Disappointed yes, embarrassed no, sure it sucked that we had Suppan dominate us again which was disappointing, but we had Steve Trachsel, John Maine, and Oliver Perez of all people starting 5 games for us in the this series, and was in it till the end, that showed enough that we had fight, if we were gutless, we would of had not gotten out of St. Louis, thats gutless, this series however wasn't. I'll stop since it was a rant, but look at the bright side if you can right now, Maine is 25 and showed guts winning game 6, Perez showed us hope that the Nady deal may have looked bad early, but may be a steal in the end for us later on, a 24 year old lefty with wicked stuff and has shown remarkable improvement at the end of the year, Trachsel is gone and maybe replaced by Zito. So we have a lot to look forward too next year, so lets bounce back like the '85 team and win the whole damn thing next year
Disappointed yes, but that was a great Mets season from start to finish. This team is very good but we have our 1 and 3 starters gone a starting outfielder gone and no bench to speak of and we get to game 7 9th inning of the NLCS. It sucks losing but Baseball is still a game of percentages and they were not in our favor in this series. I was disappointed that two guys went down without a swing but that's what power pitchers with curve balls do to batters. Change ups get fouled off, biting curves lock up batters and that's why the Mets lost and the Cards won last night. Beltran and Delgado carried this team in this series. I can't believe people are killing them in this thread.
I'm sorry to all the Mets fans of TGG. That was a realllllly tough loss. Suppan just dominated, plain and simple. I think Beltran should have swung on the 0-2 pitch but whatever, can't change it now. Being a Yankee fan, I don't care who wins the World Series, but I would have rather watched a Mets/Tigers WS instead of St.Louis. But Mets fan, congrats on a hell of a season. They played amazin' baseball. Oh yeah, Endy Chavez made catch of the year last night. My God that was amazing.
The Mets lost because the worst hitter in the National League this season slaughtered them all series, while their hitters couldn't even put the bat on the ball in big spots. The playoffs fucking suck.
I have to say I'm onboard with ya, here it is 4:50 AM in Las Vegas and I can't sleep. As for Beltran, yes he had some big hits in the series but he is our guy. We didn't pay him over 100 million dollars to look at strike 3 with hte bases loaded in game 7 of the NLCS. I might expect that from Endy Chavez or Julio Franco but not Beltran. Did he even have a plan when he went up there? He watched Floyd get burned with that and he was frozen. Wainwright went with that curve to Reyes and it was in outside on what would have been the 3rd strike. Was Beltran expecting a Braden Looper meatball down the pike? I'm sorry go down swinging, not frozen to some rookie. For all the big hits Beltran had he also had a few terrible at bats in the series, for example earlier in the night he hits a slow roller back to the pitcher before Wright reached 2nd on the error. What was that the 6th? He also had the at bat in game 2 with men on 1st and 2nd and 1 out and a freaking guy that was pitching in the Independent League gets him to hit into a DP to Belliard. I'm sorry call em a sore loser but I refuse to accept that fact that St. Louis deserved this, they didn't. They got every break imaginable inclduing some suspect called strikes when they were pitching and non 3rd strike calls while they were batting. I look at this more of the Mets losing and not playing well in 6 of the 7 games. I refuse to accept that 2 absolute pieces of shit named Jeff shut down the best lineup in the NL twice, the Mets had no patients and no plan at the plate and that hurt them. As for sticking with Heilman I stand by Willie in that decision, it may have been the only time in the series he did the right thing and unfortunatley it backfired. I know there is a next year but it seems so far away and that doesn't change the fact that right now sucks.
Beltran needs to go down swinging there, I agree. You can't look at strike 3 in game 7 bottom of the 9th. That was just a bad job. However, I think the key at bat was the Floyd strikeout. That took all the juice out of the Mets.
I even said it when it happened, he needed to bunt in that situation. Get the runners to 2nd and 3rd with one out. Wainwright probably pitches differently with the tying run on 2nd base and 1 out. Then again why would you send Floyd up to bunt. Not that it matters now but I understand why Willie pinch ran for Lo Duca but what does he do if only 2 runs score and we go to extra innings?
Castro was still on the bench. Besides, it was the bottom of the 9th. You're supposed to leave EVERYTHING on the table. The mest beat themselves in that series. Oh well, lets regroup, go out, and get 'em next year!
