Three outs to go in Philly.
A long, stark winter ahead for the Mets.
Viewing entries tagged
choke
The Marlins posted another run as Jamie Moyer cruised through the fifth. It looks as if it’s safe to say that the Mets are cooked against the Marlins.
But the question remains:
Will the Phillies hold on?
If they don’t, is it really so bad? After all, the Phillies were trailing the Mets by seven games on Sept. 12. The fact that they were able to crawl back into this thing is victory enough, right? Are we being too greedy by asking the Phillies to go all the way?
Um… no. No we are not.
For the Phillies to blow it now, just 12 outs away from the NL East title, would almost be as bad as the Mets’ colossal collapse into oblivion. Notice I wrote almost because I believe the Mets’ demise is worse than the 1964 Phillies’ late-season collapse.
And how about those kids in the picture… are they going to be scared for life? Maybe they should just switch to being Yankees fans.
Meanwhile, Carlos Ruiz left the game with a right elbow contusion. Chris Coste is the catcher and will likely be on the field when (if) the Phillies clinch. That just adds on to the pile of extraordinary occurrences in the career of Coste. Crazy.
OK, so which is it that is most impressive? Is it the Phillies surge in which they have won 12 of their last 15 games in which they overcame a 7-game deficit on Sept. 12 and now hold a 1-game advantage with two games to go?
Or is it the Mets’ stunning collapse/choke job/freefall that has conjured up remembrances of the 1964 Phillies? It should, because obliterating a 7-game lead with 17 games to play is a much bigger collapse than the one by the ’64 Phillies.
Sure, in ’64 the Phillies lead the National League by 6½ games with 12 to go to miss out on the World Series. But in those days, of course, there were no divisional playoff berths and no wild card. There was just the regular season and then straight to the World Series.
The ’64 Phillies had nothing to fall back on to give them a chance to regroup in the playoffs.
The Mets’ collapse has come in an age where if they did not win the division, they could focus their attention on the wild-card berth. But then again, who worries about the wild card when a team is leading the division by 7 games with 17 to go and has been in first place for 135 straight days?
Maybe the Mets should have.
Needless to say the big “Freak Out” has begun in New York. A story in the Times about the Mets’ team poet had this great quote:
“As a fan, my world is caving in because the Mets are collapsing.”
Maybe we should compose a few couplets about the Mets’ collapse, too. If anyone has anything good, send them in and we’ll try to cobble together a poem called, “An Ode to the Mets’ Collapse.”
What rhymes with “choke?”
*** If the season were to end today (it will end tomorrow instead), the Phillies would host the San Diego Padres in the first round of the NLDS and the Cubs and Diamondbacks are set in the other side.
It’s also set up for Cole Hamels to pitch in Game 1 against his hometown team…
How is that for a coincidence?
More from the ballpark this afternoon...
Cole Hamels is in the bullpen warming up, the fans are filtering into the sold-out ballpark and the oppressive humid has finally broken and given way to a decidedly autumnal tinge.
It feels like playoff baseball time[1].
Meanwhile, the word filtered down from New York City that despite all of the bluster to the contrary, the Mets have resigned themselves to participating in a playoff game in Philadelphia on Monday. If such an event were to occur, people will need tickets for the game. So when and if a playoff game is scheduled for Monday and/or Tuesday, the Phillies announced they will sell tickets.
Here’s the Phillies’ announcement:
In order to prepare and plan, the Phillies are announcing that tickets will go on public sale once the tie-breaking game has been deemed necessary.
Full season ticket holders (81 games) have been mailed their locations. Season ticket holders and E-Mail Club members will be offered the opportunity to purchase tie-breaker tickets in advance of the public sale.
Tickets may be purchased on Sunday (once a game has been deemed necessary) via the following outlets:
ONLINE: www.phillies.com.
When ordering via the internet, the Phillies suggest choosing the convenient “print at home” option. Access to the internet is available 24 hours a day.
PHONE CENTER: (215) 463-1000. Again, once the game has been deemed necessary, the Phone Center will be open Sunday until 10:00 p.m. . . . Phone lines will open again at 8:00 a.m. on Monday.
The Phillies suggest fans choose the “print at home” option or pick up their will call tickets well in advance of the game, either Sunday night or early Monday morning.
IN PERSON: Two Citizens Bank Park locations: (1) First Base Gate ticket windows (on Pattison Avenue) and (2) West ticket windows (on Citizens Bank Way, adjacent to the Majestic Clubhouse Store). Hours: Sunday until 10:00 p.m. The ticket windows will reopen at 8:00 a.m. on Monday.
***
Speaking of the New York Mets, there was a helluva quote in the Oct. 1, 2007 edition of the New York Observer from a story written by John Koblin. In the story headlined, “Gutsy Mr. Metsie,” all about how Mets’ skipper Willie Randolph is dealing with his team’s “September Swoon,” veteran lefty pitcher Tom Glavine is on the record saying:
“Sometimes when you’re a team as talented as we are—I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘bored,’ but I guess you can get complacent sometimes. You don’t pay attention to details every now and then because you do have a ton of talent and think you can on most days do everything you wanna do.”
