Mets Break Hearts… Again

The New York Mets break the heart of many New Yorkers once again for the second straight year. Much like last year they blew their division lead late in the season to a streaking Phillies team. This year not quite as bad as they only held a 2 game lead over Philadelphia coming into September. However to blow the wild card is inexcusable.

For the second straight year, the Florida Marlins have crushed the hopes and dreams of any playoff and world series contention for the NY Mets and along with that comes the hearts of their die-hard fans. This year was the last year of the stadium that served as their home for many years, Shea Stadium, which made it all worse.

The Mets were caught from behind by another team for the wild card playoff spot, the Milwaukee Brewers. With C.C. Sabathia leading the Brewers back and stepping up as the ace of the staff and arguably even the best pitcher in the N.L. the Brewers were almost unstoppable. They beat the best team in the N.L., the Chicago Cubs, to earn their well-deserved playoff spot. The Brewers batting lineup is one of the best with Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun being the main causes of that. Ryan Braun came through in the clutch for the Brewers countless times this year, but the most memorable was his last home run in the last game of the season, where from that point on the Brewers never looked back and took the wild card right out of the Mets lifeless hands.

The Brewers should be given 95% of the credit for their wild card position, and who gets the remaining 5% of the credit? Well the answer to that is the NY Mets bullpen and their inability to finish out a game no matter how big the Mets are leading. Since Billy Wagner went down with a shoulder injury; the Mets had no bullpen and had lost all ability to closeout games. The bullpen blew 7 wins for Johan Santana alone, if the bullpen could have closed out at least 2 or 3 of those games they would be sitting comfortably in the wild card playoff spot. Last year, Jose Reyes took much blame for his slumping during the Mets’ colossal breakdown. This year, Reyes was in anything but a slump, he was the hottest Mets player there was down the stretch in every category, from fielding to batting. It can not all be done by one person, he needed some help and even if he did receive help their bullpen would let them down.

This is starting to become a habit for the Mets as they have done this twice in two years. They will always be in question on whether they will be able to finish out a season or not. It will be interesting to see if they make any drastic moves this off season. Minaya will be under the media’s microscope this off season and all of next year. Everyone will be watching next year waiting to see how they closeout the season if they are in playoff contention. It should be interesting. Stay tuned.