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Company line on Philly needs to be rethought
by Dan Graziano
Wednesday April 09, 2008
NEW YORK -- Déjà vu dripped from the bright blue walls of the lame-duck ballpark all afternoon.
From the missed chances against Jamie Moyer, to the bullpen meltdown, to the defensive incompetence of first baseman Carlos Delgado, the Mets' home opener felt like a bad rerun.
So by the time the game was over, and Willie Randolph walked up to that podium, you knew exactly what he was going to say. Knew it with a certainty that made your brain ache.
"No correlation to last year," the Mets' manager stubbornly asserted. "Last year is over. We get to play (the Phillies) 18 times. They got the first win, but if we win the next 10, it's a moot point."
This is the Randolph mantra: It's no big deal. Don't make too much of any win, any loss or any streak either way. Just maintain your belief in your team's ability, and everything will work out in the end. Randolph never deviates from his message, and his players seem to buy it. Which would normally be a good thing.
Problem is, he's wrong.
These Mets need a new world view. The too-soon end to the 2006 postseason showed that. The shocking end to the 2007 regular season underlined it. And if losing a ninth straight game to the Phillies in exactly the same way they lost the previous eight didn't prove it to Randolph once and for all, then he's kidding himself -- and sending the wrong message to his team.
"2007 is done, over with," David Wright said. "This is a whole new team, and a better team, I think."
Better, sure.
Johan Santana alone gives them the right to feel that way. But it's not really a new team. There are 21 players on the Mets' roster who were around for the final two weeks of 2007. As a group, the decision they appear to have made about those two weeks is to forget it ever happened. And while that may help them sleep better at night, it's not likely to help them win more games against the Phillies in 2008.
See, the Phillies are what the Mets are not. They are not as talented across the board, not as well-paid, not expected to win as many games this year as the Mets are. What they are is tough, and that's where they have it all over their I-95 rivals.
"They'll talk," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of the Mets the day before this series began. "We'll hit."
"Tell Hillbilly he's too late," Billy Wagner said. "They've already done the talking."
Wagner was making a joke -- using a term he freely applies to himself about a man he likes. But as he smiled, he turned his former manager's words over in his head a bit, too.
"He's right," Wagner said. "When they come here, they bring it. They show up and they play great. And that's what we have to do."
The Mets have to start treating these games the way the Phillies treat them -- as if they're more important than games against the Marlins or Pirates, because they are. Every time they lose to the Phillies, they effectively lose two games in the standings. Those eight straight losses last year represented a 16-game swing. The Phillies come to town and act like they know this. The Mets see the Phillies coming and echo Randolph: It's no big deal.
But they're wrong, and they need to start changing the way they do things. They need to heed, not ignore, the lessons of September '07. They need to stop insisting on stoicism, sticking to the plan ... staying in rotation for goodness' sake.
Santana should be making his third start of the season tomorrow against the Phillies. Had the Mets built their rotation around the principle that the best pitcher in baseball will start every fifth day and the rest of the staff must work around him, he'd have started Saturday in Atlanta, tomorrow against the Phillies, next Tuesday against Washington and Sunday, April 20 in Philadelphia.
Instead, Santana's Shea Stadium debut as a Met will come Saturday against Milwaukee.
Why? Because Randolph will never admit that the Phillies games are more important than the Milwaukee ones. And because of that, his team won't play them as if they were. And they'll slide through their season assuming the preseason sabermetric projections will all hold up and they'll just magically turn out to have been the National League's best team when it's all over.
They could turn out to be right.
But yesterday, they had a chance to show you something. They could have generated a lot of goodwill by not kicking away another game. Instead, they showed up for their home opener, the first game at Shea since the Glavine meltdown, and forced 56,350 of their paying customers to listen to Rick Astley music and watch the same game they watched over and over again last year. Then they fed us all the same old lines.
"We're a good team," Wagner said. "And we're going to prove it."
