Wagner continues to kill Mets
Posted: Thursday, August 30, 2007 7:19 PM
Billy Wagner is going to kill the Mets just as certainly as Armando Benitez used to do half a dozen years ago.
He blew another game Thursday, throwing a heroic Mets comeback against the Phillies in the trash. Thanks to his inability to come through when his team really, really needs him, the Mets, who had a six-game lead four days ago, now have a two-game lead in the suddenly exciting NL East.
Wagner is going to retire as one of the great closers of all time – at least that’s what his statistics will say. He’s got 353 saves, which is seventh on the all-time list. That’s more than Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage or Rollie Fingers, and that’s the problem with statistics, because who would you rather have pitching the final inning of a seventh game, Goosage or Wagner? Fingers or Wagner? Sutter or Wagner?
Of course, Wagner has had a very good year for the Mets, but he always has very good years – until he has to get one out you really need. Like Thursday against the Phillies, when the Mets handed him a two-run lead and asked him to get the last six outs of the game. But he needed only four of those outs to hand Philadelphia an 11-10 win.
In his defense, he had taken a week off with a tired arm. Also, he hadn’t been asked to pitch two entire innings for eight years. But it doesn’t seem to matter with Wagner. Like Benitez, he throws the snot out of the ball and is virtually unhittable – until it matters.
Two years ago, he had 38 saves in 41 opportunities and a 1.51 ERA for the Phillies. But one of the saves he blew was the game the Phillies had to have to stay alive against his old team, the Astros. Philadelphia fans held that against him, and he whined about it when he went to New York as a free agent after that season.
What he said is well remembered down there: "People there expect you to perform, and when you do perform, they're still on your ass. In Philly, you can't have a good enough year. It's different in other places. In Philly, you should never give up a run or you should hit a home run every time up.”
So now he’s doing the same thing for the Mets. Last year, terrific regular season. But when the Mets needed him to keep Game 2 of the NLCS tied against the Cards, he got smacked around for three runs. If the Mets had won that game, they probably go to the World Series.
Now, he’s at it again. He was terrific all year, blowing only one save through Aug. 8; in July, he didn’t give up an earned run. But since then he’s blown three of six opportunities while giving up nine earned runs in 13 innings. (See his game-by-game stats here.)
No reliever is perfect; Mariano Rivera has blown saves in the World Series and the playoffs, too. But when Rivera blows a save, it’s usually on a bloop here, a broken bat there, and once in a great while a ringing double or home run. When Wagner blows them, he throws the ball 100 m.p.h. and watches it rattle off the walls at twice that velocity.
He’s the reason the Mets have gotten as far as they have the past two years. He’s the reason they won’t get any farther.
