Examining Character

Yesterday, during the day, I indicated that I felt last night’s Mets game would tell a lot about the character of the team. Unfortunately I still feel that is true. They won five in a row and then lost a close game to the Phillies. The question on my mind was, would they start another winning streak or would the loss to the Phills start a Mets losing streak.

I do not know if you can call two consecutive losses a losing streak but certainly it did not appear that the Mets were hungry. They did not come out of the gate strong. In fairness to the Mets, the were going up against a strong pitcher in Carlos Zambrano. Still, good teams have to beat good pitchers. I thought the Mets looked flat.

John Maine kept his team in the game but the Met hitters did nothing against Zambrano. Arguably the bullpen let the game get away, but I disagree. The bullpen resulted in the Cubs putting the game out of reach for the Mets but the Mets had already blown the game. The hitters were not ready to come out of the gate strong and show that they were angry about losing the previous game and they were going to take out their frustrations on whoever the opponent was, whoever the starting pitcher was.

Two years ago I truly believe this is a game the Mets would have won. Last year, it is one they would have lost. I wanted to believe this year we went back to the mentality of two years ago. It did not happen.

It is early. The Mets can still win. Still the game showed the character, or lack thereof, that this team has. Hopefully they will win today and get back on the winning ways because a loss means they would have lost three in a row (enough to qualify as a losing streak) and it means they would have been swept by the Cubs in this short two game series.

Let’s Go Mets!