Roller Coaster Tuesday

      I was three ribs deep into a full rack of babybacks at a barbeque joint (should be noted that I’m in Dallas on an overnighter). My cell phone rings. Acc. Strange. The Big Boy usually starts with a few tm’s. Something weird must have gone down. I wasn’t going to speculate; it could have been anything. And my fingers were in no condition to answer the phone.

      Well, at least I didn’t suffer the roller coaster of thinking this thing was in the bag early, only to grumble my way through the rest of the game. So we lose again. What else can I say? Another offensive onslaught took us down. Ten runs in our face. We’ve been through all of the reasons why you can’t panic just yet, but I’ll throw out a few things to think about. We’ve talked about the fact that we went through this same thing last year, only to blast our way out of it with a ten game win-streak when things looked their bleakest (11-19). Two major differences from last year’s debacle. The first is bad news. At the nadir last year we had five guys in the lineup hitting at least 55 points below their career averages, and every single one of the starting staff except one was a full half-run above their career ERA. Three were a full run or more over. This year everybody is pretty much right where they should be. The second reason is better news, and it’s nothing we haven’t gone over. There are stretches in every season that you can circle when the schedule comes out, because you know they’ll be tough. Eleven of fourteen on the road, with a west coast swing, against mostly contenders. If you come out of that at 7-7, you won’t feel too bad about yourself. You won’t be psyched, but you can deal. Although when you take out that three-day homer against the Royales with Cheese, you step down to 3-7 with one to play. Not preferred, but you go through stretches like that.

     The devil is in not knowing. All signs point to the Yanks coming charging back on the strength of a few monster stretches. Their numbers are elite. But you don’t know. They have not been great at winning so far. They’ve been pretty good at bashing brains in, but winning has been so-so. You can clearly see that mental mistakes and questionable defense is costing them runs. You have to hope that stuff ends. All that said – I’m saying they’re going on a killer run when they get back to the Stadium.

      Geoff (Happy Mediums) – nice work on the link to the new Met song. Good gracious. Grossman? Any comments on that? Who is that? 2 LiveCrew? How awful is that song? Dude, just when the Mets look like they’re trying to turn their ship around, they go and pay money for something ridiculous like that. Seriously, dude. It sounded so 80’s that at first I thought it was Doug E. Fresh with a back beat laid down by Grandmaster Flash. 

      Speaking of the Mets, Mad Dog Dave and I are on the same page. They’re good. But I’ll tell you what. They’ve got one of those “it’s-way-too-early-for-a-must-win-but-it-would-be-a-very-good-idea-to-win” games tomorrow. This is pretty clear. This is the “new Mets.” The “we-have-a-short-memory Mets.” They fancy themselves a superior team to the Braves, and they feel that this is the year they deserve to get it done. Well, you need to take two of three right here. Not because this is going to make a huge difference in the standings, but because of circumstances. The Braves have been grinding against good competition on the road, and the Mets have been fattening up at home on a lot of teams that have been playing the Washington Generals to their Harlem Globetrotters. If they can’t win this series, then everybody that was cautiously toeing the line, ready to believe, is going to fall right back into same-old, same-old mode. And that’s fine. As long as “everybody” doesn’t include the Mets.

      H8n, I’m with you and Geoff. Keep Chacon; leave a saucer of milk out for Jaret Wright. Just know that he’s going to end up in Baltimore with Leo Mazzone winning 15 games.

      Woy, Sorry you couldn’t watch tonight. If it makes you feel better, I was listening to the game on MLB radio in Dallas (where it’s 101 degrees) while talking to Acc, who was about four full minutes ahead of me, telling me what was about to happen. I felt like he was on the penne a la vodka and I was still sampling the olives and hard cheeses. And none of it was good news.

      Reid, how did you watch that disaster Twins game and game 7, 2001on the same night?  Dude, I would rather pull out my toenails with a crane than watch that game again.     

     JD, bring us back a win tomorrow, bro. 

      Happy birthday to mlblogs. It was a good, well executed idea. Congrats to you, Mark. I like to think that BPS, on its way to winning the “Best Community” award last year, provided mlblogs with a steady, heavily-commented chronicle of the most popular team in the game last year. We were featured on the mlbogs home page and even the mlb home page more than a few times as the pennant race heated up. So I like to think we were a contributor to the success of the idea.  And while we’re at it, BPS’s birthday is May 2. What will we do to celebrate?

      Two words. Winning streak……..