Join me tonight at 10PM ET for THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN on Blog Talk Radio. My guest will be Bill Baer of the Phillie site CrashBurn Alley which is a featured blog on ESPN SweetSpot as well as Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Daily Digest and HEATER Magazine.

We will discuss the Mets-Phillies seriesof course and other news and views around MLB.

Listen live tonight or listen to the podcast right here at Kranepool Society or at the show page on Blog Talk Radio or download the show from iTunes.    

I would love to work for Jerry Manuel. No matter how much you fuck up, the guy never gets angry. I mean if I were the manager of the Mets, after the Dan Uggla home run in the 3rd inning I’d have gone down to the clubhouse, taken out my cell phone and called Omar Minaya and let him know either you release, waive or trade Ollie Perez or I’m going to keep trotting his sorry ass out there every fifth day and I’d let the media and the fans know that any questions you have about Perez go see Omar or Jeffey.  How much patting on the ass can you do with this guy? Enough! Call Scott Boras, try to work out something to pay Perez off and end this.  And you want to know why the Mets get no respect around baseball. Same thing when Charley Manuel called out the Mets as sign stealers when the Rockies called out the Phillies for that offense, Jerry Manuel just laughs instead of  sticking up for his team and going off on that inbred hillbilly fuck. The Mets as a franchise love to get kicked in the ass but never kick back and you want to know why no one is showing up at $iti Field.

Maybe instead of looking to buy a sucky hockey team, the Skill Sets should make an investment in ridding themselves of Oliver Perez.  By the way, can Gary Cohen put the violin down for Ollie, I don’t feel sorry for him, the guy is set for life financially and he has his health, he can’t pitch anymore he’s done good bye.

The longer they keep Perez around the closer the Mets get to deflating this team. I still say with the way the NL is the Mets can still contend for a post season spot but they need some leadership from management. Show the fans and your players you’re serious about competing and cut Perez, if you have to pay off the whole contract then do it. Sure it’s not my money but if Jeffey Skill Sets is crowing about buying the Icelanders and building an arena then you have cash that Bernie Madoff didn’t steal from you. Put that money to good use and buy out Ollie Perez. Maybe if ownership showed they give a flyin’ fuck about this team they wouldn’t be playing to 30,000 empty seats at $iti Field.

I’m sure when the players see it’s Perez’ turn to pitch they know that have no chance of winning that game. Perez is sucking the life out of this team and sending a message that all the talk about committing to winning by the Skill Sets is just a bunch of bullshit . You want to show a commitment then dump Ollie and quite frankly it may be time to dump the manager as well. I don’t hate Jerry Manuel and it’s not all his fault this team is inconsistent or his offense is stagnant but maybe a shakeup in the managers office is needed both for Manuel and the Mets. Its’ tough to manage knowing your on a week to week watch. I might be time to just get the inevitable over with.

Mets ownership takes us for jerks but the truth is we are much smarter than they are. Show you care and we will too.

There are losses and there are losses but then again THERE ARE LOSSES and last night was one of those LOSSES.

You will read and hear a lot today about last nights Mets 11-5 loss to the Phillies some will say it’s much to early to worry and losing a series in the beginning of May is not the end of the world and Johan Santana himself said “it was just one those games” but to me and many Mets fans it wasn’t just one of those games, quite frankly it was a major embarrassment.

It all started when the lineup was posted, the Mets Twitter Nation was up in arms over seeing GMJ and Fernando Tatis, two players who could not play on any other major league team, playing instead of Angel Pagan and Ike Davis. Supposedly the numbers that Tatis and GMJ have against Jamie Moyer favored the move but I would hope that the manager would have thought, “I have a chance to take the series from my top rival that is reeling a bit, I have my Ace pitcher going so I need to play my best eight guys today” But Jerry Manuel decided he could play his best six and win and after the first inning he looked like a prophet. To be honest this loss had nothing to do with GMJ and Tatis in the line up (even though it is very interesting that the Mariners cut Eric Byrnes after their game yesterday but GMJ keeps on keepin’ on with the Mets even as Chris Carter is more deserving of his spot, by the way when was the last time Omar Minaya made an in season trade to help the team? Don’t say Ryan Church for Frenchy as Minaya stated that John Rico was responsible for that move) it was more of Johan Santana not stepping up in the first big spot of the season.

