So Bob Raissman thinks I’m a lunatic because I’m not happy with the mediocre play of the Mets that started in the second half of last season and has carried over to this season. I guess cashing all those SNY paychecks from Daily News Barely Live has clouded his judgment. I guess I must be out of mind for question the ability of Willie Randolph who has made the same uninspiring statements over and over again during post game press conference that resemble hostage tapes. How dare I, a blogger who has played, coached and watch baseball for the majority of my life know anything where I can give criticism about the Mets over the great informed MSM types like Bob Raissman. Yes I admit I’m a lunatic when it comes to the Mets but I’d rather be a lunatic than a dickhead like you Bob.

I doubt the Mets and Reds get their game in today as the forecast is for rain all day and night and with the Reds making their only trip to NYC my guess would be a day/night double header for tomorrow or Sunday so that gives Omar Minaya another day to figure out how to add Matt Wise and Ramon Castro to the 25 man squad. Castro is easy. As efficient as Raul Casanova has been, the trade off to Castro is an upgrade but adding Wise will take a bit a spin on Omar’s part.  If it’s a straight baseball move then Jorge Sosa would be given his release money be damned, if it’s a money issued the Joe Smith would be sent down and that would send a bad message to the team and fans that we’re not interested in putting the best team we can on the field. The Sosa signing was a major folly by Minaya as the Jorge Sosa’s of the world are plentiful in fact with Claudio Vargas showing some life in NOLA (7K’s in his last start)  and Tony Armas Jr pitching well to go with Carlos Muniz and Willie Collazzo Sosa is more than expendable.

I admit that without Ryan Church the Mets would be much deeper in the muck and mire and so far the trade of Church and Brian Schneider is one in Omar’s win column and I was wrong about both players but I’m not writing off Lastings Milledge yet even though he seems to be on track to become the next Victor Diaz. Milledge is in danger of losing his center field spot as his fielding has been spotty and his bat has cooled off a lot as well. Hopefully the light will come on for the immature Milledge before it’s too late.

David Lennon with a good article on Aaron Heilman in NEWSDAY on how he made be thinking to much and not just going on instinct in his approach on the mound. At this point with Dirty Dauner looking to be in pre taxi cab crash mode and Joe Smith and Pedro Feliciano pitching well, it may be time to use Heilman for 2 or 3 innings of  relief and stretch his arm out and to use him as a viable option as a spot starter or even the fifth starter. Heilman’s big problem is his mix of pitches.  Heilman has been going mostly with his fastball and when it misses his with a change up has been getting way too much of the plate. He also seems to lack confidence in his slider that maybe if he was used for longer stints maybe he could regain that pitch.

I usually don’t like to celebrate mediocrity but a 3-3 road trip was as good as I expected from the Mets as they faced one of the best teams in the league and the hottest team in the league. Now it’s home to meet the Not So Fabulous Baker Boys of Cincy who are in much disarray, eight games out of first place, so Friday would be a good time to stop the two steps forward, two steps back approach the Mets have been saddled in since the last half of last year to now and start a nice run. This hovering at the .500 level should not be tolerated but What Me Worry Willie always seems to find the silver lining in this win one lose one approach.

Angel Pagan looks like he did Omar Minaya a favor by going head over heels into the stands yesterday and coming up with a bum shoulder. Pagan says it’s no biggie but I’m sure the MRI he takes today will show (Wink! Wink!) a strain or contusion that will land him on the 15 day DL as space is needed to activate Matt Wise and add him to the bullpen which will now become resemble an octopus with eight arms in it.

Speaking of the Red Legs did you know they hire a human to play their mascot? Really, this guy who was in a costume playing Mr. Red Legs fell off a cart in the outfield and his fake head fell off. I can’t believe the Reds use a man in a costume to be their mascot. How lucky are we Mets fans to have a real life being as Mr. Met as out beloved symbol.

A tip of the Mets cap to Carlos Gomez as he hit for the cycle last night. Gomez is hitting .282/.306.427 with an AL leading 13 SB. His OBP is low as he has walked only 3 times this year but he has played a fine centerfield for the Twinkies and just looks more comfortable every game. Just think he will price himself out the Twin Cities in a couple of years and maybe the Mets can get him back. Yes, I feel the same way about Scott Kazmir as well.