So the Mets are collapsing because they are so good? They haven’t been paying attention to details?
I wonder if their curiosity has been piqued now?
[1] Not that most of us in the Phillies’ writing press corps actually knows what “playoff baseball” feels like. A lot of us have floated out into unchartered waters.
[2] a.k.a: a choke job of epic proportions
I heard David Wright, the third baseman, on the radio this morning talking about how his Mets’ teammates haven’t “made off-season plans yet.” At least I think it was the radio – at this point it’s really hard to decipher the voices in my head from the ones coming out of mechanical devices. I wish I was being funny, but I’m not… I feel like Apu Nahasapeemapetilon at the end of a 36-hour shift at the Kwik-E-Mart. Remember that? He thought he was a hummingbird.
Anyway, I don’t think Wright was trying to be funny about the plans for the off-season quote, either. However, he might feel like he and the Mets are caught in a swarm of hummingbirds as those little bleepers dive in and out with the hearts and wings racing a hundred-miles per second as they try to poke his eyes out.
In this scenario the Phillies are the hummingbirds. They are ravenous and beatific all at the same time. They are also tied for first place in the NL East with just three games to go in the season because the Mets just can’t win a game when it matters.
I just can’t get over the fact that if the Mets had been able to beat the lowly Washington Nationals at home in just one of the three games this week, this would all be over. The Mets would be making plans for where to stay on the road in the NLDS instead of hearing manager Willie Randolph tear into them like a wolverine on greenies in a post-game tirade following the team’s loss to the Cardinals last night. Heading into tonight’s action, the Mets have won just three of their last 13 games and they have lost seven games in a row at cranky old Shea Stadium.
It was also during those 13 games that the Mets’ lead over the Phillies shrank from seven games to nothing. Imagine that… seven to zero in two weeks! It's like those ads for those crazy diet pills in which they claim a person can lose 25 pounds in four hours. But, if one day you’re hanging out with some friends and the topic of rock-solid, sure-footing in the NL East standings is broached, you can say, “Yeah, well, I once saw the Mets blow a seven-game lead with just 16 games to go.
“It was ridiculous. It was like they were waiting around to lose[1].”
Stunning. It's all so stunning.
Anyway, I also heard an announcer proclaim on the radio this morning[2] like and antebellum preacher that, “This isn’t a choke… This is a COLLAPSE!”
Unlike Wright, the announcer was trying to be funny. At least I think he was trying to be funny. But he seemed like one of those types of people that believed everything he said. He measured every word so that it would be significant, though you could hear it in his voice – he was worried. The hummingbirds were diving in like little, tiny P-51 Mustang fighter planes and a rolled up newspaper used to swat the pests away was hardly a defense.
So this is what it has come down to for the Phillies and Mets. The three games this weekend determine which team will play on in the post-season and which team will have to scramble to cobble together some off-season plans. Interestingly, too, is that that the Mets and Phillies are matched up against the two worst teams in their division. The Phillies host the Nationals this weekend, who are fresh off a three-game sweep over the Mets at Shea and are feeling pretty groovy because they did not lose 100 games this season. Everyone thought the Nats (72-87) would drop 110; instead they have a chance to not lose 90.
Meanwhile, the Mets entertain the Florida Marlins, which, coincidentally enough, is the only team they have managed to beat in the last two weeks. Like the Nats, the Marlins won’t lose 100 either. But unlike the Nats, this feat isn’t going to go down as any type of success. Heading into the season, the Marlins thought they had what it took to challenge the Mets, Phillies and Braves atop the division standings, but things just kinda didn’t work out.
Who will things work out for this weekend? Or, will things work out so well (or badly) for both teams that they will have to come back a day after the season ends to sort it all out?
***
Talked to Aaron Rowand, the center fielder, after last night’s game and offered a query whether this Phillies’ club had any similarities with the World Champion 2005 Chicago White Sox. Rowand, of course, was an integral player on that team, which was known for having fun and being colorful in the press. It also seems as if that White Sox team was a lot like a college fraternity, but not like the one that held toga parties or socials with the sororities. No, this frat was more like the one that held illegal off-campus keggers, built bonfires that weren’t easy to extinguish, and had a member who knew how to make home-made M-80s if he could ever locate the 50 milligrams of flash powder.
So when asked if this tight-knit Phillies bunch was like the 2005 champs, Rowand didn’t hesitate.
“No doubt,” he said emphatically.
“This is the second team I’ve been on where the group comes together. We all have the same goal and it’s special,” he said. “Whether we win or not it’s a special season.”
But all things being equal, he’d rather win.
