The T.J. Furman Era

Fans of my Bronx Bombers blog know that I’m big on recapping the important times in Yankees history. I like to go back and count down the top moments of those days. I wrote the Top 5 Moments of the Marty Miller Era (he was the Yankees strength and conditioning coach who ruined the 2007 season), the Top 5 Moments of the Josh Phelps Era, and, while not a countdown but still of a similar tone, there’s the obituary for Carl Pavano’s Yankees career.

Well, I figured my presence here was an important time in the history of the CitiBlog, so, without further ado, I present “The Top 5 Moments of the T.J. Furman Era.”

1. Saturday night, about 11:30 p.m.: OK, I’ll start with a positive one (and I don’t even mean that sarcastically): Carlos Beltran’s unbelievable catch running up the hill at Minute Maid Park. Mets fans will remember that one for a long time to come.

2. Friday night: Jose Reyes fed a lot of material to people who like to call in to WFAN and argue Derek Jeter is better than Reyes. Well, Jeter is better than him, but Reyes made it a lot harder for Mets fans to fight back as he stood a couple of feet from home plate in Houston and thought: “It’s foul, right? It’s foul, RIGHT? IT’S FOUL, RIGHT?”

3. Saturday night: I ran out of cute things to write at the end of the blog entry (it was also the end of the work week). Fortunately, a night of rest refreshed the batteries and I was able to scrape a couple together today. I hate to toot my own horn, but I really came through in the clutch here.

4. Monday-Tuesday: Did you know that the sun sets behind third base at Coors Field? Thank God Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez told us everything imaginable thing you could think of about it during Monday’s game … and Tuesday’s game … and Wednesday’s game.

5. Early Saturday morning: Thoroughly convinced I’m bad luck for the Mets, Steve hires a sniper to take me out before I drag the Mets into second place. Fortunately, the Mets won before I could be found and Steve called off the dogs. I have been looking over my shoulder since I heard the Mets lost Sunday afternoon, though.

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Before I head out, one more shameless plug: I’ll be doing a live diary of the All-Star Game this Tuesday night at www.thnt.com/tj. Don’t worry, it won’t be some Yankees lovefest; just poking a little fun at the national pastime’s most meaningless game. Get on board and share your thoughts.

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And that’s that. Before I turn in the keys to Steve’s house, let me make sure I’ve left everything the way I found it: Mr. Met bobblehead sitting on desk, check; makeshift shrine to John Maine undamaged, check; Mets residing in first place, check; winning surge started in Philadelphia still going strong … oops. Maybe Steve won’t notice.

All done now. Hope you don’t hold that 2-5 record against me. If you like bashing the Yankees or just like to read the rants of a fan who’s been spending the better part of the season crying in his beer, stop by sometime at www.thnt.com/tj.

Steve, she’s all yours again.

Shaky position

We’re in the waning minutes of my time here in the CitiBlog, the blog without a spacebar. The Mets closed out the first half of the season today in spectacular fashion, falling behind 5-0 after two innings and never getting back in it. So after looking like they had turned it around after taking three straight in Philly, the Mets have limped their way to the All-Star break 2-6 in their last eight and licking their wounds.

My work in the CitiBlog is done.

OK, bring out the tired refrains of “at least our team is in first place.” Congrats on that — the Mets have the worst record of the six division winners going into the break. And for the most part they’ve played like that, especially since June started.

What kind of condition are the Mets’ playoff hopes in? Right now, not bad. The Phillies are 4 1/2 back at .500 and, let’s face it, they’re the Phillies. Even the most die-hard of Phillies fans can’t fight off that argument. The Braves are two back, but don’t really have the horses to catch the Mets if the Amazin’s can pick up their play, even a little bit.

The big equalizer, though, is going to be the trading deadline. If things keep going this way for the Mets and Braves, the biggest contest in the NL East could be the one between John Schuerholz and Omar Minaya as July 31 approaches. Things are close enough that the right deal could swing the balance of the division.

