As the baseball world turns

Who needs soap operas on TV when we have the Mets and Yankees? Around here, instead of a 162 game season, we get 162 ONE GAME SEASONS. Fans have mood swings that fluctuate more than mortgage rates the last few months. Relax guys; we’re barely out of the 1st week of the season.

First off, pitching, at least when the starters are left in the game, is often ahead of the hitting in the early going. The Mets left 15 men on base Sunday in their loss to the Braves. The Yankees stranded 16 runners in only eight innings against the Blue Jays, but managed to win.

With the offenses struggling, it makes it even more important that the starters go as far as they can -ESPECIALLY the Mets. Johan Santana could have and should have started the 8th inning. He was under 100 pitches, and I’ll take my chances with Johan over Aaron Heilman any day. What are you paying your ace $137 million for if not to get big outs?

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The same thing for Chien-Ming Wang. Why can’t he try WITH A LEAD -to get out of the 7th? So much for ‘The Joba Rules.’ At this rate, Chamberlain and Mariano will pitch about 85 games a piece. Anybody notice that Ben Sheets pitched a complete game for the Brewers?
The fans’ panic is especially hilarious from the Mets perspective. Supporters of Flushing’s Finest have clearly bought into the Yankee fans mentality that winning is an expected privilege. Check out some of the comments left on the Newsday/SportsNet Mets blog

My biggest concerns: that the Mets wasted a good, though not great, effort by Santana, and that the Yankees really haven’t had even one breakout game offensively -only 17 runs in their six games. Kat O’Brien’s Newsday Yankees Blog doesn’t have nearly as much panic in Yankee land.

Still. I expect the Yanks to score lots of runs. If Jeter is till hitting .217 on May 15th, then call me. For all the Big Apple baseball fans, it’s too early to push the panic button. Just ask the NY football Giants, who came out of nowhere to win the Super Bowl.