{"id":1290,"date":"2009-10-03T17:46:19","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T17:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=1290"},"modified":"2013-12-08T17:48:11","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T17:48:11","slug":"weve-been-having-fun-all-summer-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=1290","title":{"rendered":"We’ve Been Having Fun All Summer Long"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Oh, you SHaMs, you.\u00a0Way back at the All-Star Break<\/a>\u00a0when we naiively dreamed you had a run in you, we speculated it would take at least 45 victories out of the final 75 games for a realistic shot at the postseason, and a sizzling 50 wins to be safe.<\/p>\n

To my horror, my anger, and eventually my acceptance, the Second Half Mets went and lost 47 of their next 75. Only a freak 3-game sweep against the mailed-it-in Astros this weekend stemmed the bleeding at 92 losses, and assured the SHaMs wouldn’t reach the magical 50-loss post-all-star-break plateau.<\/p>\n

Still, it’s a pathetic showing thoughout, and tragic to have missed such a great opportunity to be the kind of up-against-it underdog the fans could get behind. The question shouldn’t be, “Has any team ever lost so many players to injury?” It ought to be “Has any team ever lost so many players to injury and failed to replace even one of them adequately?” Right? We got Jerry’s passive skippering, a parade of nondescript clockpunchers and a team that until the end preferred to playSchneider\u00a0<\/a>over\u00a0Thole<\/a>, and anybody over\u00a0Evans<\/a>, while even the regulars loafed about, made ridiculously costly errors, threw ball four eight times a night, whiffed with runners on third, bunted in every situation except those that might drive in a run, and indifferently flew out to medium right while while gift-wrapping signature moments for nearly every team they played down the stretch.<\/p>\n

Hey, Mets: BOOOOOOO!<\/p>\n

Yeah, take that.<\/p>\n

It’s obvious that Jerry ought to be fired. He hasn’t gotten though to the players, the team barely had a single good run all year, and his passive managing style (“Hey. let’s go out there and try not to lose!”) drives me crazy and doesn’t work. Omar should have been whacked last season for sitting on his hands while the Mets shanked a second gimmee putt, and the strenuous, reactive fiasco of acquiring not one but two faltering closers last offseason only to see the SS Met spring a few hundred other leaks, many of them completely foreseeable and potentially preventable (starting pitching, Brian Schneider, right field) should be answered for as well.<\/p>\n

They won’t be. Instead the Mets are making a show of blaming a development staff for failing to make major-league ready replacements of the 16-year-olds they signed in 2005. That and promising to try and do better. Hey, good luck, Mets!<\/p>\n

I’m going to go ahead and name\u00a0Luis Castillo<\/a>\u00a0the MBTN Player of the Year for 2009. He atoned for a bad season in 2008, he committed the signature screwup in a season jammed with them, but most of all, he really loved to bunt. May his example of improvement through desperation revisit the Mets in 2010.<\/p>\n

\"\"There were\u00a052<\/span>\u00a053 Mets in\u00a02009<\/a>, including 26 first-time players. The Number of the Year is\u00a029<\/a>: Issued to three of those 26 newbies, and one repeater who I’ve\u00a0\u00a0 already forgotten was a 2009 Met:\u00a0Emil Brown<\/a>,\u00a0Andy Green<\/a>,\u00a0Robinson Cancel\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Tobi Stoner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We’ll be back to keep current with the hot stove and other stuff too! For now, go Jets!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh, you SHaMs, you.\u00a0Way back at the All-Star Break\u00a0when we naiively dreamed you had a run in you, we speculated it would take at least 45 victories out of the final 75 games for a realistic shot at the postseason, and a sizzling 50 wins to be safe. To my horror, my anger, and eventually … Continue reading “We’ve Been Having Fun All Summer Long”<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","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=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1291,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions\/1291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}