A little disappointed, I would've moved the runners, not batted Floyd and Wagner would probably start the ninth, but shit happens. It was a fun ride, at lease maybe I'll get some sleep tonight... BTW, that catch by Chaves was awesome.
Man, I shouldn't have come into work today. I have to bite my tongue while listening to more ridiculous commentary then we heard during the series. Some highlights: Someone asking who the announcer other then Buck was, then commenting that he really knew his stuff and another person agreeing with "shit yeah!". A "Mets fan" commenting that he watched the first 5 innings then saw the highlights this morning. I've just got to make it through the day without punching someone in the face.
Floyd was key. Because watching Floyd, BELTRAN, should have known what was coming. Off speed down the middle....Fastball....Curveball for the out. But After the Home run, you really couldnt ask for more than your best guy in the bottom of the Ninth with Bases loaded and 2 down.
That was a decision I disagreed with. I ran the probabilities in my mind, and the chances of Anderson Hernandez making a difference running the bases were very small. It's true Lo Duca is a horrible base-runner, but it seemed questionable to me. I guess Willie's idea was to go for it all in the 9th, the rest of the game be damned. That's why Floyd pinch-hit, and that's why he pinch-ran for Paulie.
:rofl: That is very funny, and I see it every Monday morning after a Jets game as well. My office is covered with Jets shit, including the windows that are directed to the hallway (much to the chagrin of the stuffy stiffs in this area I may add). Every Monday morning everyone who walks by has to throw stupid comments at me that drive me nuts; "Hey Curtis Martin looked good yesterday", etc... Stay strong....
A few things that really bugged me during the game: 6th inning, bases loaded for Valentin--k's at a ball in the dirt(on that note, was it me, or did the home plate umpire call alot of low strikes). Then Endy flied out afterwards. I think he was too pumped from the catch, and was trying to do it all. We needed just hits people, not homers Willie sending up Floyd--I liked the idea of Floyd going up if there was one on and one out to try to tie it, but with men on first and second you gotta try to get them over. Woodward would've been nice there to lay down a bunt, and then bring up the top of the order to get it done. 2-3, 1 out would've been a very different, and imo better situation to be in tha twe ended up having, obviously.
Can't really say anything that hasn't been said. I was hoping LoDuca would walk to get Beltran to the plate and then was mortified to see the backwards K. Removing the 12 run game, the Mets averaged 2.5 runs per game. I don't think anyone expected that. Finally, want to say thanks to all the posters here. I live in Colorado and often times got my game news from these threads. In the playoffs it like I was watching the game with other fans. Finally, thought you guys might enjoy this: The critical decision for the Mets came in the sixth inning, when Willie Randolph let the struggling Jose Valentin bat in a bases-loaded, one-out situation with the game tied. Scott Rolen threw a routine groundball into the stands, creating a second-and-third, one-out situation. The Cardinals walked Green -- is there a greater sign of disrespect in baseball than having someone walk Shawn Green to face you? -- to bring Valentin to the plate, and he hacked at a couple balls in the dirt like he was trying to dig them out of a sandtrap. The Mets should have pinch-hit for him, although their bench has been limited all series because they chose to carry Floyd on the roster.
