Tag: alejandro de aza

The De Aza Game 

On By themetssiah2 Comments



Final Score: Mets 10, Cardinals 6

Well it only took the entire month of August, but the Mets finally won a big series against a playoff contender. My mind is blown. My socks have been knocked off. And how did it happen? 34th-round pick Seth Lugo gave the Mets a clutch start, and Alejandro De Aza (starting for the injured Jay Bruce) drove in 5 runs against Adam Wainwright including a three-run homer. Unbelievable. The Mets are 3.5 games back in the Wild Card race. Now we start a homestand against the Phillies and Marlins. I feel rejuvenated. Honestly, by the end of the fifth inning my 2016 season optimism meter was skyrocketing. The opto-meter needle was at it’s highest level since May. And then Seth Lugo was METS-bitten and came out of the game in the 6th inning with another calf cramp injury. It was a feel good game. Then I went to the bathroom, and by the time I came back Lugo was gone and the good feelings started to evaporate. After Lugo was yanked the bullpen gave up 6 runs, but luckily the Mets held on for the win.

De Aza Catch: From the start De Aza was shining. The first ball of the game was rocked by Matt Carpenter and De Aza made a leaping catch at the wall. He took away a double. My main man Alejandro.

Wilmer Sac Fly: In the second inning, James Loney singled (one of 3 hits in the game) and Curtis Granderson doubled. Then Wilmer Flores managed to hit a sac fly off of Adam Wainwright to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

The De Aza Game?: In the fourth inning, Curtis Granderson reached on a fielding error and Wilmer Flores hit a double. With two runners in scoring position and nobody out Alejandro De Aza hit a clutch single to center field to drive in 2 runs and make it 3-0 Mets. A clutch hit with runners in scoring position? Alejandro De Aza did something? Hell yes!

The Challenge: In the fifth inning Yoenis Cespedes walked. Then James Loney hit a bloop single to left field, and Yo hustled to take third base. The play at third was challenged because the tag by Wainwright seemed on point. But upon replay review it was clear that Wainwright’s glove came off when Yo simultaneously stepped on the bag and Waino’s glove. The glove came clean off of his hand and the tag was ruled invalid. It was an absurd play. With first and third and one out Grandy struck out in pathetic fashion. Then Wilmer Flores hit one up the middle and the shortstop booted the ball. Yo scored on a gift error. The baseball gods finally gave the Mets a break.

The De Aza Game: Right after the run scoring error, Alejandro De Aza came up and launched a three-run homer to make it 7-0 Mets. His 5th RBI of the game. A month ago I said we’d never see the day when De Aza was a hero. Well this was his day.

Lugo Dunzo: Seth Lugo pitched 5 scoreless innings and gave up 2 hits. Then he came out of the game as he fell victim to the great calf epidemic of 2016. Jim Henderson came in and promptly gave up a two-run homer to Brandon Moss to make it 7-2.

Decapitated: In the 7th inning Jerry Blevins was almost killed by a comebacker hit by Matt Carpenter. It just missed hitting Blevins’ face/pitching hand. That’s just noteworthy because of our injury epidemic, and also because Blevins missed all of last season due to a comebacker off of his pitching arm. The guy is a baseball magnet. But Jerry retired the side in the 7th.

We Barely Finished: In the 8th inning the Mets loaded the bases with one out but only managed to add one more run. Asdrubal Cabrera hit an RBI single to make it 8-2 but Yo hit into a double play with the bases loaded to end the inning. In the 8th inning Brandon Moss hit another solo homer and then the Cards scored another run off of Josh Smoker after an error and a bunch of soft cheap hits. But the Mets escaped the inning with the score 8-4. Then in the 9th inning Loney and Flores singled, and Rene Rivera put the final dagger in the Cards heart with a single of his own. He drove in 2 more runs to make it 10-4. Jedd Gyorko and Stephen Piscotty added solo homers off of Sean Gilmartin in the 9th, but Sean managed to close it out. 10-6 was the final score.

