You can add any vile and nasty words you want to that slogan as well. If Warlord Jerry and Omar Minaya have any motivational brains they will use the hatred that seems to be universal around baseball to help bond the ‘09 team.

I totally confess to be the world’s biggest sore loser. As much as I hate the NY Islanders I always admired Isles goalie Billy Smith who never joined the hand shake line during the Stanley Cup playoffs as he said “why shake hands with a guy who is trying to take bread off my table”? Well said. 

This “We Hate You” mantra that has been vented toward the Mets needs to be embraced by the owner, the GM, the Manager, the fans, and most importantly the players. What all this “hate” tells me is the NL has no respect for the Mets because the see them as a “me” and not a “we” team. J-Man touched on that when he was given the total reigns of the clubhouse and it’s up to him to drive this Bring the Hate message to his players. It’s is up to Omar to bring in players who take offense to being hated. This team of 2008 took the hate in stride. Remember the Elijah Dukes incident with Mike Pelfrey? It was good that Brian Schiender stepped between Dukes and Big Pelf but being that there is a history of disrespect between the Nats and Mets, Schiender should have Varetek-ed Dukes. By Vartek-ed I mean how Jason Vartek smacked the shit out of A-Rod as he was tired of his bullshit. That’s what a team does. Is this neanderthal macho dumb ass thinking?  Of course it is.  But this turn the other cheek bullshit ain’t working in Flushing.

So line up you fucking haters and takes us on. BRING THE HATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GANGSTA’S IN DA HOUSE BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! I guess Bobby V can cancel that flight as J-Man will be at the helm of the SS Skil Set  for at least 2 more seasons.

What a mess. I mean it is so difficult to sit down and watch games that should be closed out and put in the win column just to be pissed  away by incompetent relief pitching. I thought yesterday we finally saw the frustration of Warlord Jerry when he used both Aaron Heilman who should just be sent home at this point and told wait for notification of a trade to a new team and for using Mush Schoeneweis against right handed hitting Omar Infante.  It’s hard for me to kill J-Man here as the Mets were not facing Murder’s Row here but a team playing out the string in the Braves, but right now J-Man has to go strictly with a platoon of relievers the rest of the week in order for the Mets to have a chance of post season play. Right now I would like you to click here and read Howard Megdal piece in today’s New York Observer on the state of the bullpen and how J-Man has to mix and match. Read that now I’ll wait,  then meet me in the next paragraph.

Good stuff from Howard right? Ok now here is how I would manage this fucking mess of a bullpen. My two late inning guys now are Luis Ayala and Bobby Parnell. Ayala is the best of the slop and Parnell right now is the only guy in that pen who can throw a fastball with any authority.  From there I’d team up my pitchers like hockey defensemen:

LHP Schoeneweis                             RHP Smith

LHP Rincon                                      RHP Stokes

LHP Feliciano                                   RHP Figueroa

Those are my mix and match specialists and then I’d use Bobby Parnell and Luis Ayala to close.

We really should be getting ready for a great week at Shea Stadium with all kinds of memories and great festivities and looking forward to the post season but after this latest road trip 3-4 road trip this team is really wearing me out.

I’ve about had it with people blaming the Mets offense for not taking on late innings runs. Yes it is quite frustrating to see men on base with less than 2 out and not score a run but the Mets offense is averaging 5 runs a game if that’s not enough to win then you don’t deserve the make the post season. I don’t know how guys like David Wright, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran keep their cool as I would have called out every rag armed fuck in that bullpen by now for not stepping up and doing their job.

I watched the eerie/strange ceremonies at the last game at Highlander Stadium some observations:

Having people dressed like the 1923 Highlanders was very very odd and creepy. Instead of actors maybe they should have gone with pinstriped coffins for the deceased players and lined them up on the warning track.

