Mets Overcome Ollie's Follies to Swat Gnats

The Mets have to bring change to Washington (and Atlanta), and win the "easy" ones if they hope to keep their lead over the Phils till there ain't no more games. For a while, it didn't look good last night. This series is apparently the Gnats' World Series, so they are focused and intent on spoiling things for the real teams in the NL East, even after the Mets went and gave them Lastings Milledge this past off-season and everything!! The Met offense was jammin, but the pitching was looking all collapsy, led by the Human Mini-collapse Oliver Perez, who incidentally plans to demand a king's ransom for his services in the off-season. Just when it looked like an easy night for the Mets, it was time to duck and cover.

Next Jerry sent in the clowns, and --in a novel twist--one reliever after another could not get the job done. Nelson Figueroa came out of the pen to face the softball girls and got whaled on. Brandon Knight followed and performed like a "special" Olympian (ok that was a low blow...to the Special Olympians). Finally Smith, Show and Stokes were able to finally contain the mighty Nationals. The Mets offense was able to pick up the slack and, after Billy Wagner cried his way off stage earlier in the day, Luis Ayala was left to continue being the Mets closer til further notice, sort of like Sarah Palin is a candidate for Vice President. Meanwhile, the Fish led by Babyhead Cody Ross, built a ginormous lead over Philadelphia. Then they tried their damnest to squander it only to have the Phils run out of innings. Result? Mets are 3 up in the loss column.

All of my in-game anger is directed at two people.


Perez bites.

1) Olive Oil Perez.
Big game you doofus. Big is the opposite of small. I know this isn't always true, but big ticket pitchers come up big in big situations. They (sort of) earn the right to demand a lot of money. It was just deflating and depressing to watch you give all those runs right back.


2) Luis Aguayo.
Aguayo of course, is the man who single-handedly ran the Mets right out of first place in July by sending Endy Chávez home on David Wright base hits where he'd be thrown out by a country mile each time. As the Times put it, "Those two lost runs proved crucial when the Phillies scored six in the ninth to shock the Mets and take sole possession of first place in the National League East."

Here's how that NY Times column from July described Aguayo's decision making process:

Take a peek into the mind of Luis Aguayo, the Mets’ third-base coach, as he weighs whether to wave a runner home. He is processing the outfielder’s arm strength, his accuracy, which arm he throws with, where he retrieves the ball and how quickly he charged it. He is considering the runner’s stride, his speed, the width of his turn around second base, who else is on base and who is due up next. He is calculating the score, the number of outs and the inning.

Um, from what I have seen, Aguayo's thought process goes more like this:

Should I send him? It would take a half decent throw to nail my runner. I never used to get tequila headaches. So if they hit the cutoff man, my runner is toast. Delgado is coming up next and he seems to hit homeruns every other at-bat. BUURP! I wonder if I set the Tivo. Hey, are those boobies? These jockeys sure ride and bind. Anyway, I love the workout I get from windmilling my arm....wheeeee!

***