Classic Mets: I must say that the Mets offense has started to mash again at literally the exact same moment that every single pitcher in the organization has burnt out. No lead was safe tonight with this pitching staff. The timing of the offense/pitching Freaky Friday flip-flop is completely ridiculous. Classic Mets.

Met Killers: Yadier Molina added another hit against the Mets tonight before he was pulled from the game once the Mets established a 7 run lead. The Cardinals tweeted that he’s hitting .579 against the Mets this season. What a goddamn Met killer. Speaking of Met killers, Carlos Ruiz was traded by Philly to the Dodgers. At least we won’t have to face him this weekend!

Speaking of .500: Speaking of dudes batting .500, Michael Conforto is literally hitting over .500 in Vegas. Grandy hasn’t done anything to deserve playing time right now. Conforto should be up here and playing the outfield ASAP.

Seriously: I was reminded today that Kyle Hendricks on the Cubs leads the NL in ERA. First Jake Arrieta emerges as a star and now Kyle Hendricks? Now the Cubs have the elite young pitching and hitting? What the hell do the Mets have? And why can’t we have some guy magically emerge as a stud? I want one of those out of nowhere success stories for the Mets.

Tomorrow: It’s really simple people. If we want to win the Wild Card then we need to make up ground. Sweep the Phillies at home. It’s time to streak.

De Aza And Murph: The Curse Reminder Game

On By themetssiah3 Comments

Final Score: Nationals 4, Mets 2

At this point, the Mets 2016 season has hit “rock bottom” too many times to even count. The term “rock bottom” has lost all meaning. But the outcome of this game goes much deeper than a simple loss. The recap is quick and simple. Daniel Murphy hit a solo home run off of Logan Verrett in the second inning to make it 1-0. Jayson Werth added a sac fly in the third inning and Murph added a two run shot in the 8th inning off of Sean Gilmartin to make it 4-0. The Mets never had a real opportunity off of Max Scherzer in this game. Scherzer was pulled in the 8th inning after going 7.1 scoreless innings and striking out 10. In the 9th inning, Yoenis Cespedes singled and James Loney hit a two run home run to make it 4-2. Yeah that’s right. James Loney our 2016 cleanup hitter launched a home run.

METS Disease: This wasn’t just some pitchers duel with a few key home runs. This game served as a reminder for all Mets fans how real the franchise curse is. It reminds all Mets fans how real METS disease is. We watched both phenomena happening simultaneously on the field. It’s been genuinely hard to watch Alejandro De Aza step into the batter’s box in 2016. He’s hitting .158/.208/.232 on the season. He is arguably the best example we have in 2016 of what METS disease can do to a player. De Aza is a man who once had major league skills and abilities and now he has none of the above. De Aza came to the Mets with a career .263/.326/.398 batting line. In his career he had success against right handed pitching to the tune of a .743 OPS.

All those skills and credentials became meaningless once he signed with the Mets. As soon as his pen hit the dotted line of his Mets contract he was instantly infected. Alejandro was no different than Chris Young or John Mayberry Jr. These were all players with decent major league resumes. They had known skills. They were versatile outfielders brought in to play a bench role. But with the Mets they couldn’t even make contact in batting practice. With METS disease you inexplicably lose your skills or you lose your health. In rare cases you lose them both at once (e.g. Michael Cuddyer). In last night’s game, De Aza came to the plate in the 8th inning with men on second and third and two outs. He struck out against Shawn Kelley in pathetic fashion. De Aza will suffer the same fate as Chris Young and Mayberry. He will be released mid-season. Goodbye Alejandro. Take some time off to recover from the METS and go rejuvenate your career somewhere else.

Mets Curse: The Daniel Murphy storyline is where we had the opportunity to see the Mets curse happening live. For Mets fans, his success is the least surprising thing of all time. The Mets spent the better part of two years trying to trade Daniel Murphy for a mid-level prospect. Gary Cohen once went on TV and referred to Murph as a “net negative”. We all know what Gary meant. Murph was an above average major league hitter, with limited power, and was an absolute liability at every single position. He cost the Mets games with defensive gaffes all time time. Sure we all saw him carry the team to the World Series with tons of dingers. But we also saw him Murph it up defensively in the World Series. We all knew Murph never hit more than 14 homers. Murph never posted an OPS higher than .770 in a season where he had more than 500 ABs.

