The Final Countdown: Who Do the Mets Want To Play?

With three games left in the season we are basically down to this question: will it be the Cardinals or the Giants facing the Mets in the NL play-in game.

The divisions arranged themselves like Russian dolls two weeks ago. The pretenders, having hung around mostly due to contender inconsistency, are finally out of runway. The Blue Jays and Orioles, in whatever order, have separated themselves from the rest of the league. It will take a three-game meltdown on one of their parts and a surge by Detroit to upset the current arrangement.

So the only team with a post-season question is NY. Would they rather play the even-yeared Giants or the perennially-contending Cards. (This assumes, by the way, that the Metroplitans don't gack it up in the final three days of the season. It would take a whitewashing by the incompetent Phillies, accompanied by a trio of St. Louis wins and at least one win for San Fran, and then a tie-breaker loss, to fritter away their current edge. They are rated as 96.5% likely to take the Wild Card.)

On the surface, the Mets would much prefer to avoid the three-armed Giant monster of Bumgarner/Cueto/Samardzija to anything the Cardinals could throw at them. Then again, since their win totals are so close, the Redbirds must be compensating in some other way, like hitting 220 homers as a team without a single 30-home run slugger. (BTW, no one has ever done that before.)

The Mets are 4-3 against the Giants and 3-3 versus St. Louis. The Cards have prospered on the road, so playing at Citi Field is a wash. The Giants and Mets have little to offer in home-road splits, so the home field issue feels pretty moot.

What isn't moot is what a dumpster fire Bruce Bochy's team has been of late, 27-42 since the All-Star break. In addition, the Giants and Cardinals have mostly feasted on bad teams, with St. Louis 11 under against .500+ teams and San Francisco 9 under. The Mets have played good opponents to a draw, but aren't on the plus side only because the Nationals and their ultra-motivated second-baseman have owned them.

It's all an effort to find the two-percent edge and that effort doesn't appear to have come to much. If you bleed orange and blue, well, first of all, see a doctor. But then take your pick. Would you prefer to face a team that's scuffling or avoid a pitching ace. Either way a victory brings you to the ornery and talent-rich Cubs.

The Silly Time

It's that time of the baseball schedule when every team is undefeated and shiny like a minted dime.  When every day is March perfection in Florida or Arizona, as opposed to  early April dreck in Chicago or Cleveland or Boston or, God Almighty, Toronto.

Every region's representative is a contender, even Phoenix's and Philadelphia's. No one's manager requires a vote of confidence.

So when Madison Bumgarner appeared on an ESPN radio show today (where the hosts pronounced that every baseball analyst in their stable considers him the best pitcher in baseball; let's hope that it is two hosts, not 20 baseball experts, who are morons) he declared that he felt great about his team and liked the moves they had made this off-season.

We could, charitably, assume that MadBum was referring only to the moves the team made, rather than the moves that former players made away from the team. Michael Morse took his power bat to Baltimore. Pablo Sandoval waddled off to Boston. That's 32 homers and 4.3 WAR to replace.

What were the Giants' giant moves? They brought fourth outfielder Nori Aoki aboard and traded a farmhand for cornerman Casey McGehee. That recoups five homers and two WAR, less if both fill reserve roles as expected.

In the meantime, star outfielder Hunter Pence broke his arm. Jake Peavy's arm is "dead." And the competition got meaner. The Padres rebuilt a contender. The Dodgers purchased excess firepower.

Heavy weighs the crown in San Francisco, as it did in 2011 and 2013. And Madison Bumgarner knows that as well as anyone. (Even better than two ESPN hosts.)

Surprising Chokenicity or Super Clutchanism?

If you're one of those who paddle the choke/clutch canoe, you're bailing water right now.

Until a few days ago, the narrative was simple: the Yankees choked and Tigers were clutch. Pinstripers entered the batting icebox together at the start of the ALCS, leading to historically low averages and run production in four games against Detroit.

Now in the first three games of the World Series, the Tigers' lineup has switched the clutch switch to choke. Shut out twice all season, they've doubled that total in the last two games.

Wait, what? The Tigers were clutch in Game Five against Oakland and then for four games against New York. And now they've suddenly turned to Jello? Those clutch pills wore off fast!