During yesterdays game Gary Cohen made reference to Gimp Castillo being more productive as a 2 hitter than an 8 hitter. The numbers show that as true:

#2 .258/..361/.290

#8 .182/.308/.182

Now the best part of the 2 hole for any Mets batter is you see lots of fastballs but Castillo as Gary noted does look more comfortable batting behind Reyes as he runs deep counts plus with Church showing a potent stick it might be wise to leave Gimp in the 2 spot and put Church in the 5 hole followed by Grandpa Moises this way you don’t have three lefties in a row if you went Church, Delgado, Schneider.

The AL MVP CY Young ROY for the AL are up at Baseball Happenings. Here are my picks:

AL MVP

1. Manny Ramirez
2. Josh Hamilton
3. Carlos Quentin

AL CY YOUNG

1 Cliff Lee

2 Diasuke Matsuzaka

3. Cheng-Ming Wang

AL ROY

1        Jacoby Ellsbury

      2 Greg Smith

      3 David Murphy

Looks like Junior Griffey could be on the move again this time back to Seattle, remember when the Mets for hot for Griffey and tried to use Mike Piazza as a recruiter ?

Sorry for the lateness of this post but to tell you the truth I’m tired of bitching and moaning over our underachieving team and also Matt Cerrone stole the words right out of my keyboard as I checked out MetsBlog this morning and what was on my mind.

Willie Randolph gets on Oliver Perez for not focusing on his job but Randolph is just as bad in his lack of focus. I’ll get to What Me Worry Willie in a minute. Back to OP The good part of the start beside he went further than the last was his velocity is fine. Fastballs in the low 90’s and he had more ground ball outs (8) than fly ball outs (7) which proves he was getting the ball down in zone. The bad besides the three home runs was his inability to hit his spot. His command was off as we saw with the Raefel Furcal home run where he was 0-2 and went with a slider that didn’t break and set up right over the heart of the plate for Furcal to go long. After that, Perez pitched well in innings 2-3-4 then in the 5th he gave up a lead off homer to Blake DeWitt then came right back to K Chad Billingsley and get Furcal to pop out. If OP was to get Pierre he would have got through 5 innings down just 3 runs. But he lost Pierre to a walk and then gave up another home run this time to Matt Kemp. So the walk really hurt and if he would have got Pierre out and kept the game at 3-0 then his start would have been a success but that walk was the killer. So with taking a line drive to the gut and bouncing back from that and his ability to be consistent with his velocity I’d say OP “Man-ed” up after giving up against the Pirates in his last start.

Look I could get all stupid with wise ass remarks about Willie Randolph and Mets manement getting all weepy over the fact that the Diamondback fans were nice an polite to their team (I guess it was lost on What Me Worry Willie that the D’Backs had the best record in the NL coming into the weekend series) and how the big bad Mets fans hurt the little feelings of his over paid prima donnas but I‘ll let up as Willie just goes out and keeps digging his own grave. If you’re going to come out and rip your fans at least be funny like Ozzie Gullien. Randolph should take heed from the words of Bobby Knight who made a statement to the effect of when you start listening to the people in the stands you end up joining them. Randolph and Skill Sets spend way too much time and effort worrying about fan reaction. For a guy who grew up in this town and played here and marched down Broadway in ticker tape parades you would think Willie would be able to grasp a feel for the fan base especially one that has purchased a record number of tickets for a team that disgraced itself last season. All this does is make the argument that Randolph is not the man for the manager’s job of the Mets. Do you think Gary Carter, Wally Backman, Mookie Wilson or any Mets player who has actually won with this organization would ever be stupid enough to blame the fans? It’s not just Willie it’s the Skill Sets and Omar as well someone in authority should come on SNY tonight and rebuke any of this the Mets play better on the road than at home because of the hard demanding fans bullshit and put it to rest. I remember the not long ago days when you could count the number of fans at Mets game in the low five figures so the advice I give to the Mets manager, GM, Owner and players is shut the fuck up and play ball.

Anyone for a Jacque Jones/Moises Alou platoon in LF?

It looks as though a change in pitching coach is immanent as there are a couple of stories in the papers today on the gag order placed on Rick Peterson. In order to speak to Peterson you have to go through Jay Horowitz to get which means you don’t get to speak to Peterson to ask him what his routine is with Mike Pelfrey and Oliver Perez? What kind of work has he done with Aaron Heilman and Jorge Sosa to get them on track? What is the problem with those underachieving players since it doesn’t look to be physical? Is he able to relate to them? Has he reached a wall with the guys like John Maine, Perez and Pelfrey? We will never find out because of the gag order but this much is true, Peterson’s days as Mets pitching coach are near the end.