That is unless Pedro Martinez can be a reliable No. 1 or 2 pitcher when he gets back, Moises Alou can get back at all, and Carlos Delgado takes the Mets on his back for about three weeks at some point.

My time in the CitiBlog is drawing to a close, but there is one entry left. To see how Steve has brought a return to glory for the Yankees, check out my Bronx Bombers blog at www.thnt.com/tj. With how they’re playing, I don’t think I want to go back.

Reading time

Time for me to use Steve’s blog for some shameless self-promotion. With the All-Star Game coming up this week, I thought now would be a good time to take a look at the ridiculous way Major League Baseball awards home-field advantage for the World Series. You can read the column here.

Marathon men

Is it safe to finally write about this game? Is it really over? They’re not playing an 18th inning, are they? No. Good.

Regularly scheduled Mets blogger Steve Feitl and I hung around the office until long after the paper went to bed to see the end of the Mets’ 5-hour-9-minute, 5-3, 17-inning marathon victory over the Astros. I asked the creator of the CitiBlog if he had a message for his minions and he said: “If you stayed up late for this game, skip church. I would.”

I don’t think Steve was going anyway, though. Besides, most Mets fans probably did enough praying over the last nine innings of this one to count for a month’s worth of church services.

The day after the benching heard ’round New York, the Mets didn’t look like a team responding to what was essentially a message from their manager to wake up. (Willie Randolph claims the benching was a message to no one except Jose Reyes. Randolph may have intended it to be just that, but he should have known it would reverberate.) They struck out too much and couldn’t come up with a big hit from the eighth through 16th innings though they had plenty of opportunities to do so.

But in the end, it was Carlos Beltran who saved the day. In the bottom of the 14th he ran down what would have been a game-winning hit off the bat of pinch-hitter Luke Scott and caught it halfway up the stupid center-field hill and about 420 feet from home plate to end the inning and extend the game. It will wind up being one of the five best defensive plays of the year in all of baseball. Then in the 17th, Beltran got the big hit the Amazin’s had been lacking, driving in the game-winning run.

Wins like this are memorable and can spark a big run. But with the All-Star Break coming after Sunday’s game, it’s hard to say if tonight’s W will carry through to the second half of the year. We’ll see.

UPDATE 12:48 P.M.: Beltran’s catch has made its first appearance on YouTube right here. It’s not great quality, but you can see what Beltran did. If you’ve somehow missed it until now, do yourself a favor and watch it.

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Some interesting points from tonight’s affair: Paul Lo Duca probably wishes he had started that suspension Friday instead of Thursday. He returned tonight and wound up crouched behind home plate for 16 of the 17 innings while going 0-for-8 with three strikeouts. … Of course, the 1986 NLCS Game 6 highlights came out of the vault tonight. That one went 16 innings in Houston, but had a lot more ups and downs. One thing it had in common (besides being insanely long) was an unfavorable pitching matchup for the Mets the next day. It’s Dave Williams vs. Roy Oswalt. I think the teams get a 30-minute break after this win before they start that one. … Lee Mazzilli was in the studio at SNY for so long he had to to ditch the tie for the postgame show. … A thought I just had about that hill in center field. If it hadn’t been there tonight, I wonder if Beltran would have run full-speed into the wall to make that catch. Maybe it actually saved an injury. … New York City continues its Even-Steven baseball season. The Mets win in 17 innings with great defense, the Yankees lose in 13 innings with bad defense.

I’ve been writing cute, funny things here all week about the blog Role Reversal. I’ve run out of things to write, it’s late and I’m tired. Just go to my Yankees blog to see what Steve’s saying about the Bronx Bombers at www.thnt.com/tj, OK.

Jose, can you sit?

When you pay close attention to sports you see a lot of things you thought you would never see: There’s the weird, there’s the bizarre and then there’s what happened in the eighth inning with Jose Reyes tonight.