Oh, but maybe the Giants are even clutchier. With a foot on their necks in the NLDS against Cincinnati, they took three straight for the series win. Flailing against the Cardinals, they reprised the feat to earn a World Series berth. So while the Tigers are clutch, the Giants are Super Clutch, and by comparison Detroit is a choker. But against the Double-Secret Chokers in New York, the Tigers looked clutch.

Of course, none of this explains how a clutch team like the Giants gets down in the first place 2-0 in a five-game post-season series or 3-1 in a seven-game series. Isn't that a little chokey? Doesn't that suggest some pre-clutchy chokiness on the part of San Francisco? Does choking nearly to the point of strangulation before winning suggest Pseudoclutchiness, or Extra Clutchosity with a Cherry on Top?

Also, how could the Yankees be World Class Chokers when Mr. Clutch of All Time himself is their captain. Is their Two-Hands-Around-the-Throat-Chokerism so great that even the mighty King Clutch is no match for it? I need someone to explain this to me. I lost the rulebook.

I have a wacko friend who suggested this other outlandish theory that I mention here just for giggles and, like, knowledge. He says the Yankee lost because their bats went through a four-game cold spell, just as even the best teams do from time-to-time. He says the Tigers, after a five-day layoff (that's another meme that someone will have to explain to me: professional baseball players lose all their skills from Monday to Saturday? Wow!) and with a top-heavy lineup (can you say Avisail Garcia, .319 SLG in 23 MLB games?) have scuffled against a good pitching staff and lost three games. That's not shocking, he says, considering Detroit lost three straight 11 times over the course of the season.

Ha! What a knucklehead! Randomness and luck are no basis for settling a world championship. We need a plausible narrative to explain the inexplicable, even if it's transparent rubbish. We're sticking with clutchism and chokefulness.

Unless, of course, Detroit storms back to tie the Series. Then we create a whole new narrative. Giant Chokers!

A Giant At First, At Last

This probably deserves a more in-depth discussion, but I've only got some stray moments to make the following point. Sometimes, your team's biggest pickup isn't the gold-plated free agent acquisition; it's the journeyman whose signing escapes your attention.

Case in point: the offfensively offensive San Francisco Giants signed Aubrey Huff in the off-season, following a desultory 2009 campaign in which he hit .241/.310/.384 for Baltimore and Detroit. (Plus, he attempted six steals in 2009 and got thrown out each time. Ouch.) But Huff had a stick befitting a first baseman prior to that, so the Big Men took a flyer on him.

Huff has rebounded to a more representative .281/.361/.450 so far in 2010, which is nothing for a first baseman particularly to write home about unless your sister has been staffing the position the last five years. Which appears to be the case in the West Bay. Here is the Giants' recent production from that position:

2009: .271/.328/.405
2008: .248/.313/.371
2007: .262/.324/.410
2006: .257/.307/.410
2005: .257/.316/.399

A .734 OPS from a first baseman, which is the best of this bunch, is the profile of a weak-hitting second baseman, and costs a team a win or two relative to the back-up first-bagger on any decent roster. The word for this is dreadful, or perhaps abysmal, or possibly awful. This is the level of expectation that awaited Aubrey Huff when he arrived.

Huff, at the sustainable pace he's on, adds four wins beyond replacement level. So San Fran has boosted its offense by five or six wins thanks to this one player whose addition was little noted. That's the difference between being a .500 team and competing for the wild card in the NL.

The Giants are nonetheless mired in an offensive swamp, scoring just 4.07 runs/game, worse than everyone but Pittsburgh and Houston, which is to say, the worst in the majors. It's not Aubrey Huff's fault that he's the second best hitter on the team, but even a side with the Giants' lights-out pitching can't win consistently with a lineup for which a hard foul ball is a moral victory.

So San Francisco may squander the six-game edge that Aubrey Huff gives them. That doesn't diminish the value they added when they made -- what seemed at the time -- a pretty nondescript offseason pickup.

b

Wanted: Lost Testicles. Contact: Fox Sports

Did someone do a gonadectomy on Fox Sports since last week?

