Looking at the title of this post, you'd think that it would be a nice tall glass of kool-aid going into yesterday's game, but there are all things to talk about today, even after another heart-breaking loss coming on a Fernando Nieve wild pitch in the bottom of the 9th. On this blog though, we don't look at the glass half empty, we don't even look at it as half full, we look at it as overflowing with koolaid. So here are some reasons why this series with the Marlins still has a chance to be a really big one for the Mets.
First and foremost, Johan Santana was dominant yesterday. For the past few years, Santana has been one of the few bright spots on the Mets and someone, as fans, we've never really had to worry about. No matter how bleak things looked, you knew every 5 days you were going to get a performance from our starter that would put the team in a position to win. Well, after Johan's last 2 starts, all Mets fans were getting very worried. In just 11.1 innings he had given up 14 earned runs including probably the worst start of his career against Philly weekend before last. Well, Johan reassured the team and the fans last night in Florida battling Josh Johnson matching his great pitching performance with 7 strong innings giving up only one unearned run and striking out 5. While the loss was unfortunate, I'd trade the win for a reassurance that Johan is not going to be an issue going forward. I think we got that last night and I'm already looking forward to his next start as I always had in the past.
Next, we send Oliver Perez to the mound tonight in a game the Mets really need to right the ship here. Normally, this would worry me a lot, but with all the talk of Ollie not pitching well in cold weather and the loud talks of him being pulled from the rotation should give Ollie more of a reason to show up big than ever before. He'll be pitching in a balmy stadium in Miami and must know this is probably his last shot before the Mets put someone like Hisinori Takahashi. There will be no excuses so either Ollie will pitch well and we'll be happy, or he won't, and we'll have a new direction to look forward to. If it was up to me, I hope he does well. We need this win and this could be something the Mets rally around going into the rest of the weekend.
Finally, even with a loss last night, this is a 4-game series and 1 loss leaves the Mets with a chance to still take the series from the Marlins. It all starts tonight. It's only 5/15 - there's no reason to get our heads down yet fans. Keep drinking the kool-aid and hope for the best.
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