I’ve been absent from writing for the last few weeks due to a little West Coast trip to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and California. I didn’t bring my laptop with me out of fear that I might pawn it in Vegas for more cash to gamble with, so I haven’t been able to properly record all my Mets-related thoughts in a while, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I haven’t been watching my beloved Mets night in and night out. Thanks to the joys of modern technology and being able to watch live television on my phone in airport terminals and casinos, I’m always keeping tabs on our rag-tag bunch of lovable losers. Lately though, they’ve been anything but.
I was able to watch our bats take down Phil Hughes on Saturday night from a blackjack table at The Mirage, and got home just in time on Sunday to see A-Rod strike out with the tying runs on base to seal yet another convincing victory over the hated Yankees. Honestly, if there was anyone I would want to see in that position, striking out to the end the game with runners in scoring position, I wouldn’t want it to be anyone else but Alex Rodriguez.
So, taking two out of three from the Yankees was very satisfying. It helped me forget about the fact that Javy Vazquez managed to stifle us for all of one hit on Friday night (yes, that Javy Vazquez) and it gave me some pretty good ammo to fire back at Yankees fans with, at least until we meet them again next month. That was all good, but as much as I hate the Yankees (and trust me, I hate them with the fire of a hundred million suns) it still wasn’t as beautiful as the first two games of this Philadelphia series.
With the starting pitching back to form and giving us the kind of quality starts we got from them during our first extended winning streak back in April, the bats are beginning to heat up as well and I’m about as optimistic right now as I’ve been in a pretty long time. We’ve outscored the Phillies 13-0 in the first two games of this series. After a great outing from knuckleballer R.A. Dickey (apparently we should throw a knuckleball pitcher on the mound every time we face the Phillies, because after Wakefield and Dickey it’s clear that they are baffled by 64 mph pitches) and an even more impressive start from Hisanori Takahashi tonight, we are now 3 games out of first place at 24-23 and rolling.
What are some of the things that I’m particularly pleased with right now? For starters, Jason Bay has finally started to produce. His two home runs on Sunday off of C.C. Sabathia (the C.C. stands for Cottage Cheese, in case you were wondering) seemed to spark his bat to life and he has begun to grow into his new spot in the lineup as the #3 hitter in front of Ike Davis.
Jose Reyes, with a big triple last night off of former Met Nelson Figueroa and another RBI single tonight, is beginning to look a little more like the Jose Reyes we all know and love and it’s good to see him back in the leadoff spot again instead of batting third where he looked lost and confused.
David Wright, despite his strikeout problems (he’s hit more air this season than baseball) is still 8th in the NL in RBI’s with 33 and his 8 home runs are second on the team behind Barajas and only 2 shy of his total from all of last season. Speaking of Rod Barajas, he’s quickly on pace to become my new favorite Met to ever wear the number 21 and if he keeps on hitting the ball the way he’s been, he might even give old #31 a run for favorite all-time Mets catcher (alright, probably not, he still has a long way to go before that). Another 3 RBI’s for Barajas tonight gives him 27 on the season so far, with 10 home runs, both totals that I absolutely did not expect to get from our #7 hitter halfway through May. So that’s certainly progress.
With four wins in a row coming against the Yankees and Phillies, the two teams that met in last year’s World Series, and the two teams whose fan bases have both singlehandedly brought me dangerously close to being in at least 17 bar fights in the past year, the New York Metropolitans are playing some pretty damn good baseball right now. If you consider the fact that the lineup continues to score lots of runs despite being without arguably its best hitter in Carlos Beltran, then I would say that we are in fairly good shape. If Beltran ever gets healthy again before the remaining two years on his contract are up, we have the potential to put out a lineup with legitimate hitters from top to bottom.
Tomorrow night, we put Mike Pelfrey on the mound to try for a sweep of the Phillies. Not only would it probably be our first sweep of Philadelphia since our lineup featured Bernard Gilkey and Butch Huskey (I’m exaggerating), but it would also give Big Pelf the chance to start 7-1 and all but guarantee that I start calling him “Cy Young” from this point on.
I’m excited.
