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Today's NYTimes agrees with Mole..
September 19, 2006
On Baseball
On the One Hand, There May Be a Problem at Shea
By MURRAY CHASS
WHEN is losing good for business? When the Mets are on the verge of clinching their first division title since 1988 and their fans buy tickets hoping to be at the game when they do.
The Mets sold more than 10,000 extra tickets for last night’s game at Shea Stadium because they had lost all three weekend games in Pittsburgh and still needed one victory to wrap up first place in the National League East.
The Philadelphia Phillies, who have become expert at baseball business by saving their money instead of spending it wisely on winning players, had cooperated in the Mets’ effort to make a little extra money by winning all three of their weekend games against Houston. That sweep kept the Phillies from being eliminated and the Mets from backing into the title.
The Mets could have sold even more tickets and produced even more revenue by losing a few more games and counting on the Phillies to win a few more, but last night they put their business on the field ahead of their business at the box office and ended the division race by defeating Florida, 4-0.
A crowd of 46,729 witnessed their team’s first step toward the ultimate goal, and Manager Willie Randolph, for one, appreciated the fans’ assistance.
“I knew we’d get a big lift from the fans today,” said Randolph, in his second year as manager and experiencing a division championship for the 16th time as a player, coach or manager.
“It’s electric. It’s that feeling of knowing that they can take you to a different level in some ways. It wasn’t a real total packed house, but it felt like it in a lot of ways. Fans are nuts. They’re New York fans. They love your team. They’re very passionate about their team and you can feel it.”
No one can blame the Mets for trying to make a few extra bucks. Fred Wilpon, the principal owner, extended himself this year, convinced by his general manager, Omar Minaya, that if he could spend the money to get the right players, the Mets could return to the postseason and perhaps outperform the perennial American League East champion Yankees.
Now that they are there, though, the Mets have to deal with a slice of reality. They have recently had trouble beating left-handed pitchers. Left-handers started all three games the Mets lost in Pittsburgh, giving them a 5-14 record against lefties since July 31.
Their record since then in games started by right-handed pitchers is drastically different, 23-3. Fortunately for the Mets last night, the Marlins started a right-hander, Brian Moehler, and José Valentín, a switch-hitter who has had difficulty batting right-handed recently, hit two home runs left-handed against him.
With a runaway record, the Mets haven’t really had to dwell on the disparity. But other clubs have noticed the Mets’ problems with left-handers and have acted accordingly.
In a recent four-game series, for example, the Los Angeles Dodgers started two rookie left-handers, one making his first major league start, and both won. The veteran right-handers Brad Penny and Greg Maddux started the other two games, which the Mets won.
In the weekend sweep in Pittsburgh, two of the left-handers the Pirates used have started regularly this season, the third only occasionally.
“We happen to have a lot of left-handers,” said Jim Tracy, the Pirates’ manager. “They have lots of offensive thunder. I felt if you’re going to hang in there with them, you have to create as many left-handed matchups as possible.”
Asked several times if left-handed pitchers were the answer to beating the Mets, Tracy tried to skirt the issue before finally saying, “I’m not going to hurl a stone at the New York Mets and tell the world how to beat them.”
There are a few teams in the league, however, whose scouts are watching closely. The problem those teams will have in the playoffs is finding left-handers to use.
The Mets figure to play one of three teams in the first round — the Dodgers or the San Diego Padres as the West champions or the wild card, or the St. Louis Cardinals as the Central champs.
The Cardinals have an entirely right-handed rotation. Their only left-handed starter, Mark Mulder, is done for the season after shoulder surgery last week. The Padres have one left-handed starter, David Wells.
The Dodgers have three left-handers they could start against the Mets: the two rookies who beat them earlier this month, Hong-Chih Kuo and Eric Stults, and Mark Hendrickson, who lost his job in the rotation. It’s unlikely, however, that the Dodgers would opt to use any of them ahead of Penny, Maddux or Derek Lowe.
The Phillies have the most left-handed starters, but they wouldn’t play the Mets until the second round, and they still have to win the wild card to get to the playoffs.
Minaya, the architect of the team, dismissed the left-handed losses as too small a sample to be relevant, but results are results. When a team has a 23-3 record against one set of pitchers and a 5-14 mark against another, there’s something there.
In July, the Mets won 8 of 10 games when they faced left-handers while winning 8 of 15 games that right-handers started.
What happened between July and August? On July 31, the day of the nonwaiver trading deadline, the Mets traded the right-handed batter Xavier Nady to the Pirates. But Nady had not been the key to success against left-handers, not with his .264 overall batting average, 14 home runs and 40 runs batted in.
It turns out that the biggest difference in games started by left-handers and right-handers since July 31 is not necessarily in the Mets’ hitting but in their pitching.
According to Elias Sports Bureau, in the 25 games started by right-handers before last night, the Mets’ starting pitchers had a 3.74 earned run average. It was 3.14 before two games that the Mets split last week with Marlins right-handers. In the 19 games that left-handers started, the Mets’ starting pitchers had a 7.18 E.R.A.
In other words, the Mets might have scored fewer runs against left-handers than they did against right-handers, but their offensive output against left-handers might have been enough to win some of the games if their own pitchers had pitched more effectively.
One way or the other, it’s all in the pitching.
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