{"id":1251,"date":"2009-07-15T15:54:39","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T15:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2013-12-08T15:56:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T15:56:52","slug":"lets-go-shams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=1251","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s Go SHaMs!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/anderson-marlon\">Marlon Anderson<\/a>\u00a0were alive today, he might be distributing his teammates worksheets with the number 45 written on it. Maybe even 50. Those look to be the minimum of the remaining 75 games the Mets are going to have to win if they hope to have any shot at postseason baseball.<\/p>\n<p>Forty-five wins is an even .600 winning percentage and would get the Mets only to 87 wins for the season; 50 wins would make for a sizzling .667 clip and 92 wins. Ninety-two was the magic figure that Marlon Anderson suggested the Mets shoot for when they were floundering at 30-32 and had 100 games left to play last season: a .620 winning percentage. Then as now, the Mets were in fourth place leading only Washington in NL East. They of course fell short of that goal but it took an extraordinary collapse to do it. The advantage this season? 6.5 games out of first place, instead of 7.5 games back last season.<\/p>\n<p>Tall order? For the Mets, you said it. But in the spirit of giving us all some hope, I&#8217;m not putting it past the\u00a0<strong>SHaMs<\/strong>: The Second Half Mets.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/images\/4.gif\" width=\"29\" height=\"48\" align=\"right\" \/>Hey, why not? The incremental improvements have already begun:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/berroa-angel\">Angel Berroa<\/a>\u00a0was last seen hitting .136 and wearing No. 14 for the Yankees. But for the Mets, the 2003 rookie of the year and former teammate of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/beltran-carlos\">Carlos Beltran<\/a>, represents a clear improvement over the again-demoted\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/reyes-argenis\">Argenis Reyes<\/a>\u00a0and will allow\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/cora-alex\">Alex Cora<\/a>\u00a0to take the days off he so obviously needs. Anything that gets the Mets back to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/reyes-jose\">Jose Reyes<\/a>\u00a0better than they&#8217;ve scuffled without him so far is real improvement.<\/p>\n<p>Berroa&#8217;s promotion hasn&#8217;t been officially announced just yet: Easy enough to predict however he&#8217;ll be wearing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/number\/4\">No. 4<\/a>, which he wore in his glory year with the Royals and is available. (EDIT: Dispatches from Atlanta say Berroa is with the team and is wearing No. 4. Go me&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>From here, we can look forward to additions right through deadline season: Reyes, Beltran, Delgado, Maine. Wagner. A streak or two you know this team might find in it. Let&#8217;s Go SHaMs: Fifty to go.<\/p>\n<p><em>Don&#8217;t forget to join me,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/faithandfear.blogharbor.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Greg Prince<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uniwatchblog.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Lukas<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.metsilverman.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Silverman<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and a barful of hungry Mets fans as\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twoboots.com\/TW2008\/Les08\/Les08.html\" target=\"_blank\">Two Boots Tavern<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0presents\u00a0<strong>AMAZIN&#8217; TUESDAY<\/strong>, next Tuesday, July 21 at 7pm. Present a Mets baseball card for your first drink free! Pizza and Rheingold specials, Mets-Nats game on the big screens, memorabilia, giveaways and presentations!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If\u00a0Marlon Anderson\u00a0were alive today, he might be distributing his teammates worksheets with the number 45 written on it. Maybe even 50. Those look to be the minimum of the remaining 75 games the Mets are going to have to win if they hope to have any shot at postseason baseball. Forty-five wins is an even &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=1251\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Let&#8217;s Go SHaMs!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439],"tags":[413,438,173],"class_list":["post-1251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shams","tag-alex-cora","tag-angel-berroa","tag-marlon-anderson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1252,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/1252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}