One Year After Willie Mets Can’t Get Rolling

There’s something more charismatic about Jerry Manuel than there was about Willie Randolph.

Jerry always seems to have a joke, or a good line, or a nice blunt answer like his recent “there was nobody left” type answer as to why he let Takahashi pitch in extra innings.  Willie Randolph always seemed to wonder why you were out to get him.

A year after Willie’s departure, the Mets have made no real progress.   They missed the playoffs by a one game again, and now are muddling around three games out with an inability to beat up on bad teams.

Orioles 6, Mets 4 is not the kind of score you want to see.   Sure there are plenty of excuses one could make – well they started Tim Redding, or well so and so is hurt…and really none of that is the manager’s fault is it?

At the end of the day the ownership may have to look somewhere else.  Jerry can only manage who he has on the field, and it really isn’t his fault that the Mets organization wasn’t four deep at shortstop or that Manny Ramirez is both suspended and a Dodger.   Daniel Murphy is still the starting left fielder isn’t he?  What, one of our best guys has been a guy waived by the Tigers?  Is this team so jinxed that “Livan Hernandez Day” is the day you look forward to?  And what if Santana goes down, then what.

So they changed managers, and I like the new guy.   That doesn’t get me any closer to using my World Series tickets at Citi Field in October, and we’re no closer than they were a year ago.