Howard Mengal is an Oliver Perez fan and so am I and his article in the New York Observer is a must read. I’m not ready to give up on OP I just want someone other than Rick Peterson to look at him. There is too much of a live arm to give up on and I was in favor of Billy Wagner giving him a good swift kick in the ass and it’s an indictment of Peterson that Wagner has to be the one to straighten out OP.

Matt Wise is just about ready to be activated from the DL and question is who goes when he does. It would be a shame if Joe Smith gets bounced just because he has options over Jorge Sosa who has been totally ineffective but is making $2mil. I don’t know if Angel Pagan has any options but if he does do you drop a position player to add an 8^th reliever? Sounds crazy but the way Willie uses the pen, it might be a plan.

The Mets are looking at Derrick Turnbow recently released by the Brewers. Hey if it’s a minor league deal what the hell?

I don’t want to sound like a little whinny Ranger fan but if your Gary Bettman how can you be happy with the way yesterday’s Rangers-Penguins game (the whole series for that matter) was officiated?   Chris Drury gets his face spilt open by Ryan Malone’s stick and the assholes in stripes and an arm band (Marc Joannette and Brad Watson) make no call. What’s worse was the mannequin behind the Ranger bench Tom Renny a guy who makes Willie Randolph look like Earl Weaver does nothing. Drury then clips Malone who drew a trickle of blood and he gets a four minute minor so the clueless refs let that become the defying moment in the game as the Rangers were done after that kill as the overtime session started. It’s time now for Slats Sather to clean out the house a bit with the first move being his retirement so that Mark Messier can take over the hockey operation. I’ve been a big critic of Slats but  I’ll give the invisible GM his due he has left the Ranger organIzation  with lots of good young talent. Good bye Jagr and Shanny thanks for all you’ve done for the organIzation but it’s time for more new blood. Messier needs to take this team to the next level and find a coach with a fucking pulse and some passion.

Thank you  Boston Celtics for finally showing up and doing what should have been done in four games. Hopefully Doc Rivers will let Tom Thibodeau lock the team in the film room and pound playing the defense that made this a great season in their heads as the take on the Cleveland LeBrons. Please C’s get this done in no more than six games.

Some bulldog out of Johan Santana, bad luck for Joe Smith and a GREAT game for Willie Randolphtops off an uplifting 2 of 3 from the Snakes in Phoenix for the Mets. Santana didn’t have his best effort

Just a quick post today as I have a 12 noon game and my Little League team has lost three in a row so I want to get out early to give mandatory infield/outfield in fact I have my trusty fungo bat right next to me. Between my LL’ers not grasping the idea of fundamentals in the field and my Boston Celtics looking very old in losing game 6 last night in Atlanta (fine league you have there David Stern with crooks like Tim Donaghy and the incompetent Joey Crawford employed as referee’s ) as the Hawks took the ball to the hole and made the C’s look about two steps to slow. Anyway the Mets looked like a different team last night in Phoenix than the one that left Shea Stadium a couple of days ago.

Uh Oh I think I stared something here. First I’m reading Adam Rubin story in the Daily News today where he mentions that Rick Peterson is on a very shaky ground with Mets management:
{With a 14-12 record, the Mets aren’t really in dire straits, despite Wednesday’s three-error monstrosity. But with a nearly $140 million investment, and with talk-radio chatter already fomenting about whether Randolph and Minaya ought to lose their jobs, it’s worth wondering whether the first casualty may actually be pitching coach Rick Peterson if the team’s underachieving ways continue.
Hitting coach Rick Down lost his job at the All-Star break last season, when he was replaced on the staff by Rickey Henderson. And there was high-level disenchantment with Peterson at the end of 2007, enough so that his job status was briefly murkier than Randolph’s. With Oliver Perez’s five-walk, 1-2/3-inning performance against Pittsburgh and Mike Pelfrey yet to blossom, and with Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan getting so much out of an unheralded staff in St. Louis, Peterson’s resume doesn’t look so gleaming anymore.
Consider also that there are four credible alternatives already in the organization: Triple-A pitching coach Dan Warthen, who returned to the Mets after serving as bullpen coach on Grady Little’s Dodgers staff; Double-A Binghamton pitching coach and rising star Ricky Bones; minor-league pitching coordinator Rick Waits; and rehab coordinator Randy Niemann.}

