The Common Sense Mets Fan

If you watched last night’s game, you know that Santana couldn’t hold onto a 4 run lead and that Mike Baxter interfered with Kirk Nieuwenhuis (hey look! I spelled it right on the first try!) which led to the game winning run. 

Santana still has a long way to go until he’s the Santana of old, if he even gets there. Yes, he’s healthy enough to pitch and he can go out there and do it. But his stuff will never be the same and he’s still getting comfortable with his repaired arm. That’s not a criticism or your typical journalistic fear-mongering, it just is. He’s going to have his good days and bad days and yesterday was a bad day. It sucked that he gave it up, but it’s not surprising. 

The “Baxter Incident”, as it were, is another growing pain of this team. You’ve got two young outfielders in a pressure situation and they buckled. Part of it is Kirk’s desire to make every play. Recall this weekend in Toronto when he almost ran into Lucas Duda trying to catch a fly ball Duda had lined up. The other part is that these young outfielders have to learn how to communicate out there. Duda safely made the play while Nieuwenhuis tumbled behind him. Baxter thought he had it but couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. It’s something they’ll need to work on moving forward. 

So what does the above have to do with the DL? Santana is obvious. He’s still on the road back from it. Regarding the outfielders, Baxter wouldn’t have been out there in the first place had Jason Bay not cracked a rib. You can’t blame Terry Collins for trying to put one of his best bats into the lineup, but with everybody healthy, Baxter is your go-to guy off the bench. 

Furthermore, the team may have scored more than four runs if not for the DL. It’s difficult to speculate if Jason Bay would have contributed, but Tejada and Thole are much, much better than Cedeno and Nickeas. No, they’re not superstars. But they’re solid players and tougher outs. 

This team needs and has more offense and better defense. It’s just on the sidelines, while the Buffalo Bisons play in their place. The DL exposes how little major league ready talent there is at the top of the system and why this team is at least a year or two off from really contending. You can’t just have an ace pitcher and a few sluggers and expect to win. It takes the entire 40 man roster to contend all season.

Now if only we could figure out Ike Davis…

What the heck is going on in Philly? Up is down, black is white, dogs and cats are living together?! 

Last night, Jordany Valdespin hit the most dramatic home run of the season to with the game (With a great call by Gary Cohen. If you missed it, check it out here). Tonight, it was a total team effort. 

But there have been some seriously wacky plays to go along with these wins. Bobby Parnell fell on his behind while trying to field a bunt from Placido Polanco last night. Josh Thole gets run over by former Met Ty Wigginton. Then Ike puts a crazy tag on in the ninth. 

Tonight, both Valdespin and Daniel Murphy threw the ball away. David Wright gets caught in a crazy run down, and ends up at third when Kirk Nieuwenhuis scores. Wright then makes a spectacular play in the field and throws out Shane Victorino at second when Victorino faked stealing and stopped. He’d have been safe if he doesn’t fake it. 

Yeah, it’s cliche. But just when you think you’d seen everything, games like these pop up. This team plays hard and these have been great wins. The kind of games real winning teams play. 

The Mets play the Houston Astros tonight at Minute Maid Park, and welcome centerfielder Andres Torres back into the fold. 

Who?

Andres Torres, you know, the guy that hurt his calf in spring training, rushed his rehab, and then hurt it again opening day? The Mets traded Angel Pagan for Torres and Ramon Ramirez. 

Who?

Ok, he’s the guy that’s replacing Kirk Nieuwenhuis in center tonight. Kirk will move to left. But, why?Well, this is the argument that’s been going on. What to do with Kirk when Torres gets healthy.

One argument says that Nieuwenhuis is the “Centerfielder of THE FUTURE”, so he should play there. Torres is just a stopgap anyway and he can move to wherever there’s a need. So put him in left, especially coming off of a calf injury where he shouldn’t be running full speed anyway. After the game yesterday afternoon, Bobby Ojeda made a really terrible argument that Nieuwenhuis has now played 15 games with Duda to his right, and they now have a special bond out there that cannot be broken. Apparently, bringing Torres in would ruin that. (Good thing Bobby O isn’t the manager.)

