It’s always comical to follow the one-extreme-to-another coverage approach used by the New York media. One day, pundits are wondering whether a certain team is the worst to ever put on a uniform. The next, after a win, those same hacks are gauging the chances of the same team to win every game the rest of the way and take home the crown. It’s simply a part of what makes the Big Apple the Big Apple, and if you have the ability to take a step back and accept it for what it’s worth, it can offer quite a few laughs.
This year’s treatment of the New York Mets has been more humorous than ever. Following the cataclysmic collapse down the stretch last year, when the Metsies gift-wrapped the division title for the Philadelphia Phillies and caused more gray hair in New Jersey than Three Mile Island, the team was public enemy #1 this season. When Willie Randolph’s squad played more like the Bad News Bears than one of the highest-paid clubs in the majors, both barrels were unloaded in the Mets direction—and deservedly so. Then, when Randolph decided to try to make himself a martyr, poorly play the race card and align himself with one Isaiah Thomas … well, let’s just say the writing was on the wall.
Enter laid-back Jerry Manuel, whose one-of-the-guys approach has helped build a little more team chemistry and get the squad clicking. Propelled by four shutouts in six games and five straight games of holding teams to three hits or less, New York entered the All-Star break on a nine-game winning streak. The streak is the longest since the World Series year of 2000 and just two shy of the team record of 11 in a row. Manuel has gotten through to borderline head cases like Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes, and he somehow has even gotten Shea boo victim Carlos Delgado hitting (six homers, 17 RBI in last 17 games).
The Mets have outscored teams by a whopping 54-19 during the winning streak, spurring optimism for the second half, where once there was just depression. Predictably, the media hordes are now falling all over themselves in an attempt to climb aboard the Mets bandwagon (isn’t this the ideal column title: “On second thought, Mets look like winners”).
Will the All-Star break bring a halt to his momentum? Not if Manuel has anything to say about it. “It’s not a period, it’s a comma,” he told the New York press, when asked about the upcoming interruption for All-Star festivities.
The Mets still have a ton of questions to answer, of course. Can Pedro Martinez stay healthy long enough? Can the club provide Johan Santana with some run support? Can Fernando Tatis continue to fill the shoes of Moises Alou—and then some? Can Billy Wagner stop his metamorphosis into Armando Benitez? Can Delgado and Beltran find the consistency needed to support the steady David Wright? Can Reyes keep from taking swings at Keith Hernandez long enough to find more ways to get on base?
And of course, a nine-game winning streak usually just means that the Metsies are biding time to come up with more creative ways to break fans’ hearts. But for now, I’m just grateful that the music coming from Flushing currently involves more cheers—instead of just the sounds of flushing toilets.
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