I don’t want to kill Santana because I really like and admired him. He proved his mettle in the next to last game in 2008 against the Marlins but I am so disappointed over last nights game that anything I write here will be pure emotion, but as I watched the Santana come up small a few things whirled around in my head.

When reporters ask you who the best pitcher is in the NL East, I would hope Johan Santana now knows to shut the fuck up. Just say, “it’s not for me to say who’s the best and all that, let the records speak for themselves”. Roy Halliday said nothing in spring training but on Saturday, I don’t care how big a Mets fan your are or how big a Phillies hater you are, Halliday made his statement on Saturday on who is the best in the NL East.

The 4^th inning was one of the worst innings I have endured in a long time but the big picture here is what happened in the bottom of the 1^st. David Wright just gave Santana a 3-0 cushion and Mets Twitter-verse were popping champagne corks. But Santana broke a cardinal sin of pitching, when your team puts up a crooked number in your half of the inning, you need to pitch a scoreless inning in the oppositions half inning, Santana failed that. There were some stupid Tweets about if the game was at “Citi Field those wouldn’t be home runs” bottom line Santana needed a 1-2-3 inning there and he failed.

The other thoughts I had after this disaster was about Tom Seaver and Doc Gooden and Jerry Koosman  those three guys would not have lost that game yesterday, in fact all three  would have stepped off the mound and adjusted there cups to show the Phillie fans just what they thought of them.  I even thought of Frank “Sweet Music “ Viola or Rosalita Leiter and Petey, they would not only not walk Jamie Moyer, they would have attacked Carlos Ruiz. Neither would have Sid Fernandez or Craig Swan. Or Ron Darling or Bobby Ojeda. Or John Matlack or David Cone. Or Orel Hershiser or even T-t-t-t-o-m G-g-g-g-lavine (God forgive me!)

If Santana pitches like the Ace he says he is last night and the Mets win, I leave my house this morning without pants on as my arousal couldn’t be contained, instead I’m as flaccid as Johan Santana’ fastball.

Johan Santana has lost me right now, and I think he’s lost his teammates a bit as well. After the 4^th inning the Mets bench was dead. Their top pitcher just got his ass handed to him and all the good cheer of the last homestand and the game on Friday went out the window. Of course the players won’t say so and all would deny it loudly, but actions speak louder than words. Forget Mets fans trust, Santana needs to regain his teammates trust more.

There was something different about the Mets last night, not just the great pitching performance by Jon Neise or the bombs away hitting of Daivd Wright, Rod Barajas or Frenchy there was a confidence displayed by the team that has been missing for awhile. When you look at Jason Bay the guy never seems to get rattled.  Ike Davis is the same way it feels like Davis has been here for a couple of years instead of a couple of weeks. The players all said during spring training that they knew they had a good team and that they’ll prove once the season starts, I for one didn’t believe it. I’m not going over board just yet although beating the Phillies like they did and shutting up the louts that inhabit Citizen’s Bank Park has we ready to go overboard.

It’s easy to go crazy during this hot streak and hopeful Big Pelf works his magic to day against Roy Haliday but the test of the makeup of this team to me will be how they react when they hit a bump in the road. They’ve already hi one early in the year and have shown for guts than last years team ever did but at some point the pitching is going to struggle and the bats will slump a bit and how the team reacts to that adversity will be the test .

I don’t want to dwell on that now though I just want to see the Mets kick Roy Halliday and the Phillies ass this afternoon.

Not much detail from me today as I have to get some work done so I can leave early and head to the field for a 5:30 game. The good thing about the 5:30 games is there is a two hour time limit and the ride from the there to my house is about 10 minutes so I might just miss an inning of Mets-Phillies. How things have changed from one season or even one week to the next, I can’t wait for Mets-Phillies tonight, tomorrow and Sunday. It’s a good feeling to be excited about your favorite baseball team. Check out this post by Greg Prince of Faith and Fear in Flushing who feels the same way.