Most disturbing was the sons of Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin,  Roger Maris and Thurman Munson come out in full uniform

Wade Boggs is the perfect example of you are what you eat

No Joe Pepitone

No Roger Clemens

 No one from the Kekich/Peterson Families

No one from the Peterson/Kekich Families

No Howie Spira

And no one from Joe DiMaggio’s family

After seeing the happiness exhibited by Willie Randolph I offer an apology to the Skill Sets and Omar Minaya, not only am I now happy you fired him like you did, I wish you waited until he feel asleep then woke him up and fired him. Yes I am fucking bitter. Word to Joe Giradi-watch you r back

My first memory of this Highlander  Stadium was of going in 1976 (I consider this Highlander Stadium II because it has no resemblance to the original Highlander Stadium which I was visited in 1968 for the first time for Bat Day with about 10 of my friends) in a 1966 White Caddy Coup with red interior with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath blaring out of the cars 8 track  while cruising into on of the off site parking lots and having the citizens of 158 St trying to figured what the fuck these crazy white boys were up to.

I also went to the 1977 All Star game but details are very sketchy of that due to heavy alcohol consumptions.

No mention of St. Joseph of Torre or of Donnie Baseball. CLASSLESS!

It looks like the Highlanders are grooming Bernie Williams for the Greatest Living Highlander title as he was introduced last. Should have been Yogi’s honor.

I kill Captain Craptastic a lot but he was great at the end of the game with his eloquent address to the crowd and leading his team around the stadium for one last lap. CLASSY!

If the Bravos showed as much guts against the rest of the NL as they did for the Mets they might still be I the thick of a pennant race Mike Gonzalez is an a number one ass clown.

Heading for the ferry this morning as I popped on my iPod and set it to shuffle the first song that came on was Nickelback’s “You Remind Me”, how appropriate (as I was walking to my office when I got to Wall St Green Day’ Boulevard of Broken Dreams came on now that’s freaky) for what happened last night in DC and the uneasiness right now in the Land of Orange and Blue.

As much as Dirty Sanchez sucked balls last night, the offense was the worst culprit of the night. It just seems who ever is up with bases loaded hits into a double play. I would have bet my house that the Mets lead baseball in most hit into DP’s but they don’t in fact they rank 18^th in most GDP’s but isn’t it every game now that the DP is a rally killer?

I’m glad to see J-Man take my advice and throw Bobby Parnell a bone and use Ricardo Rincon as well. Now if he can free Al Reyes we can see who are the most effective pitchers in the pen. It’s the old throw the shit on the wall and see what sticks. It’s not the way to run a team and that brings me to this conclusion on the J-Man –Omar Minaya relationship.

I don’t think it’s a forgone conclusion that Warlord Jerry will be the Mets manager in 2009.  I look at the way J-Man has used the personnel since the first of the month call ups and I get the feeling that Omar and J-Man are not exactly on the same page as it comes to who plays and who sits. J-Man has made it known that playing time is done through a meritocracy and not pay checks. This theory crossed my mind listening to Gary Cohen say the Mets were going to have Parnell pitch a simulated game to get some work and see where he stood to get some pen work. That to me has Omar/ Tony B fingerprints all over it and as the losses and blown saves add up and Omar starts to realize that if the Mets don’t make the post season he could be on the unemployment line, how much arm twisting does he do with the manager to get things done the way he wants?

Is there any other team in sports that fucks around with injured players like the Mets?  It’s a testament to how much pressure Omar Minaya is feeling that he hasn’t sent John Maine to see a surgeon to get that bone spur on his rotator cuff taken care of. All we here is that Maine can not do any more damage to his shoulder and I’m supposed to believe that. BULLSHIT. Billy Wagner had a cramp in his forearm too and Ryan Church had a slight headache and Gimp Castillo has a touch of traumatism.    Then the Skill Sets want to know why the organization is treated like a bunch of chumps by fans and media.

I don’t know how these two guys went a stray in their baseball loyalties   but when it comes to hip and cool in the blogesphre Repoz and Alex Bleth are the hippest and coolest Check out this post from Repoz on Bleth’ Bronx Banter site on his memory of Highlander Stadium and Michael Burke the man who ran the Bronx Bastards into the ground before the Robber Baron took over. Some Highlander historian needs to write a book on the men who have run that franchise throughout their history.   Repoz and Belth are like the double bill I saw at Max’s of Iggy Pop and Mink DeVille back in the day.

