What is Willie Doing?

Willie Randolph's rookie campaign is behind him and he shouldn't be making these managerial mistakes. You can call it a Monday morning quarterback or what ever you want but enough is enough. Steve Trachsel came into the game on 8 days rest so he was behind the 8 ball already, but Randolph should've given him a full team to work with. Instead he gives Lo Duca the day off and puts Castro in, Castro is a more then reliable back up catcher but he moved Anderson Hernandez to the 2 hole. Hernandez is great defensively but has shown he is struggling and needs time to adjust like most major league hitters do. Last year Randolph wouldn't move Wright up in the line up, why didn't he use the same precaution with Hernandez? And please can some one rationalize the Jorge Julio deal with me. The Mets have lost two games and Jorge Julio has pitched in both, brilliant idea get rid of him. He's never going to be a good pitcher. He was a guy who was blessed with a powerful arm, came up through the ranks just throwing straight fastballs, then all of sudden when people can hit the hard fastball he falters. He's too thick headed to listen to Peterson who tried to change his approach to pitching. Julio is proving that he really isn't major league caliber. He gave up a home run and hung his head, that's just flat out ridiculous, lets get rid of him now.

Trachsel has gone more than 5 days between starts 32 times in his career, his record 8-19. Trachsel showed the time off affected him a little bit and went just 5 innings, allowing 9 hits, 4 runs, but the Mets were still in the game down just 4-1. Darren pitched fine in his 2 innings of work as he allowed one run off of a Carlos Lee solo shot to left. At this point the Mets trailed 5-2, still in striking distance. Then Randolph went with the brilliant move of putting Jorge Julio into the game, why? He has proven absolutely nothing so far this year, except his immaturity and inability to get major league hitters out. It seems every time we are in remote striking distance he ensures he can bury us. Julio pitched just one inning, (I'm surprised Randolph didn't put him in, in the 9th as well), allowed 3 runs surrendering a two run homer to Geoff Jenkins. Julio's ERA is a 19.64 hmm that was a good deal right? Kris Benson is sounding mighty good right about now. Then in the ninth he inserts Chad Braford, Bradford is a right handed specialist but the Brewers led the inning off with lefty Corey Koskie, and as most lefties do he hit Bradford hard and hit a double to right field. Bradford then struck out Rickie Weeks, and Prince Fielder then got Chad Moeller to ground out to him to end the inning. Not bad, wait Bradford has been pretty successful all year so we wouldn't want to put him in when we were down 5-2 now would we, why not put in that bum Jorge Julio, let him and his 19.54 ERA sky rocket and then bring in Bradford. Willie Randolph I must say you are brilliant.

Wait it gets better. Anderson Hernandez and his .176 batting average in the 2 hole. Speed is great when you don't get on base it doesn't matter. If speed was all that counted we'd have the likes of Marion Jones being a lead off hitter. In the 7th inning Randolph cost us a run again. Ramon Castro hit a double to left to start off the inning. I'm sorry but even in the high school level coaches demand, and make players execute so that a lead off double is rewarded with some runs. Even better he had the bottom of his line up up, so it's a no brainer bunt Castro over to third and let us drive him in. No he pinch hits the very old Julio Franco who strikes out swinging, Jose Reyes grounds out to third, and Anderson Hernandez pops out to end the inning.

Its not all Randolph's fault, the majority the blame does fall on him and Julio though, but then again Julio couldn't mess up if he was in Caracas where he belongs. Carlos Beltran may be heating up a bit at the plate but he is not showing any gold glove defense out there. It angers a true baseball fan like me to see these players go after fly balls in such lackadaisical ways. Beltran catches the routine fly balls like it's a walk in the park. Then in the 5th inning Beltran cost us a run and possibly the game. As the score was 3-1 Milwaukee there were two outs and Rickie Weeks was on second. Prince Fielder hit a lazy fly ball to cent that Beltran initially went back on, misjudged so poorly he didn't have a shot, it's embarrassing to see him play like that. Did I mention Jorge Julio sucks? Just checking.

You can't take away what Tomo Ohka did today, he pitched 7 strong innings, holding the Mets potent lineup to just 5 hits and 1 earned run but then again the Mets did essentially self destruct. Offensively we were quiet. David Wright and Ramon Castro picked up the RBI for the Mets while no one had a multi hit game. Funny thing ESPN's power rankings were released and the Mets were ranked one. If Randolph manages games like this he could very well cost them their season. Brian Bannister is on the mound tomorrow for us, squaring up against Ben Sheets who is coming off the disabled list for his first start of the season. But to put this is perspective 8-2, still ties the Mets best record to start a year so it can't be all complaints. This season is 20 years in the making, Ya Gotta Believe!

This Day in Met's History: Sunday April 15th, 1973 the Mets defeated the Phillies 2-1, for their 5th win of the season. Their record stood at 5-2 and they were a 1/2 game out of first.

Date
Sat 04/15/06, 2:01 pm EST