My good karma gestures of the week go to the Washington Nationals. Matt Chico, you can ride in my cab for free anytime. Jason Bergmann, I will wear a "Jason Bergmann is the best pitcher in baseball t-shirt"  for an entire week if you beat the Phils tomorrow. And a big Cabbie shout-out to John Maine, you were fan-FREAKIN-tastic today! Same goes for you Lastings Milledge. O'k, now back to work.

Coach Cabbie's Pre-Game Speech To The Mets (Game 162)

I offer you nothing but tough love. I'm glad to finally see some fire in the old gut. Mets' fans have been waiting.  A matter of fact, I think Mets' fans have shown a tremendous amount of faith and support this entire month, even through the late September slide. As players and coaches, we now need to show the same effort and heart as we've gotten from the fans all year long.

So, make sure you run out every ball tomorrow Reyes... Don't leave the bat on your shoulder this time Beltran... Delgado, pay attention to that shift like you did today and keep going the other way... Watch the uppercutting Wright, we just need a bunch of base hits... Moises, lay off the inside pitch... Tommy G, do your thang... Bullpen, forget the past and throw STRIKES... And Willie, everybody but Maine should be available, including Ron Darling up in the booth if you need him. It's now up to every single player and coach to man-up and get the job done!

Stay focused, get a good night's rest, and let's show some patience with Dontrelle tomorrow. No more tightness, we've already blown it, and thanks to Matt Chico and the Nationals we still have a shot.

So, play with all you got and stay loose as a goose. Loose as a goose, one pitch at a time... those are my Cabbie words of wisdom for ya.

 

Gooooooooooooooooooooooo Mets!

So, it comes down to this--- Three home games against the club with the second worse record in the NL. Three home games against a team the Mets are 10-5 against this year. Three home games against the highly dubitable troika- Byung-Hyun Kim, Chris Seddon, and Dontrelle Willis, and their combined 5.59 ERA. The Mets, they throw their three best- Oliver Perez, John Maine, and Tom "300 Wins" Glavine.

A Message From George Steinbrenner

For any Mets' fans who are disgusted or are losing sleep over the fact that the Phillies are now tied for first with the Mets, think of it this way--- If the Mets don't win the division, not only don't they deserve to be in the playoffs, Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya need to be fired!

A Message From Cabbie

Here, Here! I hope you are listening Mets' players, because you've all played like a bunch of scared headless chickens these past two weeks. Do you want to be the first team ever to blow a 7 game lead with 17 to play? I hope you feel the pressure, cause it might be the only thing to wake your arses up. Enough coddling, enough wishing, enough "waiting to lose" (as Paul lo Duca said yesterday). Enough is enough! Play like your life depends on it, and just win the darn thing already. Mets' fans deserve it!

OUCH! Watching the Mets is becoming more painful than a nightly root canal. A week ago Willie Randolphand Mets' fans were thinking about who we should rest down the stretch and here we are five days later crossing our nail bitten fingers, and praying to the baseball gods that we'll even make the playoffs. So what the heck has gone so wrong?

A. Willie Randolph's brain has gone numb
B. The Mets are playing the field like the Keystone Cops
C. The Mets bullpen STINKS!
D. All of the above

Auditioning For The Part Of The Scarecrow In The Wizard Of Oz

Message to Willie, STOP using Jorge Sosa, Scott Schoeneweis, Aaron Sele and Guillermo Mota. There's a reason all four of them were still free agents a month before the season began. Next time the Mets need a reliever before the 7th inning, I call on all Mets' fans to yell the name Philip Humber at the top of their lungs. ****, we only drafted this guy in the 1st round a couple of years ago. You'd think Willie would want to find out if he could help the weakest part of this team. Look how it panned out for Joe Torre when he gave Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez a shot.

Keystone Cops

6 errors in one game! 12 errors in 4 games! Willie, make this team play Pepper every day for the next two weeks. If that doesn't tighten things up, hire a Lasik surgeon as your team doctor and petition the commissoner for an extra fielder.

Firemen or Arsonists?

The four aformentioned arsonists have pitched a combined 262.1 innings this year to the tune of a 5.11 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP. If you subtract the 80 IP Sosa threw as a starter, these four account for 48% of the Mets' bullpen innings this season. Willie needs to watch more basketball. In the NBA, there's an old strategy teams employ during the stretch run, it's called "shortening the rotation".

Time to face the hard facts Willie- You have two pretty good relievers, Aaron Heilman and Pedro Feliciano, and a lights out closer, Billy Wagner. You need at least two more reliable guys for the playoffs. You have 12 games to find out who they are.

Maine Man

The time has come to make bold moves. With Pedro "Maestro" Martinez back in the fold, the Mets have five starters. That means one of them is going to end up in the bullpen SHOULD we make the playoffs. Tom Glavine and Martinez are the top two starters, and Oliver Perez is way too wild to count on to enter a game with men on base. So, there are only two choices- Orlando Hernandez and John Maine. While El Duque has pitched in relief before, his body is just too finicky at his age to be counted on to pitch every two or three days. That leaves the young and fresh arm of John Maine.

While Maine has been god-awful the past two months, most of his troubles have come the third time through a lineup. And for good reason, he lacks a solid third pitch. But, the two good pitches he does have are more than enough for him to be successful for an inning or two. His fastball/slider combination is a deadly duo that could work perfectly in a seventh or eight inning role.

Unfortunately, Omar Minaya made some bad decisions after the All-Star break. Not adding an arm before the trade deadline could prove to be the Mets' downfall. Not adding Humber or Kevin Mulvey (the Mets' minor league pitcher of the year) before September has limited the Mets' options even further come playoff time, since neither would be eligible for the playoff roster.

Cabbie Recipe For Success

The good news is that all is not lost, and the Mets are still leading the Phillies in this race to the ribbon. Remember Mets' fans, the Cardinals were stumbling to the finish line in similar fashion last year. But, it is time for Willie and his crew to wake up. So, here's my Cabbie recipe for repairing this train wreck of a bullpen:

1. Get John Maine prepared for a late inning role NOW!

2. Use Philip Humber and Mike Pelfrey as much as needed over the next two weeks.

3. Soak El Duque's foot in Epson-salt.

 

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Mets!