Mike Silva has a piece on the Mets shuffling off their Triple A team to Buffalo which is a solid move.

Someone at WFAN better wake up fast and clean up the mess on that station between 1-6 as Francesca on the FAN should be changes to Floundering on the FAN. You can’t have a round guy that is so square do a show by himself as Francesca lacks the personality to carry it off. Whatever you think of Chris Russo he had the chops to do it but lacked the overall sports knowledge that Pope Mike possesses. That’s what made them so successful each guy had his strength and weaknesses and they played off each beautifully.  

{ I wrote this post at about 9AM this morning but forgot to hit the publish button. Yes, I’m an idiot) 

The Collapse2007 is dead and buried, thanks to a couple of grave diggers named Santana and Delgado. Johan Santana did what an ace does, prevents long losing streaks and then we have Carlos Delgado who has transformed himself in mid season, the likes I don’t think has been seen in baseball ever. I don’t have the time or patience to research it but if anyone can tell me different let me know what player has gone from shit to sugar in mid-season like Delgado? I mean those were M-V-P chants I heard last night from Shea right? I wasn’t sure as my head felt like it was injected with Novocain listing to Joe Morgan’s analyisis of the game.

So the Mets are in the same spot as they were before Friday’s game two games up on the Phellatios instead of being even. If you’re the Phellatios, even with two of three weekend you’ve got to be somewhat verklempt after last nights game because you are banking on the Mets folding up like a home mortgage lender and you find out that will not happen again for two reasons, the Mets strong starting pitching and new leadership in the managers office. Now that the Mets held serve they must, MUST beat the ever loving shit out the Nats and Braves this week, as if any lesson was learned from last year it’s take no opponent for granted as these two teams hate the Mets and will be at their best to try and beat them.

Pardon me for not panicking about Billy Wags being done for the season. Of more concern is  the up and down starts by Petey as the bullpen looks to be in descent shape but the starting rotation can not have another member go down. The pressure is on Santana, OP and Big Pelf to keep up their stellar starts but if Petey is not going to give the Mets effective starts then J-Man will have to act and from what we’ve seen so far if you perform you play is the Warlord Jerry’s Golden Rule.

Now if Wags is gone for the year then I don’t want to here a word about him or out of him until spring. Now I know I’m prick for saying that but I’m of the mindset if you’re injured and can’t play then get out of the way. Cold hearted yes but it’s the only way to go. Losers make excuses for poor play due to injury (see Highlander, New York, Girardi, Joe, Clueless) Wags is out. No problem.  Luis Ayala is doing fine and I also think Al Reyes will see some significant innings as will Ricardo Rincon. The Mets have the arms what is needed is the execution.

Do you get the idea that Warlord Jerry looks at Aaron Heilman like the Jets looked at Baby John in West Side Story? What is J-Man quote? “Gangsta’s take the field, ladies take the bus”? Looks like J-Man gave Heilman an unlimited Metro Card.

Same with Gimp Castillo, by playing Damien Easley in both games it shows J-Man was true to his word that he doesn’t care about contracts he is playing his best guys.

According to ESPN MLB Schedule the match ups the next four games, the Mets will see four LH starters (Jon Lanan-Odalis Perez for the Nats Denver School Superintendent Mike Hampton and Jo-Jo Reyes of the Braves) so my question How does J-Man get Danny Boy Murphy at bats? Out of the next four Murphy has to get at least one start and if a righty comes in, then Murphy should be put in for either Tatis or Evans which ever gets the start.

Tough to get too upset over last nights loss as Big Pelf was again stellar but The Wife Beater was a bit better. The Mets hitters were baffled by the Wife Beaters curve ball that was filthy and again the one area that has crept into this hot second half, the inability of the offense to get a big hit in a big spot (that means you D-Wright) was on display last night.