Very informative article. If nothing else, read the last paragraph which sums up the series as best I have seen yet. http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=2632662&name=law_keith Mets fail in the biggest of spotsposted: Thursday, October 19, 2006 | Print Entry The Mets paid the ultimate price for their inability to get the Cardinals' worst hitter out, and the National League's best team was toppled by its sixth- or seventh-best team, giving us Fox's worst nightmare of a World Series -- and a pretty sizable mismatch to boot. Yadier Molina is a terrible hitter who had his Brian Doyle moment, fluking into a good series and hitting the series-clinching homer on a hanging changeup from Aaron Heilman in the ninth inning. The Mets had been challenging him with fastballs, perhaps knowing how weak he is, and he made one adjustment, just trying to make contact even if it usually meant going the other way, and a larger-than-expected number of his hits fell in. Thursday, Heilman decided to go to the changeup, a mistake given Molina's lack of bat speed and Heilman's velocity; pounding Molina hard in and going away with the changeup once ahead in the count is the best way to pitch to him. Still, if Heilman didn't hang the changeup, Molina probably would've missed the pitch entirely. Jeff Suppan wasn't as sharp as he was in Game 3, but he stayed out of the middle of the plate and forced the Mets hitters to choose between waiting him out or swinging at pitches that were very difficult to drive. They chose the latter, letting Suppan off the hook despite his four unintentional walks and a hit batsman. Suppan was also able to work mostly off of his fastball-cutter-change combo, keeping his curve -- which had good depth Thursday -- as more of an occasional pitch to use to try to get a strikeout in a critical situation. The Cardinals' bullpen did outstanding work yet again. Randy Flores not only did his assigned job of getting Carlos Delgado out in the eighth inning (on a couple of big-breaking sliders), but he also struck out right-handed-hitting David Wright before getting Shawn Green to ground out to first base to end the eighth. People will talk about Suppan's performance, but Flores retiring two of the Mets' three best hitters with the third already on first base was the pitching performance of the night. Adam Wainwright did a bit of a Billy Wagner (or Todd Jones) impression in the ninth, but he was nails in striking out both Cliff Floyd and Carlos Beltran looking. Wainwright froze Floyd with his plus curveball; with Floyd just sitting on the fastball, it was almost a foregone conclusion that he'd try to put him away with a two-strike curveball, and he ran a big risk when he went with a 1-2 fastball up. (It's worth mentioning that strike two on Floyd, while technically a strike, was about six inches above the top of the de facto strike zone. It's pretty awful to suddenly call that pitch a strike in the ninth inning of Game 7 and is yet another instance of the Heisenberg Strike Zone affecting a game.) Wainwright then did the near-impossible by walking Paul Lo Duca -- who'd been averaging 0.8 pitches per plate appearance in the series -- but then froze Beltran on another curve, one that just about everyone knew was coming and that still managed to turn Beltran into a $17 million-a-year statue. The critical decision for the Mets came in the sixth inning, when Willie Randolph let the struggling Jose Valentin bat in a bases-loaded, one-out situation with the game tied. Scott Rolen threw a routine groundball into the stands, creating a second-and-third, one-out situation. The Cardinals walked Green -- is there a greater sign of disrespect in baseball than having someone walk Shawn Green to face you? -- to bring Valentin to the plate, and he hacked at a couple balls in the dirt like he was trying to dig them out of a sandtrap. The Mets should have pinch-hit for him, although their bench has been limited all series because they chose to carry Floyd on the roster. There were a few other head-scratchers from the Mets. In the bottom of the fifth, shortly after Fox showed a graphic pointing out that 43 percent of hitters who reach with no outs end up scoring (one of the most informative graphics you'll ever see on a baseball telecast, by the way), the Mets let Oliver Perez -- who had thrown five innings and only given up one run -- lead off the inning. It was a colossal mistake, because Perez was an automatic out, whereas even the worst pinch-hitting option (Anderson Hernandez) had at least a fighting chance to reach base. Perez had given the Mets good results to that point, but he'd also been doing a salamander dance in and around the fire all night and was leaving way too many balls over the plate, including very hittable 0-2 pitches to Molina (in the second inning) and Ronnie Belliard (in the fifth). It's Oliver Perez, not Pedro Martinez. He should've been taken out for the pinch-hitter there. It's clear that leaving Perez in to face Rolen was also a mistake, one that only a Web Gem from Endy Chavez could erase. Neither Chad Bradford nor Heilman pitched poorly, and the Mets should absolutely win any game when they only give up three runs. The reality of the NLCS is that the league's best offense really didn't show up, and only some of the credit can go to the Cardinals' pitchers, many of whom were mediocre at best during the regular season. Wright was AWOL. Lo Duca approached his at-bats like he was double-parked outside Shea Stadium. Valentin and Green both looked like players who should be contemplating retirement this winter. You can't win a series when that many of your hitters underperform unless your pitchers are close to perfect; the Cardinals pitchers were, and the Mets pitchers weren't.
How do you pinch hit for Valentin in that spot? I don't think there's anyone you can say would've been a significant upgrade coming off the bench. Franco did a good job PH'ing early in the season but other then Endy(who started a fair amount) their bench was horrendous all season.