I’m contributing some posts to NYB Blogs and yesterday I submitted my first one on Jeff Francoeur’ influence in the Mets clubhouse.

Buffalo Bison pitcher R.A. Dickey went 0-2 on Fernando Perez of the Durham Bulls. The next pitch Perez hit a single. The next 27 batters all were set down by the knuckleballer Dickey. Talk about the imperfect game. It was the second complete game for Dickey this season and he hasn’t gone less than 8 innings in his other starts. What’s a Dickey got to do to get some love in the Mets organization?  

That’s it for me LET’S GO METS, LET’S GO BIG PELF, PHUCK YOU PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!

The NY Post is reporting that according to an ESPN Insider article the Phillies have an interest in Figueroa.

Not surprising is it? Figueroa has a history with the Phillies as he started 16 games for them back in 2001

Join me today at 5PM ET for THIS CALL TO THE BULLPEN. My guest will be Bill Baer of the Phillies website  Crashburn Alley and Baseball Prospectus and Randy Booth of the Red Sox website  OVER THE MONSTER. If you can’t listen live then enjoy the podcast right here on Kranepool Society (the widget for the show in on the left hand sidebar) or at BLOGTALK RADIO

If what I’m reading in the local fish wraps is correct, it seems the Mets have been mathematically eliminated (Hey Kathy and Joe is it time for a sequel? ) for the 2010 season.

It doesn’t look like any big ticket items will be on Jeffey’s credit card this winter, so the question is why go half assed? Why not just blow the whole team up?

As it stands now, only the Nationals stand in the way of the Mets of the Mets hitting rock bottom in the NL East (for the first Stephen Strasburg-Big Pelf match up, I will be going into solitary confinement) so unless Jeffey (Omar is GM emeritus by the way, as he is earning his million a year as being the Skill Sets “Spider”) decides to empty the more bountiful than they lead us to believe, Mets coffers, the only thing we’ll have to look forward to is Alex Cora  player/interim manager bobble head day.

I leave you with this from Bill Madden’ Daily News column:

Mets? Did somebody say the Mets? They won’t spend the money for Holliday, Bay or Lackey and apparently, they’re only interested in signing low-budget Latin players, having shown little or no interest in Byrd, Figgins, DeRosa, Wolf or even Staten Island’s Jason Marquis, while waiting for their markets to come to them. At the same time, the Phillies and Braves wasted no time in addressing their needs. Sad.

I see I struck a nerve with my Billy Joel comments but like I say his is not the kind of music I listen to and it’s pretty weak to plat th elast concert at Shea and be a New Yorker and give in to Phillyfans by wearing thier colors.

Speaking of Philly fans there were a lot of them in the Magic Kingdom all of them in thier new Phillies cap andnew shirts all bandwaggon jumpers.

Tons of Rays fans as you wouls suspect and many Cardinal fans but the biggest group here are the English soccer fans with Everton the team most fancy.

GTG later

In a bid to keep the peace at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies wanted to cloak or replace the 16-by-16-foot Mets banner at the top of the set decoration at the Billy Joel/Elton John concerts tonight and Saturday.

Alas, they could not find anything suitable.

Joel will wear a Phillies jacket for at least part of the show and will make some sort of joking reference to the Mets and their 10-games-back status

My colleague Bob Ford and I hear that the Phillies had reached out to the “Face 2 Face” concert to express concern about Joel’s New York-theme set.

It’s not that the Phils are worried about any kind of baseball rivalry, we hear; they just don’t want some yahoo having too much to drink and throwing something at it or starting a fight. The Mets banner was visible at recent shows at Nationals Ballpark and Wrigley Field.

Perhaps Joel will sing “Philadelphia State of Mind,” as well.

My wife actually has Billy Joel albums but when I get home tonight they are going in the trash where they should have been in the first place.

Imagine this old broken down douche is going to wear a Phillies jacket? What a piece of shit! If you don’t any song played at $iti Field by this hack then you’re not a Mets fan