In the eighth inning tonight Jose hit a slow grounder down the third-base line, took two or three steps out of the box and then stood still and watched himself get thrown out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jose Reyes being still.

In the postgame show on SNY he said he didn’t run because the ball hit his foot. I looked at the replay a little later and the ball didn’t come within a foot of hitting him (plus he ran a few steps after he hit the ball anyway, so that argument doesn’t hold water). Willie Randolph removed Reyes from the game and afterward made it clear he was not happy with his All-Star shortstop. And he shouldn’t be happy. On top of it just being a lack of hustle by not running the ball out, those kind of dribblers are plays Reyes turns into hits (and sometimes two-base errors by forcing bad throws), so you could argue he not only gave an out away, but he gave a baserunner away, too.

Willie may not have had much choice in removing Reyes from the game: That was an egregious mistake. At the very least, Reyes gave Randolph an opportunity to make a bold statement to his team about its lackadaisical play the past month without having to turn over tables, kick dirt on an umpire or punch one of his players (we call that a John Gibbons special in the AL). We’ll find out this weekend whether this is enough to wake the team up or if Willie will have to resort to one of those other options.

(By the way, it couldn’t have helped that Mike Lamb really showed Reyes up on that play by jogging more than halfway across the diamond before throwing to first to get the out.)

***

Wandy Rodriguez threw a four-hit shutout against the Mets tonight. That’s just plain ridiculous for a team with that much offensive talent.

Meanwhile, New York City’s Even-Steven baseball season continues. When the Mets are up, the Yankees are down. When the Yankees are up, the Mets are down. To see what Steve’s saying about the Bombers over at my Yankees blog, go to www.thnt.com/tj.

Let’s go to the videotape!

I’m suffering through a tough year as a Yankees fan, but when things are really bad, I can go to the video library and pull out one of the four World Series films I have on DVD and recall the highlights of the Joe Torre era.

Good times.

The Mets are in first place, even if they don’t look as good as they did last season. But when you’re dealing with rough times like the three-game sweep in Colorado, where can you Mets fans turn for a little solace?

I know! You can go to the DVD player and plop in the highlight film from that year when your team didn’t even make it to the World Series despite being the heavy favorites and wound up losing Game 7 of the NLCS on a ninth-inning homer from a light-hitting No. 7 hitter against one of your stud relievers.

Good times, right?

Are the Mets serious about selling this highlight video, “The Team. The Time. The 2006 Mets”? Did the marketing people stop paying attention after Endy Chavez’s catch in the sixth inning that night? The DVD’s description at Mets.com says you can see highlights such as the team’s walk-off homers, the NL East clincher and the NLDS victory. And that’s it.

Maybe the video just cuts to black after the NLDS like in “The Sopranos” finale. You know, you could make up your own ending, because you sure wouldn’t want to relive the actual one.

For the sake of you Mets fans, I hope you saved your VHS copies of “Let’s Go Mets!” from 1986.

The Maine man

I believe John Maine is officially the favorite pitcher of this blog. Since it’s not my blog, I don’t know for sure. But if he is, I can certainly understand why after the job he did tonight against Houston.

Maine threw 121 pitches in 7 2/3 innings, allowing two runs and striking out nine. With the Mets coming off four straight losses, he defined the term “stopper” for the Amazin’s. He’s 10-4 with a 2.71 ERA. While the Yankees tailspinned their way out of Denver two weeks ago and kept right on going, maybe Maine put a quick stop to something that could have gotten out of hand for the Mets.

The bats looked better tonight, especially Carlos Delgado (who I traded to Steve in our fantasy league two weeks ago … arggh!). He came through with four hits tonight and somehow now has 47 RBI despite hovering just above the Mendoza line for most of the season. And when the Astros put a little bit of doubt in the outcome with two runs in the eighth, Carlos Beltran responded with a homer to put the lead back up to four.