As I write this post it’s 10:27 AM and every reoprt on TV says that Hurricane Hannah will hit the area by 2 PM so why haven’t the Mets called off today’s game and announced a day/nighter for tomorrow? Why make the fans risk a trip to Shea espically on a Staurday when a lot of LI and Connecticut fans go to the game? For one once close the ledger book and do right by your supporters Skill Sets.

I can’t get too mad at Michael Jack Schmidt for sending an e mail to his former team as a little pick me up in fact I’m jealous that no former Met would do the same. No team treats it’s former players in this town like shit the way the Mets do. No wonder I’m not asked to go on Mets Weekly anymore LOL

Warlord Jerry has laid the law down to Billy Wags welcome back but prove you can still do the job before you get it back. When you look over the numbers and the performances and listen to J-Man the team really didn’t miss Wags all that much.

J-Man, Gimp Castillo in the 7 hole? What were you thinking?

As we get ourselves ready for the big three game series with the Cheesesteakers let’s take a look at some of the Mets news of the day:

John Harper has become the P.R. agent for Warlord Jerry as he has for the second day in row wrote a story giving us the feel that Randolph was out of touch with his players and didn’t know what buttons to push to motivate his team. Also there are more quotes from Tony Bernazard who is taking on a much more public persona. Now I don’t know if that is for the better but if you think this turnaround is not in part due to the change on manager your, delusional. The players like Delgado and Reyes won’t come out and say it but Ron Darling had no problem on the post game show last night saying that the Mets clubhouse is a much more relaxed place with J-Man. The facial hair ban, the music ban and not having the ability to interact with his players led to the charge that Randolph didn’t have the feel or pulse of his clubhouse which is one of the biggest thing a manager needs to be successful. The x’s and o’s are not as big as some of us think but the ability to connect with your players is something Randolph via his Highlander training couldn’t do. After awhile Rick Peterson couldn’t do it either. What you hear about J-Man is that he is a straight shooter that we tells his players up front what their role will be and what he is doing. He looks them in the eye and let’s them know the deal which it seem is something Randolph and a hard time doing. J-Man is as cool as the other side of the pillow whereas Willie was in meltdown mode as we saw with his race comments and ripping SNY coverage sent a message to his team that he was losing it.

So Mets fans instead of ripping Tony Bernazard you should be praising him for being adamant in his stance that a managerial change had to be made. Omar wanted to be more patient but it looks as if Jeffey Skill Set was siding with TB but Full Autonomy Omar wanted to keep his guy Randolph as he felt is was his failure that Randolph wasn’t working out but TB prevailed and that makes me think that’s why the Randolph axing was handled so badly.

When the off season comes at what point do the Mets drop out of the Oliver Perez Sweepstakes?  Does OP let that dictator of an agent Scott Boras sell his service to the highest bidder or does OP uses his brains and works out a deal with the Mets and stays where he’s comfortable? Remember OP was a throw in the Roberto Hernandez deal and was a mess when he arrived in NY. But with extensive work by Rick Peterson, Dan Warthen and Randy Neiman Perez has emerged as a top line starter. Sure he is still an enigma especially when he gives up walks after walk but still LHP like OP are a valuable commodity. So if you’re the Mets what is your first offer? He’s not getting Ace money or even #2 starter money so I’d start off with a 3yr/$36mil which of course Boras will be insulted by. My counter would be still 3 yrs but sweeten up the money to $37.5 mil with incentives that boost it over $40mil. Now Boras will want at least 5 yrs I figure but I don’t see the Mets going for 5 yrs with OP but then again he is only 27 years old but 5 yrs to a pitcher who is not a 1 or a 2 is tough pill to swallow. So how about a 4 year deal for $40mil with incentives that could bring the deal to $50mil total with a mutual option for a fifth year. If OP produces in those four years he could again be a free agent at the age of 31 and if he doesn’t produce, well at least he’ll have a very nice nest egg to fall back on.

Check out Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest not just for his great interviews and all around insight on baseball but he has a great piece on the Ford C Frick Award and is looking to get out the vote for our own Gary Cohen.

