league relievers to come up and make the difference. but if you look at most closers in the ml's they came up through the minors as starters. gagne, dotel, foulke, hermanson, nathan, batista, smoltz, dempster, izzy and such. maybe a guy like heilman or petite who k a lot of guys can fill the hole. i think this team is too set on grooming guys as starters or relievers and should be little more flexible and bring them up a little faster by trying the starters in the pen instead of keeping them in the minors. if the minor league starters are really our best prospects then they should be able to adjust. pitchin out of the pen cant hurt, just ask johan santana.