Not Everyone Was Selected

I played baseball for a long time when I was kid, about 10 years. For better or worse, I was never quite good enough to have any expectations on my shoulders. I had a consistent mitt, but once the bottom of the pitching barrel had left Little League for more fruitful endeavors, odds were against me getting a solid hit. I got a lot of "take" signals from coaches; I was not the guy you wanted up with the bases loaded.

But my play on any given day had little to do with my mental state. I lacked confidence at the plate because I was a bad hitter, not the other way around. I didn't have streaks. So I can't pretend to get in the head of a player like Carlos Delgado, whose prowess at the plate the past few months has been nothing short of legendary. And it's all confidence. David Wright and José Reyes have been the same players all season--good players. But for Delgado, his brain switched gears sometime this summer and he suddenly became a player he hadn't been in half a decade. What else could explain this transformation but confidence, a sudden belief that, "Hey, I can knock the shit out this ball," and then doing it again and again.

Now consider the Mets bullpen. On any given day, when Jerry Manual pulls his starter, these guys are expected to blow the game. There were a few weeks this second half where they performed brilliantly, but it wasn't long enough to overcome the narrative that they collectively suck as a bullpen. They singlehandedly undermine the work of a team that has played their heart out for three months, but is again at the precipice of sitting on the sidelines for another post-season.

This has to be in their heads. Maybe it wasn't inititally, but now it is. And worse than being in the their heads, it's in the heads of the opposing teams that innings six through nine are a different game, practically batting practice. And if I'm honest with myself, that's why I don't see the Mets, if they make the playoffs, going very far. When the relief pitchers get in the game, do they have any confidence whatsoever that they are going to bring the team out of it a W? Can they shut down a Cubs or Phillies team in the seventh inning who is confident, by way of having done it before, that they can erase deficits greater than a grand slam? They haven't proven it, and well, there's no more time to prove it. We can reasonably expect them to blow it again.

The Mets have a playoff caliber team. They deserve to be there. But there is nothing, nothing more excruciating than watching your team play winning baseball only to be undercut by a bullpen that has all the confidence of a bewildered 10-year-old right fielder pulled in to pitch because a Little League coach is obliged to rest all of his best pitchers. Regardless of the Mets' fortunes this season, get a new fucking bullpen, please.