The Brooklyn Cyclones are taking a page out of the parent club’s book as they are making a surge to the NY-Penn League playoffs.

Where O’ where has Aaron Heilman gone? O’ where O’ where can he be?  Right now the pecking order of the pen in the late innings is the hybrid Felicano/Smith, Brian Stokes as the set up and Luis Ayala as the closer. Billy Wags could be back next week and if healthy goes back to closer and that drops each releiver down a peg.    

What, you didn’t see it coming? Of course the Mets were going to lose that game last night just the fact that Warlord Jerry was caught a bit short in the pen. Luis Ayala was a sore hammy and Mush Schoeneweies has his period. That left him Feliciano, Smith, Sanchez, Figs, Stokes and of course Heilman.  With that group available I have an issue with the way J-Man used them.

Big Pelf came up big again with a very good 6 2/3 inning and I have no problem with the Feliciano and Sanchez to end the inning but why do you come back with Dirty in the 8th when your best reliever Brain Stokes is warmed up in the pen? You go Stokes and then Heilman in the 9th to close then I have no problem but to try to go further with Dirty when he flat out sucks has not gotten through a full inning of relief since 8/11 was a big mistake. This mix and matching bullshit has to stop. Stokes has been great and Ayala has been fine in the 9th even with J-Man trying to exhaust him Friday night. As it stand now the late innings should be Feliciano/Smith, Stokes, Ayala and let the chips and earned runs fall where they may.

You just knew that after giving up a earned walk then throwing eight intentional balls, Heilman was a dead duck. This bullpen is not hard to figure. If the Mets do not score in double figures there in trouble of losing a game. That’s sad.

Maybe it’s time for J-Man to take a page out of Brewer GM Doug Melvin’ and my book on pitching and start your relievers in the beginning of a game. Melvin is on record as saying if the Brewers were not in the pennant race he would like to start his closer for the first two innings and then come in with a starter. This is a tactic I used this season in Little League and it worked. I did it due to strict pitch counts in the LL rule book. My 11 yr old pitchers could not pitch more that 85 pitches and if they hit that mark they required three full days of rest AND had to skip one game. Silly and unproductive rule. Three days rest yes but an additional game is ridiculous but I digress. Since I saw a pattern that my top guys were hitting that 85 pitch mark towards the late fourth inning, early fifth inning (LL games are six innings) it set up having to bring in lesser taltent kids to close out close games. After dropping three game like this I decided to start my lesser guys and let them give me 20 pitches (this way they needed no days of rest) the worst that could happen is we’re down five runs as there is a mercy rule of no more than five runs scored in an inning and five runs in a little league game like a Mets game is no big deficit. So I would use two lesser pitchers for two innings (unless I was down more than five runs in the second then I went with my best guy) and bring one of the two best pitchers I had to get through the rest of the game. So every game I had at least one of my better pitchers available. If this worked for me why not for J-Man.

Look Aaron Heilman wants to be a starter in the worst way right so let him start and pitch two innings, then say Stokes for an inning then come with your starter. Now this wouldn’t work with Johan Santana or even Petey (more due to his psyche than anything else) but how about having Big Pelf pitch the last five innings of a game or even OP? What’s the worst that could happen? This bullpen save for Stokes, is a crap shoot so why not flip the order around and see if that works.   

Here is what you need to know about last night s loss, Boardwalk Lee Mazzilli thought it was the worst loss of the year. Now when Pollyanna Lee says it’s bad, IT’S BAD.

As with all of these types of Mets losses we look for the player or players to rip the shit out of and there is always the usual suspects but one name seems to come up whenever there has been a shit the bed moment this season and that’s Scott Schoeneweis forever now known here as The Mush. The Mush besides having the inability to get a big out has the worst body language in sports. He always looks to me like the last place he wants to be is on the pitchers mound in a big spot. I feel this theory is true because Warlord Jerry used him as a last resort as he went to the junk yard six times before calling for Mush.  