The flip-side is putting Nieuwenhuis in left does a few things for the Mets. First, it lets them see how flexible Kirk is. If he can play left, then he becomes an immediate threat to Jason Bay upon his return. Maybe that will finally light a fire under Bay’s bat. Second, if Torres is indeed a stopgap, then it builds trade value if he can play to his potential. A speedy centerfielder is far more valuable on the mid-season trade market than a kinda hurt, light hitting but speedy left fielder. Third, while Torres has played left before, he’s been rehabbing in center. It’s important for him to be comfortable in his movements. He’d play left if you asked him to, but let the guy get his bearings first. 

So there it is. Torres plays center and Kirk plays left. At least for today. 

Last night’s loss was tough. It was one of those one run games that seems to make all the difference over the course of a season. The loss in the 10th was a complete team loss. Francisco walks Cabrera, and Cabrera then steals second. Collins then intentionally walks Schierholtz. Sanchez singles in Cabrera and Schierholtz makes it to third on Nieuwenhuis’ bobble. Francisco finally gets out of it, but the damage had been done. In the bottom of the inning, Murphy and Wright get on, but Ike, Bay, and Duda can’t get it done. Bay was even called out on strikes after swinging at a pitch he shouldn’t have, because the previous pitch, which was outside, was called a strike. You can complain about Bay not being a WIN METHOD player, but the ump wasn’t doing him any favors either. 

But the talk of the town today and within the coming weeks will be Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Especially if he continues to play like he did last night. He went 1-3 with a home run into the brand new Party Deck and a walk, and made a Jim Edmonds-esque catch, laying out in centerfield. How can you not like that? 

So what’s the speculation? Simply, whether or not he’ll stay with the team once Andres Torres recovers from his calf injury. Some people are calling for a Bay/Nieuwenhuis platoon in left field. Others are calling for a Torres/Nieuwenhuis platoon in center. Or he could ride the bench because any time with the big club is better than time in the minors. I’m not a fan of any of these ideas. Send him down to Buffalo for regular playing time. He’ll get better and can always be brought back up during the season. Platooning him or getting him into a game for a few at bats a week won’t do any good.

Looking at the bigger picture, Torres isn’t going to be a Met for long, even if he fully recovers from his injury and plays the best ball of his life. He, like Mike Pelfrey, is a stopgap for the talent developing in the minors. But he still has a major league contract and Nieuwenhuis has options. So Kirk gets sent down when Torres returns. Sorry Captain, but thems the breaks when you have options. 

The worst part of the past five seasons hasn’t been the losing. It’s been the injuries. The Mets have spent more time on the disabled list than any other team in the majors. The training and medical staffs need to take a good look at what they’re doing, what the players are doing, and how they can work together to keep these guys on the field. It was a telling sign when the entire training staff, with the exception of the massage therapist, was booed during Opening Day ceremonies. For all their faults, this is one area where Mets fans know what’s up. I’m shocked that those booing fans didn’t turn into an angry mob when Andres Torres pulled up lame in the 7th inning. It’s just plain disappointing. The Mets thought they were getting rid of Angel Pagan’s oblique injuries and poor defensive leadership for a proven reliever and a good defensive outfielder. But from here, it looks like they just traded one set of injuries for another.

The immediate solution to Torres’ injury is Scott Hairston. But he’s not a long-term solution. Unfortunately, it’s not just a matter of if/when Torres can come back. First, Hairston isn’t much of a centerfielder. Second, he’s just returning from an oblique injury this spring, which was a re-aggravation of the injury that sidelined him at the end of last season. I’m not much for fear mongering (I’m generally content to leave that gossip-mongers like Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman), but Hairston could indeed re-injure himself at any time. This leaves us to look further into the organization for depth, and to Kirk Nieuwenhuis.

Captain Kirk was to start his year in Buffalo after having shoulder surgery last fall. Only a few days ago, the Mets were trying out 2B/SS prospect Jordanny Valdespin in centerfield because Torres’ calf wasn’t progressing, Captain Kirk and Scott Hairston were recovering from injury, and prospect Mat Den Dekker was overmatched by major league pitching. The plan going into spring training was to give Nieuwenhuis time to get comfortable and develop in Buffalo. Word is that he strikes out too much and needs to learn patience at the plate. So send him down, and if he tears up triple-A, then he’s the prime candidate to become this team’s fourth outfielder later this summer.

But the Mets simply don’t have that luxury now. They’ll bring him up for Saturday’s game and let him split time with Mike Baxter over the next 15 days of Torres’ DL time. Besides, at the rate Jason Bay is hitting, one of them will become a regular by May anyway.