Murph was an average to slightly above average hitter. That’s not an opinion. It’s a fact based on his pre-2016 career numbers. We all watched the guy for 7 years. Well he’s not average anymore. He’s having an MVP season. He’s now an MVP candidate and a Met killer for life. That’s not natural. No I’m not attributing it to steroids. It’s just the Mets curse. It’s the way things work. We’ve seen it all before. And now the curse is manifesting itself yet again in the form of Daniel Murphy.

The Takeaway: The only takeaway I have is to never forget. Never let a World Series run or some run of short lived success fool you when it comes to the Mets. The Fans Remember. We must remember the team that we root for and everything that goes with it. It’s not a matter of the fans being cynical or pessimistic. We’ve all seen METS disease and the Mets curse play out a million times in a million different situations. It’s not pessimism. It’s realism.

Today: The Mets open a home series against the Cubs today. Don’t be fooled. Don’t think for one second that anything that happened in the 2015 playoffs will have any impact on how this weekend series will play out. The season is unraveling. It’s all unraveling. The sky is falling. The Cubs are going to dance on our pre All-Star break grave.

Reality Check: Trading De Aza Makes No Sense

On By themetssiah1 Comment


Today the Mets held a press conference to re-announce the Yoenis Cespedes signing. Just a little show for the cameras and another opportunity for Cespedes to say through his translator that he’s happy to be back in New York and wants to win the World Series. Great. Fantastic. Fans love to see events like this, and they get everyone pumped for the season.

The problems started when Sandy came out for Q&A and the focus of the beat reporters shifted from Cespedes to the future of Alejandro De Aza. That’s right. On this exciting day for the franchise, the beat reporters couldn’t stop asking Sandy questions like “how will everyone get enough playing time?” And “will you consider trading De Aza this spring?”

To the trade question Sandy responded, “We’re not pursuing any of that at the moment”. He also talked about how everyone on the roster is a “regular” and we should look at “the full complement of players”.

But of course the media is focusing on how he added De Aza’s situation is “a little less clear” and his admission that a trade is “conceivable”.

Ummmm what the hell is everyone talking about? After creating an incredibly deep and talented roster, why would we want to trade away the depth?!? Why are the reporters even wasting our GM’s time by asking him these stupid questions? These questions imply that having depth is a problem and that trading De Aza makes sense.

News flash everyone: You need depth to win. Did we learn nothing from the second half of last season? Do we really want to line the bench with garbage players like Kirk Nieuwenhuis who strike out every time they get up to bat? And by asking the question about De Aza’s playing time, the reporters are ignoring what De Aza did the second Cespedes signed. He logged on Facebook and wrote:

“Looking forward to playing alongside Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, Juan Lagares, Michael Conforto and the rest of my new Met teammates. Focus is not on individual accomplishments, its on winning a championship for the city of New York.”

So De Aza doesn’t even care about his damn playing time. He publicly told everyone that’s he’s jacked up to backup.

And the questions are even more absurd because of the chain of events in our organization the last 7 days. Brandon Nimmo, our top outfield prospect at AAA just tore a ligament in his foot. He’s out 4-6 weeks. Yesterday we traded away Darrell Ceciliani to the Blue Jays to make room on the roster for Cespedes. So if we trade De Aza who the hell steps in on the bench? Eric “Soup” Campbell? He’s more likely to hit .400 in Triple-A Vegas than hit .150 in the major leagues.

The beat reporters spent the entire offseason writing articles about how Cespedes wasn’t a good fit for the team and how we needed to instead build a deep and versatile roster. Well they were all proven wrong about Cespedes when Sandy Alderson disagreed with their crackpot theories and brought him back. Now we have our star and our deep roster. Can everyone just shut up, smile, and enjoy it?