ICU Gotta Believe

Nagging injuries mar the end of an otherwise enjoyable opening week

Record: 4-3, 2nd in division, 1.5 GB

The important issues:

Nearly every preview of the 2004 Mets season contained a line like the following: The Mets have a chance to improve to .500 this year, but only if sluggers Cliff Floyd and Mike Piazza stay healthy. Legion Commander Cornelius suffered an injury of the sort that only a truly professional athlete can when he severely sprained a muscle on a routine run to first base. I have a knack for turning on the TV set and flipping to the Mets just as a player is about to get injured -- I saw Reyes pull up lame jogging to third seconds after I tuned in to that fateful Spring Training game -- yet I’m mystified at the nonchalance with which our Amazin’s have been destroying their bodies. Floyd was really hurting by the time he lugged himself to the bag, and stayed doubled over for several minutes, wincing in a fashion reminiscent of Nancy Kerrigan’s Oscar-worthy "Why, Why" monologue. Folks, he was running out a grounder. He was running pretty hard, but not at full tilt. Similarly, Reyes slid into second, jogged down to third, and still hasn’t recovered from the painful experience of running the bases at the Major League level. Kaz Matsui fielded a grounder in Spring Training and ended up getting stitches. Karim Garcia, who has showed surprising speed on the basepaths and agility in the outfield, caught a ball with two hands and lost a fingernail. What have the Mets done that they should suffer such ignominious injuries? Is their play respectable enough now that the baseball gods have decreed the requisite embarrassment must come from another source? Somewhere, John Rocker sits in a trailer in front of a rabbit-eared television that shows nothing but static, his once useful hands busy sticking pins into bobblehead dolls.

Without Floyd and Reyes the Mets are not only a less successful, but considerably less interesting team to watch. Health is our biggest concern right now, and while I’m worried about it because I can’t see any way for it to be improved, I’m not exactly ready to call up Johnny Damon to administer Last Rites. It’s too early. We’ll field our full lineup in a couple of weeks.

Some very old men (in baseball years) stand to see significant playing time, but only if the playing time ventures close enough within the range of their fading eyesight. Mike Stanton, John Franco, and David Weathers are old pitchers playing for a team with no great chance to contend, in an organization stocked with young pitchers, at a position in relief that is the easiest to replace. They are making significant money to do it, too -- $7.6 million in 2004 (courtesy Dugout Dollars). They are not pitching well. On a more uplifting note, their young replacements Orber Moreno and Grant Roberts are really doing quite -- actually, they’re not pitching very well either. At least the closer we’re wasting another $3 million on really is exceeding his mediocre billing in three short appearances.

On the other hand, our starting pitching is looking good. Glavine hasn’t exploded, which to be honest is really all I was hoping for. His 1.38 ERA and 0.92 WHIP in two starts are encouraging, but I think he’d be better off slipping umpires 50s as long as he’s hitting them on the radar gun. Tyler Yates had a quality start against a bad team in the Expos, and it’s a measure of the shallowness of our starting pitching that people are still saying it was brilliant days later. I think starting will be one of our strengths again, though I doubt our bullpen will be able to support them by pitching through arthritis and the fatigue of day games after Bingo nights.

Our offense, however, has been incredibly fun to watch. Kaz Matsui has made the Battle of Two Matsuis an afterthought this week, as he has emerged as the dominant AAAA superstar now playing in the Majors. I’ve been most surprised by his patience at the plate, as his slap-hitting approach looked ugly in Spring Training and still has occasionally this past week. It seems he’s two different people at the plate: one fellow who is concentrating on putting the pitch where he wants it, and is so focused on making contact with the ball he is committed to swinging at everything; and another who is willing to take pitches and shows excellent strike zone judgment, hits the fat pitches without trying to flip them into left field, and looks like a great leadoff hitter. Piazza has been his usual self, which is difficult to describe to someone who doesn’t watch him hit regularly. To use an applicable baseball cliche, the ball "jumps off his bat", as Mike usually hits fastballs and hits them with such power they’re only a blur and nearly into the outfield by the time the in play cameras get around to covering them. Floyd has a similar ability to crush bad pitches, but I think his range at the plate is just a tad more limited. Jason Phillips is another hitter who has surprised me with his patience at the plate; I knew he didn’t strike out very much, but he seems to have an even better eye than I’d thought. I only wish he ran faster than a Commodore 64 so that we could bat him up higher in the lineup. Phillips and Piazza must be two of the slowest players in the league, if not the game, and I’d almost definitely put some money on a for-charity race between the two catchers and a fully-loaded river barge. Karim Garcia and Shane Spencer have performed admirably in their platoon, which lasted an entire week before being dismantled. Hopefully we’ll see it in action again soon. I’ve said it before, but it needs to be emphasized: Karim may look like a juice-fat Jason Giambi’s little brother, but he runs like Guillermo Mota.

We’re a .500 ballclub, in my mind, and that’s OK because we’re a lot more fun to watch this year. We’re speedy, athletic, and powerful to this point, which makes any horrendous collapses by the bullpen easier to stomach. Injuries are our Achilles heel (sorry, Cliff, everyone). Eric Valent hit a home run after taking over for Floyd, and that’s a nice story, but I liked him better last year when he called himself Jeff Duncan. My quiet, undercurrent optimism dies a little with every at bat by a AAA non-prospect who will not be with the team when it becomes a winner, but it’s going to take a lot of those to bring me down when we’ve got a better record than the Yankees and Braves.

Tied with Boston currently, too, although I’m not throwing that gauntlet down for another couple of weeks.