Flickering Offense, Sputtering Fans at New Shea

Posted by Gavin McCormick on Friday, June 12, 2009 at 12:34 am

Went to CitiField (or the New Shea, as traditionalists and anti-corporatists insist on calling it) Thursday night for the rubber game of the Phils-Mets series. New York had enjoyed its most spirited win of the year Tuesday, 6-5, despite four homers off Johan Santana, who jazzed up the night by ignoring a bunt sign and smacking an RBI double, then showing up his manager when he got pulled. They followed that Wednesday with their most disspiriting loss, 5-4 in 11 innings, leaving 16 men on base and helping the Phillies tie the game in the 7th with a dropped fly ball by Carlos Beltran (scored a single) and a misplayed chopper by David Wright.

Thursday’s matchup was Tim Redding (0-2, 6.97) versus Jamie Moyer (4-5, 6.27), whose unsightly stats were mitigated by recent success. Moyer’s last four starts had lowered his ERA by 2 runs, going 25 innings with a 3.60 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, and a 14-3 K-BB ratio. Meanwhile, Redding, getting his fifth start while filling in for the DL’d Oliver Perez, had his best the previous time out against the Nats, giving up 1 run in 6 innings against his former team. The Mets might have signed him this winter having eyed his almost Perez-like success against the Phils in 2008, when he went 3-1 in five starts with a 3.41 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP.

Considering the lineup he faced, Redding enjoyed his best start as a Met. The first two times through the lineup he relied on curves and change-ups for his out pitches; the third time through he went back to his 90 MPH fastball. He gave up a run in the 3rd on a soft single to Pedro Feliz followed by a jam-shot that Chris Coste couldn’t have placed more precisely, just out of Luis Castillo’s reach, that moved Feliz to third; he scored on Jimmy Rollins’ sacrifice fly.

Moyer generally pitched well at Shea, but his first New Shea outing, on May 7, was a 2.1-inning, 7-run disaster. Thursday was a different story, as he was able to locate all his pitches and keep most hitters off balance. The only Met offense was a short story told three times: a Castillo hit (double in the 1st, single in the 3rd, double in the 5th), followed by an Alex Cora productive out (two bunts and a grounder to the right side), succeeded by a Carlos Beltran RBI (ground out, double, sac fly). The scalding David Wright cracked three hits but advanced nowhere, dragged down by an anemic bottom of the order and his own baserunning (trying to stretch a 4th-inning single off the left-centerfield wall, Raul Ibanez threw a strike to Chase Utley that had him by six feet).

So it was 3-1 Mets going into the 6th. Charlie Manuel’s confidence in his offense was clear from his 5th-inning decision to play the infield back with Castillo on third, one out, and Beltran at the plate. Moyer gave up the third run, but given the Phils’ ability to come back (2nd best offense in the NL after the Dodgers from the 7th inning on), the fans sat uneasily. Rollins led off the 6th with a bloop that a sliding Gary Sheffield couldn’t corral, and one out later Redding made his first clear mistake, a first-pitch changeup that caught too much plate that and was ripped down the right-field line by Chase Utley: Mets 3, Phils 2. Redding then had his finest hour, fanning Ryan Howard and Ibanez.

He followed that by striking out Jayson Werth leading off the 7th. But Feliz reached for an outside slider and blooped a one-out single, and then Redding made mistake number two, to Coste: another thigh-high changeup, another double pulled down the line, and the tying run stood at third. Jerry Manuel kept his infield back, and pinch-hitter Matt Stairs plated Feliz with a grounder to second. Redding’s night ended with a tidy, 92-pitch, 7 6 3 3 0 6 line (countered by Moyer’s 102-pitch 6 8 3 3 0 3 night).

The Met offense then went silent. Following 6 shutout innings Wednesday, the Phillie bullpen worked 4 innings of 1-hit, no-walk ball. With two stars out (Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado), New York has become punchless, with almost no production from the corner outfield spots and first base. Since moving into the lineup with regularity, Sheffield has been better than expected, but Fernando Tatis, Daniel Murphy, and Ryan Church have provided little pop. Church came back from the DL this week and went 3-11 in three games, with a double, a homer, four walks and four runs. Manuel rewarded him by sitting him against Moyer. It wasn’t a lefty-lefty decision (Church is 4-16 lifetime with a double and 2 HBP v. Moyer), since the starter was 20-year-old lefty swinger Fernando Martinez. Predictably, Martinez fanned twice, was lucky to get hit by a pitch, then fouled out against the lefty Scott Eyre. Why Church remains in Manuel’s doghouse is unclear, but the Mets need to stick him out there until they trade for a replacement.

Manuel’s other goof came in the 10th, and it cost the game. For the third straight night, Pedro Feliciano had cut through the trio of Utley, Howard, and Ibanez with ease (holding them to 0-8 with a walk in the series). But Manuel in the extra frame went to his other lefty, Ken Takahashi. Coming into Thursday, here were Takahashi’s 2009 splits: righties, 3-29, 3 BBs; lefties, 11-25, 3 2Bs, 1 3B, 3 BBs. That’s a sufficient body of evidence to argue for him to be a specialist against right-handed hitters. But when Shane Victorino bounced a one-out single off Bobby Parnell, Manuel stuck to his book. (Utley’s homer off Parnell to win Wednesday’s game doubtless influenced the decision.) Takahashi walked Utley on five pitches, fanned Howard, and, on his third straight changeup to Ibanez, gave up a bomb into the Met bullpen. Ballgame: 6-3 Phillies.

It’s only June, it’s only a four-game deficit, and, yes, the Mets have had injuries. But in its third year of NL East dominance, it’s easy to conclude that Philadelphia is simply better than New York. Even without Brett Myers, the starting pitching is comparable; even with the Mets’ improvement and Brad Lidge’s woes, the bullpens appear comparable. The Phillie defense is better, especially in the outfield corners. And without Reyes and Delgado, the offenses aren’t even close.

More than I’d seen in the past three years, Mets fans Thursday night exuded an air of resignation and defeat similar to Phillie crowds I sat with in 2005 and 2006, and reminiscent of the most toxically negative fans I’ll ever experience, Red Sox Nation from the late 1980s until 2004. Expectations soar, but the smallest failure leads to instant recrimination and anger and self-pity. Where the pre-millennial Red Sox fan was more sorrowful, the Met fan shares with his more recent Phillie peers a tendency toward nastiness that’s hard for a neutral fan to sit through. The sniping at Wright and Beltran and Reyes has been consistent this year, and consistently absurd.

So far no 2009 Met has fallen into the role of designated boo-bird, the favored, often illogical recipient of the fans’ collective disgust. In Philadelphia in 2005 it was catcher Mike Lieberthal; in 2006 it was third baseman David Bell. Last year, Met fans enjoyed two, Castillo and reliever Aaron Heilman. It’s unclear where the burden will fall in 2009: it’s hard to blame injury replacements; Castillo, Wright, Beltran, and the bullpen (save the injured JJ Putz) have been too good; and starting pitchers aren’t on the field enough to fill the role.

It’s a race that — probably unlike the 2009 NL East pennant drive, unless Omar Minaya adds a bat — will bear watching right through September.