Joba Disbelief and McCain Relief

I left work yesterday not knowing the outcome of the Yankees-Padres game, but as I tuned into WFAN during the evening drive I began to think something remarkable happened earlier in the afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

Yankee fan after Yankee fan continued to call and offer praise for Joba Chamberlain’s masterful pitching performance. My initial thought was: no hitter? Boy, was I off on that one!

The way these people were talking, one would think Joba just pulled off something that has never happened in New York Mets’ history, something that only Jon Lester has done this season.

Moments later via the 20-20 update, I learned that Joba did indeed do something remarkable. He pitched 5.2 innings of one-run ball and needed just over 100 pitches to do it. Wow.

To all those drinking the Joba-Girardi Kool-Aid, relax. Let me put this in perspective for you. Oliver Perez went SIX innings on Wednesday night against the Angels, and we all know what a stud he can be at times. So I wouldn't exactly call any starting performance that ends after 5.2 innings masterful. Statistically, Joba didn't even qualify for a "quality start." How can something that isn't even considered quality be brilliant by any means?

To be fair to Joba, he is improving. His 5.2 innings of one-run ball yesterday trump his final collegiate effort for Nebraska when Manhattan College’s Matt Rizzotti and John Fitzpatrick ripped back-to-back jacks off Joba on the way to sending the future Yankees starter to a 4-1 home loss in the opening game of the 2006 NCAA Lincoln Regional.

I, as every other fan in baseball, would love to have Joba on my favorite team’s roster, but let’s not anoint him as the next Jimmy Key just yet.

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With gasoline at $4/gallon and diesel (used to power engines that bring food to our grocery stores) at $5/gallon, Americans are suffering at the pump.

Both presumptive presidential nominees are touring the nation, campaigning and sucking up fossil fuels along the way, but only one man has yet to provide a solution to curb the current energy crisis.

Senator John McCain (R) recently called for lifting the ban on Outer Continental Shelf drilling, which will allow us to take advantage of the resources that lie off our coast. It will give us access to the same resources that China is currently sucking up thanks to Cuba’s allowance to let the Chinese drill in the Gulf.

Senator Barack Obama (D) staunchly opposes lifting the ban and claims that America must focus on finding new sources of renewable energy.

Obama’s point is well-taken, but narrow-minded.

It is undoubtedly time to sincerely develop alternative sources of energy that will eventually eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels, but that will take time. Even when the world is able to mass produce a car that runs on water or hydrogen, time will be needed to phase in the new way of life. One can’t expect millions of gasoline-burning cars and thousands of diesel trucks to disappear instantaneously.

While we develop our plan for the future, we have to address “the now.” Now, a number of Americans are struggling to get to work and to feed their families. These hard-working folks deserve relief, and they deserve it now. Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.

Delgadda-GO

Click Here to See Delgado's Statistical Slide

A half-inning after Jose Reyes welcomed freshly-appointed New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel into his new role with a childish, on-field temper tantrum, Carlos Delgado took his turn in greeting the skipper.

In what has become typical Delgado fashion, the less-than-nimble first baseman booted a routine groundball that extended Anaheim’s turn at bat and cost the Mets a run.

In what certainly won’t be viewed as the most eloquent of moves, the Mets changed their manager on Monday, but in reality they changed nothing. Willie Randolph was sacrificed for what Minaya deemed “an underperforming” ball club, but all 25 underperformers remained untouched and intact.

Minaya, like most of the Shea Faithful, clearly recognized his club needed a shake-up, and massive on-field personnel overhaul was not a realistic option when the calendar already read June 16. The Mets’ general manager had to find a more reasonable way to wake his club from its year-long slumber, and his recent acquisition of the hard-nosed, grizzled veteran Trot Nixon was not exactly going to send shockwaves through the clubhouse.

In choosing the most convenient option and showing Randolph the door, Minaya sacrificed the wrong man. Yes, Randolph should have been on Minaya’s hit list, but the Mets’ GM should have made a bigger, more justifiable splash by handing a pink slip to the most disappointing member of the 2008 Mets – Mr. Carlos Delgado.

A move of that sort would have required Minaya to both swallow his pride while coercing ownership into paying the remainder of Delgado’s monster contract. Remember, it was Minaya who flew to Puerto Rico and put his Spanish-speaking skills on display to court Delgado during his free agent year to no avail before finally acquiring the first baseman in a trade with Florida a year later.

The man who hit at least 32 homers in each of eight seasons prior to his arrival in New York has been nowhere to be found except for a handful of regular season games during the 2006 season and the subsequent Mets’ playoff run. After hitting a disappointing .258 with an even more disenchanting .333 on-base percentage in 2007, Delgado is batting only .238 through 68 games played this season.

Delgado’s lack of performance in the batter’s box will make any irate Met fan that pays $6 for a hot dog wonder exactly what they are paying for, but it is not the reason why Delgado must go.

A defensive liability by nature, Delgado does nothing to help his shortcomings with his lackadaisical effort in the field. Very rarely seen diving for a ball, but too often turning a routine play into abomination, Delgado is a microcosm of what is wrong with the Mets. His elitist attitude, which puts him before both the game and his team, is as apparent as it could ever be without him accusing rural Pennsylvanians of clinging to their guns and religion.