This disaster is not all bullpen related, in fact Brian Stokes, Joe Smith and Balls of Steel Aaron Heilman all did great jobs. Sure Luis Ayala broke his cherry with a blown save (welcome to the Mets,. Luis) but a little better relay by Damien Easley and maybe if Brain Schnieder stood in front of home plate he’d have gotten Jason Werth but that’s neither here nor there. The guy who is not feeling the heat he should is my guy Petey who when staked to a seven run lead let it get away. Petey put J-Man is a position to go heavily into the weakest part of the team, the bullpen to save this game. 

You can go after the offense for not adding on runs and if you want to kill Sugarpants and the Greatest Puerto Rican baseball player of all time whose last name is not Clemente go ahead but when you scored your runs when the offense puts up seven runs early the pitching staff has to win that game. No excuses.

The bright spot was Petey hitting 90-91 on the gun but the problem was two fold, his location and his movement as he was lacking in both.  If your going to throw straight fastballs and keep or pitches down in the zone at Citizen Bank then you might as well forfeit the game and save everyone over five hours of agony.

When the off season comes around the biggest task for the Mets front office will be the dismantling of the bullpen and build a brand new pen that might even include a new closer now that Wags is damaged goods. Forget about spending big money on Mark Texieria who is more luxury item than need. Spend the dough on CC Sabathia and sit down with the brain trust and try to put together the best bullpen you can find. That’s baseball in the 21 Century it’s the bullpen stupid.

As much as my nuts still hurt from getting them kicked last night I’m not panicking because we have seen this all season. The Mets will win tonight and then go onto to Florida and win at least 2 of 3 and then go to Milwaukee and beat then in the series as well because it’s been like this all year, whenever we are ready as fans to throw in the towel this team proves us wrong. I just wish they’d leave my balls alone.

Some days when I write a post it’s tougher to hit that publish button than others. Yesterday when I was ready to hit the button, I paused for a moment and re-read the post again thinking that maybe calling out the Mets relievers as a bunch of no balls sissy’s that I may have gone over the top. But I hit the button knowing that was just how I felt that no one has stepped up in time of adversity as you are supposed to do when injuries hit. Well, last night Warlord Jerry not only gave me his seal of approval of that post he in fact added to what I felt as he called out his bullpen dwellers by responding to questions of his pen by saying that he was ready to hand the closers role over to Eddie Kunz (until Billy Wags finishes his rehab and zeppole’s on Coney Island ) as he stated no one else has risen to the occasion. Which was the polite way of saying that the pen lacks testosterone. Then he laid out his plan to take either OP, John Maine, or Big Pelf into the pen for the rest of the season which was J-Man’s way of embarrassing the relievers. One bullpen bottom feeder, Scott Schoenewies, finally strapped on a pair of nuts and called a meeting of Men Without Testicles to see if any of his fellow arsonists are embarrassed enough to get some male enhancement and take the J-Man, Kranepool Society challenge and prove us wrong. 

It worked last night as J-Man brought in Joe Smith for the 8th and Pedro Feliciano for the 9th with Eddie Kunz warming away in the pen just in case. Give Warlord Jerry credit, if going to call out you players, it’s best to do it when your playing the worst team in baseball.  Joe Smith had tons of movement on his pitches last night and Feliciano after getting  lefty swinging Willie Harris  out he looked into the dugout toward J-Man waiting for him to trot out and raise his right hand high for Big Eddie. But J-Man just stared at Feliciano and made no movement, in effect telling the Other Pedro to show his balls to him and get out of the inning. And he did. Again it was the Nationals one of the suckiest teams I’ve seen a long time (the bloom is off the Manny Acta rose but the way) so let’s not wet our draws over the win last night. When I see the relievers taking on Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Pat Burrell and beating their ass then we will have something to celebrate.’  

I had more stuff to spew venom about but I have a ton of stuff to do today soooooo I think I’ll do some live blogging tonight during Mets-Nats and the return of John Maine. I’ll also flip around to the Cards-Marlins game for some commentary on that one so hopefully I’ll see you later.