Don't ask why, but I was watching the last few minutes of This Week In Baseball when they took a retrospective gander at the 1970 All-Star game and the incomparable Pete Rose. Endlessly replaying the famous crash at the plate with Ray Fosse that won the game, they ran countless teammates and opponents paying homage to his competitiveness and all-out play.

They never once mentioned that the play effectively ended Fosse's career. Or even hurt him. The show was a total whitewash of what was a fairly controversial play.

Then the Mets-Giants game, with Kenny Albert and Eric Karros at the mics. At least there'd be truth to power on this broadcast, I mentioned to a wife who, were she a ceramic dish, would have evinced equal interest.

It took just two batters for Karros to demonstrate that he would apply the same apologist philosophy to his broadcast as I'd seen on the MLB-produced propaganda piece that preceded it.

The Mets led off the game against Randy Johnson with a pair of singles and in each case, the runner stole second on Giant backstop Bengie Molina. On the second play, a decent throw would have nailed Alex Cora, but it faded high and right for 13th consecutive victimization of Molina in two games and one inning. Clearly, the Mets have determined that Molina's gun is shooting blanks -- for whatever reason -- and are exploiting it.

Karros, however, would have none of that. He twisted himself into an double-jointed pretzel to defend Molina, opining instead that the Mets were stealing off the pitcher. Albert didn't add or subtract from this monologue, I assume because the illogic was so stunning that he decided simply to disassociate himself from it.

Next, Carlos Beltran stroked a fly ball to center that Fred Lewis's glove successfully eluded for a double. Instead of first and second with one out, the Mets had a man on second with none out and two runs in thanks to beneficent defense on the San Francisco side. Nary a word from the broadcast team, lest it ruffle feathers.

But Karros wasn't done. Later he mentioned that the Giants were floating above the .500 mark purely on their pitching and needed to "be more consistent at the plate."

The Giants are plenty consistent at the plate. They have no hitting. The problem isn't that their big boppers have yet to get untracked; their problem is that they're genetically bopless. Their best hitter is...nobody. Maybe Pablo Sandoval, a rookie third baseman inhabiting Cecil Fielder's body, will finish the season as their most potent bat. He has all of three dingers to this point. Cleanup hitter Bengie Molina has yet to walk this year. Prize free agent signing Aaron Rowand is an average-hitting second baseman, which would be fine were he not a center fielder.

This isn't the players' fault. GM Brian Sabean has assembled a roster that has no chance of supporting Lincecum, Cain, Johnson, et. al. But Eric Karros, whom I'd never previously noted to be an apologist, wasn't prepared to tell you any of that. He seems to have lost at least one and possibly both of his testicles.

Isn't Fox Sports supposed to be the edgy network? The no-hold-barred sports channel? The folks who reflect the "he sucks" approach of the average fan? Someone had better tell those responsible for their baseball coverage, because it's more white bread than June Cleaver.

p

A Big Unit in The Emerald City

Randy Johnson signed yesterday with the last-place San Francisco Giants saying he thinks the team can win the NLWest. You think he's crazy? You're only half right.

The team may be munchkins at the plate, but they are Goliaths on the mound. Teaming with Cy Young incumbent Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and good-looking youngster Jonathan Sanchez, the Big Unit rounds out an impressive starting staff. With the bullpen upgrade Brian Sabean made by acquiring lefty Jeremy Affeldt and venerable righty Bob Howry to team with closer Brian Wilson, this team could have fun, fun, fun.

'Til daddy takes their t-ball away. The Giants' outfield of Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand and Fred Lewis blasted a combined total of 32 home runs, and they are the team's strength. The signing of 33-year-old Edgar Renteria at short to team with 37-year-old Ray Durham at second smacks of a win now strategy without a whole lot of now. This is a team whose HR leader last year was its catcher, Benjie Molina, with 16. There's more pop in a bowl of Rice Krispies.

The window of opportunity has been left open in San Francisco's division, especially without a Manny sighting in LA. If Sabean can ink a bopper or two -- especially to staff an infield corner -- fans could again be dialing up Telephone Company Field in October. Hey, maybe Barry Bonds is available...