Reese Kaplan -- Mike Puma's If These Walls Could Talk Part 4 of 9

The Mets have suffered through a great many relief pitchers who faltered at the worst possible moments.  Who here hasn’t had their fill of guys like Armando Benitez, Jeurys Familia and even the first year edition of Edwin Diaz?  It’s understandable to some extent because you feel you want to be able to rely on a pitcher in good times and bad.  When they don’t deliver, then you really can’t get behind the decision to use this person when the game counts most.  

What’s truly strange is when you have a fully dependable pitcher that doesn’t become a part of Mets lore and as integral a part of fans memories as a Jesse Orosco.  One such pitcher was a former Houston Astro and Philadelphia Phillie who provide the Mets with 101 saves and a 2.35 ERA over his tenure in Queens, yet he’s almost a forgotten contributor.  Chapter three of Mike Puma’s If These Walls Could Talk: New York Mets starts off with the recollection and admission of one Billy Wagner.

The small left hander was adept not only at striking out batters but also avoiding the free passes.  During his Mets era he struck out 11.2 per 9 IP while walking just 2.7.  In his 203.1 IP he gave up just 154 hits.  You’d think the fans would be all over him for how good he was but he’s mostly an afterthought in the trajectory of Mets history.

Mike Puma begins the chapter with a confession from Wagner which had nothing to do with his pitching.  The story concerned an anonymous note left in the locker of youngster Lastings Milledge who had come up as a highly touted prospect.  After driving a ball over the fence in a 10th inning at-bat that tied the game against then San Francisco Giant Armando Benitez, Milledge did a high five with the fans in the stands on his way out to his outfield position.  That level of showmanship was not typically tolerated by veteran ballplayers which resulted in the infamous, “Know your place, Rook! -- Your Teammates” note Wagner had penned to try to remind him of his expected humility until he’d earned the rights to some braggadocio.  

Said Wagner, “I put the note in there because (Milledge) had a tendency to say things and at that point you have got to know where you stand...You are in the big leagues and you are getting a lot of things done for you.  You are there to contribute and you are the 25th man most of the time, you are not that No. 1 guy.”

Omar Minaya added, “Beltran and others started talking to him and tried to give him advice...They tell you once and that’s it.  (Milledge) was a good kid but people once they tell you something want to see some follow up.  Lastings at the time had a lot of other things besides baseball on his mind.  Like a lot of young kids, the focus wasn’t there at the time.”

Cliff Floyd sounded off, too.  He attempted to work with Milledge to get him to demonstrate to the other players that he was indeed serious about becoming the best ballplayer possible.  He offered to work with him in the batting cage and instructed him to arrive early to the ballpark to conduct these sessions.  When Milledge finally showed up it was less than an hour to gametime and he blew off Floyd’s training session.  He just sauntered into the locker room and went over to see if he was in the lineup.  Said Floyd, “I’m just over there and trying to keep my composure...Milledge had a lot of those moments.  He just had too many moments when he couldn’t get out of his own way.”

Puma then went on to recount the painful playoff session with the Cardinals that ended with the called third strike to Carlos Beltran with his bat on his shoulder.  Adam Wainwright was throwing nasty breaking stuff and the club had no real book on him as of yet because he was a late addition to the St. Louis bullpen.  Coach Rick Peterson did predict the breaking stuff but the message never made it to Beltran who was villainized by Mets fans for quite some time.  

 

The chapter then veered back into more history of Billy Wagner’s experience in New York.  In his previous stops they were careful to preserve his arm by not asking him to go on consecutive days or multiple innings.  With the Mets the overuse was something he had to learn how to deal with this new approach.  His friendship with another despised player, Tom Glavine, helped him to develop more subtle optimism than he’d found in the past.  

Puma then recited in agonizing detail the Mets collapse of 2007 when the team went from 7 games in front in first place with just 17 left to play and then managed to let the Phillies pass then to take the division and leave them out of the postseason.  There were numerous bad things that happened during that period but none stood out more than the implosion of pitcher Tom Glavine. 

While he had mostly been good, in the month of September things started to fall apart in three starts for Glavine, culminating in the final game of the season when the Mets and Phillies were tied for first.  Glavine didn’t make it out of the first inning, putting the Marlins into a 7-0 lead which they never relinquished, winning 8-1 while the Phillies won their game and the division by a margin of a single game.

Making things go from bad to worse were Glavine’s words after the pasting he took at the hands of Florida’s finest, “I’m not devastated...I’m disappointed, but devastation is for much greater things in life. I’m disappointed, obviously, in the way I wanted to pitch.  I can’t say there is much more I would have done differently.”

Wow, that was like a fuse was lit on a stick of dynamite for the fans.  They could never forgive Glavine for what seemed like a casual attitude about a game that cost the team their season.  Being a former Brave was always a tough sell, but Glavine buried himself with his honest but poorly worded reaction.  

The rest of the chapter delineated those awful Willie Randolph years, the miscommunication of the front office and the middle-of-the-night firing that led to the equally awful Jerry Manuel years.  The Mets succeeded not in winning, but in creating their own punchlines once again.  Manuel did get the team led by Johan Santana, Carlos Delgado and others to ascend to first place but in September they went through a very familiar last minute collapse and missed the playoffs once again.  This time it was the substitute relievers giving up long balls when Wagner’s early September injury took him off the active roster when he was needed most.  

The 2009 season didn’t start off any better.  They did add bullpen arms in K-Rod and J.J. Putz, but the former was unable to master his personal anger issues and the latter pitched to a 5.22 ERA before injury took him to the DL.  Further injuries to Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran led to them experimenting with a then 40 year old Gary Sheffield in RF and Daniel Murphy in LF. 

That season also included the simple pop up against the Yankees that Luis Castillo managed to drop.  This season also included the firing of Tony Bernazard after his bizarre ripping off of his own shirt while challenging players to a fight.  It was not a team destined for greatness and the result at year’s end the Mets sported a fourth place finish with a 70-92 record, ahead of only the Nationals.  

The 2010 season started off just as badly with the pitching of Oliver Perez, the injuries, the mishandling of Ryan Church’s concussion and the welcome to the new ballpark nothing noteworthy for a team who was glad to be out of Shea Stadium.  The chapter on the whole was painful but brought back an awful lot of memories (key word, “awful”).