…the NL wild-card team!

ya gotta believe!!

But, with the bullpen, Manuel does seem to be trying to set Parnell up for an 8th inning role. That was a failed experiment last year, so he’s been cautious, but he has been consistent in keeping Parnell’s work to one full inning lately. Mostly the 7th. And, it made sense to me that he didn’t want to throw Rodriguez into a 5-1 game in the 9th. Putting Feliciano in yet again to get one out? I’m not sure about his thinking there. It’s Adam Dunn, sure, but geez. Give Feliciano a night off every now and then. Once it started looking like the inning might get away from Dessens, though, I think he went to his best remaining option to shut the door, and K-Rod, as usual, made it a tear out your hair and avert your eyes type of deal. I have trouble believing that Jerry was just trying to give him a free save opportunity.

Anyway, Manuel definitely has his faults, and I definitely wouldn’t call his use of the bullpen a strong suit. But really, even during the month of June, when the Mets were playing better than pretty much everyone, there was a contingent of fans that never let up on Jerry, which I really don’t understand. I mean, look at this team. Home-grown rookies at first and second, a would-be bench player who has been having a career year in center field, two aging catchers, an expensive slugger in left who hasn’t been slugging, a rotation that includes a knuckleballer and a 35 year old rookie from Japan, etc. But somehow, it’s working, and I think Jerry and his staff deserve at least some of the credit for that.

I think Jerry handles the bullpen very poorly and sticks with veterans far too long, though I’ll acknowledge Andee’s point that we don’t know how much is Jerry and how much is Omar and/or ownership. That said, yes, his players seem to like playing for him and it feels (because I can’t really know) like he’s effective as a mentor, communicator, etc. He gets credit for that, but it’s not a Get Out of Jail Free card for the rest.

FWIW, the Great And Omniscient Mike Scioscia did the very thing tonight (Friday) that people are slamming Jerry for — he took out a guy (Joe Saunders, who has been struggling) who was pitching a shutout and hadn’t thrown that many pitches in order to get Brian Fuentes a save. Which Fuentes promptly blew. And then they lost in extra innings. To the freaking Royals, no less. So if even Scioscia has save-itis, are there any managers who don’t? I’d love to know who they are.

Or, if Jerry Manuel is such a bad manager, then it must be that he has an awesome team, bestowed upon him by the brilliant Omar Minaya, which has allowed Manuel, in all of his assheadedness, to get to 10 games over .500, right before the break. So you’ve got to admit that Omar Minaya is a genius.

WTF? Closers occasionally need to get into the game, if they haven’t pitched in 6 or 7 days. But people will not shut up about when or how he uses Rodriguez. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Other relievers too. He has to keep tabs on who is feeling good and who isn’t, in the bullpen and on the field. He’s got a confusing bullpen, three catchers and a bunch of banged up players right now.

And why praise Eric Simon? The guy writes a post slamming Jerry Manuel (when last time I checked, he didn’t have any sort of tap on the bullpen phone) and never once mentions that we won the game, or that Ruben Tejada made an AWESOME play.

Seriously, who wants to read that after a win?