The worst thing about being at Friday night’s horrendous Met loss to the Yankees was Squawker Lisa’s reaction. She couldn’t stop laughing.
I say New York is a two-team town. Lisa says the Mets are the little brother. I want my team to show Lisa that she is wrong. That the Mets are just as good, if not better than, the Yankees. Just as deserving of respect.
But after tonight’s debacle, even I cannot respect the Mets. It’s bad enough if something like this happens once. But anyone who said they have never seen anything like tonight’s ending has a very short memory.
K-Rod induces an infield popup that will be the final out, only to have it dropped and result in two runs? It happened only a little over a month ago!
On May 5, K-Rod was one out away from victory with runners on first and second. Same situation as tonight. K-Rod got the batter to pop up in the infield. And just like tonight, the infielder dropped the ball, and two runs eventually scored.
The main difference was that the Mets had a three-run lead over Atlanta when Carlos Delgado dropped the ball. And the second run did not score until after the next batter singled him home. But the Mets could have lost that game in similar devastating fashion, considering that noted Met killer Chipper Jones ended up batting with the tying run on third.
Fortunately, K-Rod got Chipper Jones to fly out to end the game. But Delgado’s miscue was just as bad as Luis Castillo’s tonight.
After tonight’s game came to its dismal conclusion, I wanted the Mets to get rid of Castillo. But by the time I got home, I realized that Castillo is a symptom, not the cause. If you want to get rid of Castillo, you also need to get rid of Delgado for making the same error. Then there’s Ryan Church for missing third and Daniel Murphy for helping to cost Johan Santana a victory.
If you start to throw in serious baserunning errors, most of the team should be sent packing.
So for those who are dumping on Castillo, he has a lot of company on this team. And that’s something that the manager has to answer for.
Why does Jerry Manuel’s team keep making embarrassing mistakes? Why must there be a news conference every couple of weeks in which players and manager must talk about picking up the latest player to humiliate himself?
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The name most mentioned in Met trade rumors has been Washington first baseman Nick Johnson. In tonight’s Nationals game, Johnson dropped a foul popup in the eighth inning of a tie game. Given another chance, the batter, Gabe Kapler, hit a home run that decided the game.
These things do happen in baseball. I just wish they wouldn’t keep happening with the Mets.
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