As I said last week it may be time to get a new voice for the pitching staff to listen to. Looks like a change will happen soon as you see Rubin already has names under discussion by the Mets. This is no blind item this info had to be given to Rubin. I still like my choice of Bobby Ojeda who coached in the organization and more importantly has won as a Mets pitcher and is the complete opposite of Peterson in personality and pitching approach.
Now Tim Marchaman takes it a step further and writes that it’s time to dump Willie in a scathing indictment on Randolph’s ability to lead:
{That they haven’t expressed that talent in its fullness is in the end the fault of the players, not the jeering Queens fans, drive time hosts, bloggers, or even the manager. The manager, though, is the one whose sole job is to ensure that the team that physically takes the field is as good as the team that’s on the lineup card. In this, Randolph has failed in concrete ways, and shows no prospect of or capacity for improvement. Every day the Wilpon family and Omar Minaya keep him in his job is a day they do a bit more to show themselves as unfit for their jobs as Randolph has proved for his.}

Thanks to Rubin and Marchman for making my job a little easier.

Brian Schneider is still hurting from the staph infection in his thumb but for whatever reason the Mets still refuse to put him on the15 day DL even though he has not played in eight day so the most he would miss is the D’Backs series and the Dodger series. So far Raul Casanova and Gustavo Molina have done a nice job filling so just why hasn’t Omar put Schneider on the DL? The wheels are really starting to fall of here in what looks like a crash and burn of the Minaya era.
 

So here we are at the beginning of May and Willie’s Guys are two games better than mediocre which is what they were for the bulk of the 2007 season so nothing much has changed. It’s easy to kill Ollie Perez for yesterday’s debacle and from the roar of Billy Wags it seems his teammates are losing patients with his attention deficit disorder (as Wags states in the paper today the difference between talking to Ollie and a wall is the wall understands what you’re saying)

As bad as Ollie was 9 of the 13 runs the Pirates scored were UNEARNED as the defense went in to brain fart mode. Some of that I will attribute to playing behind a guy who can’t find the strike zone as fielders tend to go back on their heels when it’s ball after ball after ball  but from the get go the whole team just looked like the last place they wanted to be yesterday at 1PM was at Shea Stadium.

Now it’s on to Arizona and I have a very bad feeling about the next three games in Phoenix (as does Billy Wags who is getting more and more frustrated and said in the paper that the Mets “don’t match up” with the D’Backs.) The ship may not be sinking but it sure looks to be taking on water.

After the D’Backs the Mets go to LA where the Dodgers are starting to get it together so in the next six games what do you think the Mets record will be in those games?  Put me down for 2-4 as little by little Willie Randolph is losing this team.  Randolph has to find a way to get through to his team before all is lost. If not their will be a new voice in the Mets dugout before Memorial Day.

I’m sure Nelson Figueroa’ stature sky rocketed yesterday in the Mets clubhouse as he strapped it on for the team going 3 innings after pitching just two days ago. You would think Ollie would learn a lesson form Figgy but from what your hearing out the Mets clubhouse teaching Perez anything is a lost cause.

I felt Randolph should have gone with Aaron Heillman after Figgy yesterday instead of using Sosa and Feliciano not only to give Heilman the opportunity to work out his problems but to stretch out his arm so he could move to more of a longer relief roll.

I guess it was time for my American Idol crush, Brooke White to go as she has not finished strong  by missing lyrics and singing some awful songs (by the way this has been one lousy season of AI Dolly Patron, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and even Brooklyn’s own Neil Diamond were dreadful how about a Pantera or Uriah Heep night ?)  but how does that little girly boy Jason Castro survive each week?)

A huge tip of the Mets cap to AwfulAnnoucing for the video of Little Man Bob and Bugsy Buzz as they attack truth justice and the American way. After the show Little Man and Bugsy drowned kittens in East River. My offer of a good old fashion Brooklyn ass kicking still stands for Costas if I ever see him in midtown. I’d go after Bugsy Buzz as well but he’s elderly and that’s just not right even by blogger standards.

By the way Braylon Edwards has contacted Al Sharpton for a march on HBO’s studios as he had to witness two angry old white men spew hate.