Well, for one day at least, the New York Mets are on top of the heap in the National League East. Johan Santana, the 130 million dollar man, pitched a great game and the offense came through with a big six-run inning, topped off by David Wright's bases-clearing double.
There is probably no other team, not even the crosstown Yankees, that has more pressure on them than the Mets. Two years ago, they probably had the best team in baseball, yet they allowed a clearly inferior Cardinals team to beat them in the NLCS, depriving the Mets from a berth in the World Series. No Mets fan will ever forget the excruciating sight of Carlos Beltran watching a called strike three with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth of game seven.
Last year was supposed to be the year that would make things right, and after leading the division for the first 22 weeks of the season, the Mets succombed to one of the all-time collosal collapses in all of Major Leage history. It was horribly brutal. No, it was worse than that, it was potentially devestating.
So, the Mets opened up their checkbooks one more time and signed Santana to the richest contract of any pitcher in baseball history. And, for all those untold millions, he is expected to do only one thing, lead the Mets to a championship. Sure, no one single ballplayer can bring about a championship. And sure, the Mets have to hope that Pedro Martinez is healthy and at least somewhat like his former self, and Carlos Delgado regains his power-hitting stroke, and Carlos Beltran stays healthy all year, and Jose Reyes does not falter again in the last six weeks of the season, and Moises Alou quickly comes off the DL, and John Maine and Oliver Perez continue to improve, and the bullpen doesn't implode like it did last year. That's an awful lot of ifs, not to mention an awful lot of pressure on Johan Santana.
But that's the way it is with the '08 Mets. Santana was brought over to win a championship, nothing less will suffice. And if it does not happen, you can bet that manager Willie Randolph will be gone. And maybe general manager Omar Minaya. The future is now for the New York Mets. Welcome to the Big Apple, Johan.
3 comments:
I truly believe the Mets have the chance to go 162-0.
Pedro
(oh no)
Good thing we have ---
(oops)
Well, that didn't take long. Pedro is out for 4-6 weeks (at least). The good news: Oliver Perez looked even better than Johan Santana. The bad news: It's not that tough to take two out of three from Florida. I think the Mets play twelve games against the Phillies and Braves in the next couple of weeks. Let's see where the Mets are in the standings when they make their annual trip to Phoenix the first week of May.
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