[1] This is part of quote from Mets’ catcher Paul Lo Duca, who told reporters after Wednesday night’s loss that, “Seems to me like we’re all waiting to lose.” I’m using it to be clever. I think it worked, but I haven’t gone back to re-read any of this yet. Perhaps I’ll just finish writing this and go off to take a nap without the re-read? Hey, it was funny once – why ruin a moment for myself?
[2] At least I think it was this morning… does the post-1 a.m. drive back to Lancaster count as this morning? Technically, yes, it was this morning. But I always played by the rule that the day wasn’t over until I had gone to bed. Is this a common train of thought?
“Seems to me we’re all waiting to lose.”- Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca
Yes, Paul we all noticed that, too. Actually, it doesn't look like the Mets aren't waiting to lose, it looks like they are trying to lose.
I could live to be 100-years old and I’ll never figure out how the first-place Mets – the team that most said had to go to the World Series or the season would be considered a failure – could not beat the Washington Nationals in one game at home this week. This is the same Washington Nationals’ club in which the manager is being considered for Manager of the Year honors because he didn’t lose100 games. You know, like that’s an accomplishment.
One win against the Nats and all of this hassle could have been over for the Mets. Just one stinkin’ game and the Phillies aren’t pounding on the door with a battering ram like a bunch of DEA agents. Two wins against the 72-87 Nationals, and the Mets could have had some champagne on ice for tonight’s game against Tony La Russa’s Cardinals.
“Seems to me like we’re all waiting to lose.”
So watching the end of the Mets-Nats game on the TV hung over my seat in the press box, I saw the Mets roll over and expose their perfectly round, pink bellies for everyone to thrash away at. Better yet, they were like a picture of the dead bug on the old cockroach-killing ads where they were flat on their backs, with legs dangling in the air and Xs where their eyes should have been.
I also saw a few players who would have preferred to have been anywhere else but Shea Stadium. Yeah, he’s a “gamer” and all of that stuff, but did anyone really think that Billy Wagner wanted to be in for the ninth inning of a game that the Mets were losing? Worn down by a long season and maybe even a little too much use, Wagner promptly hucked that low-90s fastball up there and gave up a pair of runs with his team trailing by one.
Is this the end for the Mets? Can Willie Randolph get his reeling team together to hold off the Phillies? Can the genius that is Tony La Russa do a favor for the Phillies by coming up with something just clever enough to deal the Mets yet another loss?
Maybe he'll have his pitcher hit eighth again... yeah, that always works. Maybe he'll run the fumble-ruski or State of Liberty play?
Oh sure, those are football plays alright, but La Russa will figure it out. *** Then again, the Phillies have to face a beyond-desperate Braves club tonight, who can’t lose any more games (and then hope for help) this season in order to cling to the flicker of a playoff chance. To keep hope alive the Braves will rally behind John Smoltz, one of the best big-game pitchers of his generation.
The Phillies will counter with 23-year old rookie Kyle Kendrick and 40,000 screaming fans.
***
Our good friends Mike and Michelle Wann welcomed their second son into the world this morning at 1:47 a.m.. Daniel Kingston Wann came in easily at a slick 7-pounds, 8 ounces and 19½ inches and all reports are that Michelle and big brother Christopher are doing great.
But Mike… that’s a different story.
A little background: Mike and Michelle delivered Christopher in the comforts of their home here in the School Lane Hills neighborhood of Lancaster, Pa. Rather than go to the hospital and be subjected to all of the stuff that goes on at those places, the kids had a midwife come in while Mike did his best to stay out of trouble. And since he was at home, he could putter around in the yard while Michelle was upstairs delivering the baby.
It’s how I imagine our pioneer forefathers did things.
But this time, well, perhaps I should just turn it over to Mike:
Interesting Point: Admittedly, it was in this space I planned to be clever and funny as I told our story, but sometimes, when a tale is so outrageous and unbelievable, a well crafted build-up actually takes away from the drama. So here it goes; Michelle and I birthed this little rascal at home, by ourselves, with no assistance (this is no joke). Let me be clear, that was not our intention. It went down like this:
1. We wanted to do a home-birth, like our first one 2. We called the midwife when Michelle started labor at 10:30 PM 3. The midwife planned to come when the contractions reached 1 minute in length 4. Michelle’s water ruptured at 1:15 AM (we were still waiting for the 1 minute contractions) 5. The baby exited Michelle at 1:47 AM 6. The midwife entered the house at 1:55 AM
So what did we learn? It’s true, the second birth is quicker than the first. Oh, yeah, and you never know what you can do until the occasion presents itself.
Yeah, how about that?!?!
I received a phone call from Mike this morning and he asked me what I had done so far today. I told him that I had brushed my teeth, eaten a banana and I was about to go out for a run before I got into my car for the drive to Philadelphia to go to work. All things being equal, that’s a pretty busy day for a guy like me.
“Yeah, well I birthed a baby,” he said.
Top that.