Jun 24 2009
NL East Blues
After the last two fiasco-capped seasons, I’ve been hesitant to start up again with the baseball posts, though I did reactivate the baseball links. One can only stand so much late-season collapsery before even glancing at mid-season ball becomes a little painful. I did not re-up my MLB.TV subscription this year, in any case, even though that’s partly becaiuse I’m too busy. But I have been watching and listening (baseball will always be a radio game to me), at least when I can. But I have to chime in here, even though the Mets just stomped the Cards in Queens, and pulled back to within a game and a half of the Phils. But thatr’s what I want to talk about. The Phillies should, by all rights, be up five or six games right now, if not more. This isn’t a Philly bashing session typical of Mets fans. It’s a Philly What-the-Fucking session. So, Phils, what the fuck? After the Pirates inscrutable sweep of the Mets in Pittsburgh – which came just after they seemed to have gotten over a sweep by the Dodgers, Philly should have run away with the division before the break. They have the talent (though with injuries), and every other team was playing like shit, the Metropolitans included. The last week and a half is really the capper, with the Phils dropping now seven of their last eight, most of those at home, leaving them with what really should be considered the most scandalous home record in baseball: they’ve won only one more game at home than the hapless Washington Nationals. But the disease seems to be of eastern origin. Just as a painful fact as of this writing, San Francisco – currently eight games out in the NL West (admittedly, the Dodgers are having a sick season) – would be in first place by half a game were the Giants to have stayed in the Polo Grounds (yes, that would be hard…). The Rockies, currently third in the NL West at 10 games out, would be nipping at the Phils heels. As for the prat falls and other nonsense going on the in NL East (Castillo’s dropped pop up that gave the Yankees one in the Bronx deserved to be amplified even more than the chortling New York media could), well, it’s getting hard to watch.
Topspun,
I’ve been waiting for your first baseball ruminations, and I am in complete agreement with your assessment of the NL East. WTF?
The Phillies season in particular has been strange. They have had the second-worst pitching in the National League for most of the year, so in some ways it’s a frackin’ miracle they have been camping out in first place, let alone owning the second-best record in either league prior to their recent, painful skid. Despite the pitching, and despite a mediocre team batting average, they score runs, lots of them, late in games, especially games on the road or games that are meaningful. They are a team full of guys who know how to win, as proven by last year’s World Series victory.
I suspect that they can’t duplicate that run unless something drastically changes with their pitching staff–Lidge needs to rediscover his magic from last year, Hamels needs to throw like a number one again–but the question then becomes who is actually going to win the division if not the Phils. The Metropolitans? There’s some serious baggage there, and while the Mets certainly look better than the Phils on paper once again, something is not quite working there (once again).
All in all, it feels like the NL East is this year’s NL West, where the teams are going to limp along, beat each other up, fight injuries and losing streaks, fall behind the pace of the rest of the divisions. The question will remain, though, whether the Mets can play good ball in the final two weeks of the season for a change. I’m not holding my breath, but then I’m not a Mets fan.
When you get one-hit in late June, you’re not winning the division, much less the Series. That’s clear enough. The 09 Mets are a perfect example of a paper team that can’t gel, or that can’t come up with a winning formula when they need to. I agree that Philly seems able to hold down the big games.
By the way, USA soccer = Chicago baseball. Discuss.