Don't bother. Good isn't the question here. We know the Mets are good. What they still need to prove is that they're tough.
by Dan Graziano
Wednesday April 09, 2008
NEW YORK -- Déjà vu dripped from the bright blue walls of the lame-duck ballpark all afternoon.
From the missed chances against Jamie Moyer, to the bullpen meltdown, to the defensive incompetence of first baseman Carlos Delgado, the Mets' home opener felt like a bad rerun.
So by the time the game was over, and Willie Randolph walked up to that podium, you knew exactly what he was going to say. Knew it with a certainty that made your brain ache.
"No correlation to last year," the Mets' manager stubbornly asserted. "Last year is over. We get to play (the Phillies) 18 times. They got the first win, but if we win the next 10, it's a moot point."
This is the Randolph mantra: It's no big deal. Don't make too much of any win, any loss or any streak either way. Just maintain your belief in your team's ability, and everything will work out in the end. Randolph never deviates from his message, and his players seem to buy it. Which would normally be a good thing.
Problem is, he's wrong.
These Mets need a new world view. The too-soon end to the 2006 postseason showed that. The shocking end to the 2007 regular season underlined it. And if losing a ninth straight game to the Phillies in exactly the same way they lost the previous eight didn't prove it to Randolph once and for all, then he's kidding himself -- and sending the wrong message to his team.
"2007 is done, over with," David Wright said. "This is a whole new team, and a better team, I think."
Better, sure.
Johan Santana alone gives them the right to feel that way. But it's not really a new team. There are 21 players on the Mets' roster who were around for the final two weeks of 2007. As a group, the decision they appear to have made about those two weeks is to forget it ever happened. And while that may help them sleep better at night, it's not likely to help them win more games against the Phillies in 2008.
See, the Phillies are what the Mets are not. They are not as talented across the board, not as well-paid, not expected to win as many games this year as the Mets are. What they are is tough, and that's where they have it all over their I-95 rivals.
"They'll talk," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said of the Mets the day before this series began. "We'll hit."
"Tell Hillbilly he's too late," Billy Wagner said. "They've already done the talking."
Wagner was making a joke -- using a term he freely applies to himself about a man he likes. But as he smiled, he turned his former manager's words over in his head a bit, too.
"He's right," Wagner said. "When they come here, they bring it. They show up and they play great. And that's what we have to do."
The Mets have to start treating these games the way the Phillies treat them -- as if they're more important than games against the Marlins or Pirates, because they are. Every time they lose to the Phillies, they effectively lose two games in the standings. Those eight straight losses last year represented a 16-game swing. The Phillies come to town and act like they know this. The Mets see the Phillies coming and echo Randolph: It's no big deal.
But they're wrong, and they need to start changing the way they do things. They need to heed, not ignore, the lessons of September '07. They need to stop insisting on stoicism, sticking to the plan ... staying in rotation for goodness' sake.
Santana should be making his third start of the season tomorrow against the Phillies. Had the Mets built their rotation around the principle that the best pitcher in baseball will start every fifth day and the rest of the staff must work around him, he'd have started Saturday in Atlanta, tomorrow against the Phillies, next Tuesday against Washington and Sunday, April 20 in Philadelphia.
Instead, Santana's Shea Stadium debut as a Met will come Saturday against Milwaukee.
Why? Because Randolph will never admit that the Phillies games are more important than the Milwaukee ones. And because of that, his team won't play them as if they were. And they'll slide through their season assuming the preseason sabermetric projections will all hold up and they'll just magically turn out to have been the National League's best team when it's all over.
They could turn out to be right.
But yesterday, they had a chance to show you something. They could have generated a lot of goodwill by not kicking away another game. Instead, they showed up for their home opener, the first game at Shea since the Glavine meltdown, and forced 56,350 of their paying customers to listen to Rick Astley music and watch the same game they watched over and over again last year. Then they fed us all the same old lines.
"We're a good team," Wagner said. "And we're going to prove it."
Don't bother. Good isn't the question here. We know the Mets are good. What they still need to prove is that they're tough.
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