From his refusal to stand for “God Bless America” in 2004 to this season’s profanity-laced run-in with reporter Jon Heyman, Delgado has a history of disrespect. Nearly acting like more of a team player than Stephon Marbury could ever dream of being, Delgado publicly undermined Randolph when rumblings suggested the former manager was considering platooning the struggling Delgado. “We’re gonna have to talk,” said Delgado to reporters in late May.

When Reyes shows up his manager as he did in the first inning of Tuesday night’s game against the Angels, one must wonder if Delgado is rubbing off on the young, promising talent. Reyes is his own person and makes his own decisions, but the veteran Delgado certainly isn’t helping the situation by setting an example for the youth of the clubhouse.

The possible replacements for Delgado (Nixon, utility infielder Damon Easley, or AA prospect Mike Carp) may not even excite a GM in the independent Can-Am League, but any of the three will be an upgrade in attitude over what has become a light-hitting first baseman. If lightning strikes and the washed-up Delgado somehow awakens, the Mets may very well wake up with him and reach the postseason. With the Mets still 6.5 games back of the Phillies and poised to disappoint their loyal fan base once again, Minaya can’t be afford to wait and hope.

Instead, it should be “addition by subtraction.” Minaya must wake up and truly shake up this club by cutting an overpaid, underperforming veteran whose appearance makes Mets’ fan long for the days of Doug Mientkiewicz.

Sub-par offense, non-existent defense, and a lack of leadership have Mets’ fans wondering what their beloved team is paying $20 million for this season. The faster Minaya realizes that the 2008 version of Carlos Delgado may be the worst bargain in baseball and acts upon that realization, the better off the 2008 Mets will be.

Of Mutts and Mets

Talk about beginning with a bang! Could the timing be any more perfect? Well, the Mets timing could have been a bit better (and not only in the batter's box). Already I digress. Salvatore Speaks to the cyberworld today for the first time ever today right in the midst of the New York Mets' Willie Randolph mess.

I couldn't help but remember 1986 when I woke up this morning, but for all the wrong reasons.

After the best team in the organization's now 46-year history opened the 1986 World Series with back-to-back home losses, the back page of a New York tabloid read, "Meet the Mutts." Now these 108-game winners were undoubtedly wild, raucous, and rebellious to say the least, but they certainly weren't "mutts." The organization they played for, however, could not make the same claim then, and definitely not now.

The organization that traded Tom Seaver and spiraled into a bad joke before Frank Cashen saved them from embarrassment for a few years in the mid-1980s has always been struggling to shed the stigma of a "B" level ball club.

Forty-six years into their existence and only nine months before they are scheduled to move into a state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar facility, the Mets revived any lingering belief that they are a second-class professional organization.

In fact, the word professional is about as fitting an adjective to describe the New York Mets Baseball Club these days as ethical is to paint a picture of Eliot Spitzer.

Now, Willie Randolph's 2008 Mets were definitely underachieving and their play was about as inspirational as Ron Paul's presidential campaign. Randolph's mismanagement of the pitching staff alone was enough to make any disenchanted Mets' fan to call for the guillotine, but this?

I would have to believe that even the New York Islanders would think twice about carrying out a coach's firing in the despicable manner that the Mets handed (or slipped under a hotel room door) Randolph his walking papers.

For those of you who picked up the early edition of your morning newspaper, let me recount. After a spirited effort landed the Mets a doubleheader split with Texas on Sunday, Randolph and the team flew 3,000 miles west to Anaheim where they knocked off the top team in the American League West. Next came the post-game presser where Randolph entertained questions about his team's gritty road win. Then, after the beat writers filed their copy, the early editions were on the presses, and the Mets were tucked away in their hotel beds (Duaner Sanchez ordered room service instead), the ax fell.

Yes, the Mets made their manager twist, turn, and fly 3,000 west where he led his team to a final victory before they mercilessly pulled the plug.

Although I have publicly advocated for Randolph's dismissal during a cameo on the FERRALL Show, I would have never wished for it to happen in such a classless, disjointed manner.

Randolph wasn't dismissed or fired in the wee hours of Tuesday morning; he was humiliated.

In addition to needlessly embarrassing their former manager, the Mets successfully created another distraction for a club that has appeared distracted all season long. Now, instead of working on producing a winner, the organization will have to focus its energy to deflecting the barrage of questions and criticism that awaits as a result of management's mismanagement of the Randolph saga.

Whether it was the Miracle Mets of '69 and '73, the "bad boys" of the 1980s, or Piazza's delivery at the turn of the millennium, the Mets' time is the spotlight has always been short lived.

Now after the ruthlessly teasing their fans in 2006 and 2007, the Mets are disappointing once again. They sit 6.5 games behind the surging Phillies in the NL East and have created a huge PR mess on top of that. The Mets seem headed back to the place they have known all too well during their 46-year history, that undesirable destination in baseball's doghouse.