Mets in Meltdown Mode

I watched the Braves-Mets game on ESPN yesterday, and I was amazed at how bad the Mets looked. We have all heard the stories, Willie Randolph claiming race is holding him down and Billy Wagner calling out his teammates. After last night, I'll echo the comments of the announcers by saying that Wagner had every right to call out his teammates. They played terribly.

Pelfrey couldn't throw strikes, and when he did, it was a fastball down the middle. He had no command of any of his pitches. Then, the play in the right field corner where Endy chavez booted that ball which allowed Teixeira to get to third was abominable in every sense. He didn't need to rush because Teixeira was running. All he had to do was get in front of the ball. How hard is that? Then, Jose Reyes gave a half-hearted, at best, dive to get Matt Diaz's liner to short. He could have caught that ball. I counted at least 5 players who didn't run out groundouts. Sure, Jair had his stuff last night, but Teixeira proved how running balls out works when Castillo couldn't get rid of the ball from second. That play gave the Braves the opportunity for their big three run inning. Just terrible.

This team has all the talent in the world. A good lineup (I always felt Delgado and Beltran were overrated). A good starting rotation. A good bullpen. You don't need much else. Despite the announcers continually bashing Castillo for being broken down, he played fairly well and still has quite a bit of speed. The problem is that they have no leadership. Sutcliffe, while I love and admire the man, was wrong in saying that David Wright needs to be the leader of the team. It would be nice, but how many 35+ year olds do they have on that team that could be leaders. Wright, at age 25, is too young to take on that responsibility. However, Moises Alou, Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo, Pedro Martinez, Johan Santana, and Brian Schneider could all be the team leaders and do it together. However, no one is stepping up, but someone needs to. They need to remind each other that even though they've played terribly, they are still .500 and have 110+ games left this season. Get your acts together.