Even if the Mets sweep this series with Houston, though, the first half will be a disappointment for the Mets. But if this win does keep a free fall from occuring, you’ll take a good feeling into the All-Star break.

***

I actually like Gary Cohen as a play-by-play man, but he’s starting to get on my nerves this week. First it was the sun-setting-behind-third-base thing at Coors Field for three days. Tonight it was the constant harping on John Maine not being an All-Star while Roy Oswalt is. He wouldn’t shut up about it. Cohen should know by now that past reputation has a hand in All-Star selections, so players with better stats sometimes get left out.

Why should Cohen know this? Because there are two players on the Mets who possibly shouldn’t even be on the NL roster, let alone start, but will be on the field for the first pitch next Tuesday — David Wright and Carlos Beltran. Didn’t hear Gary mention that tonight, though.

***

Jim made a good point tonight and I thought it was worth writing here: How often do you think Phil Garner covers his eyes and grimaces as his stud rookie center fielder, Hunter Pence, has to run up that hill chasing a fly ball at Minute Maid Park? That thing’s going to end someone’s career one day.

To see Steve’s review of the monster movie the Yankees produced Thursday in the Bronx, go to my Yankees blog at www.thnt.com/tj.

Revenge of the Broncos

The Colorado Rockies have won just seven of their last 16 games. Six of those wins have come against the two New York teams — three at the start of the 16-game stretch against the Yankees and now three at the end of it against the Mets — with a 1-9 skid in between. They humiliated the Mets tonight, winning 17-7. The Rockies are now the first team since the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers to sweep a series from both the Mets and Yankees in the same year and the first to sweep a series against two New York teams in the regular season since 1956.

And there’s only one way to explain it: This is the revenge of the Broncos.

The 1998 Broncos were an unstoppable force in the NFL and left opponents destroyed in their wake on the way to a second straight Super Bowl win. But their record that year finished up at 17-2 after a 13-0 start. That first loss came against a bad Giants team on a last-minute touchdown catch by Amani Toomer at Giants Stadium. The loss destroyed Denver’s dreams of an undefeated season.

For good measure, Toomer added another game-winning touchdown catch in the final minute against the Broncos just two years ago.

And now the Rockies, geared up to get a measure of vengeance for their fans, have slayed both New York baseball teams.

That has to be the case, because I have no logical explanation for how Colorado has played the last three weeks.

***

Last night I pointed out that the lack of a strong long-relief man in the bullpen has hurt the Mets this year when comparing them to 2006. I now have another man in the ‘pen whose role from 2006 is not being filled: Guillermo Mota’s. Guillermo Mota was supposed to fill the Guillermo Mota role this year and he’s not doing it.

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Mets fans should be doubly thankful the Amazin’s are boarding a flight shortly and leaving Denver behind them. Yes, you won’t have to watch your team get its brains beaten in again (at least not by the Rockies), but you also won’t have to hear Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez talk about the sun setting behind third base AGAIN. The two of them went on and on about it during each of the three games. We get it guys: It’s tough on the first baseman.

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I don’t follow the Mets as closely as the Yankees, but if this wasn’t the Mets’ worst game of the year, I don’t want to know about the one that was.

To see how Steve is holding up after three days of paying close attention to the Yankees, head over to my Yankees blog at www.thnt.com/tj.

A night and name to forget

Earlier tonight I was afraid I had used the name “Justin Vargas” when writing about the Mets’ starter in yesterday’s post instead of his real name, “Jason Vargas.” After tonight, it might not make much difference, because his name probably won’t be one you’ll need to worry about as Mets fans.

Vargas wound up letting up nine runs, all earned (oops, sorry make that eight earned because of the hit the official scorer changed into a David Wright error) in just 3 1/3 innings. Oh, wait, I’m sorry again — back to nine earned from Vargas: The scorer changed the hit that was changed to an error back to a hit again. I’ll keep you updated on this throughout the night.

Now that we have that confusion out of the way, we can get on to the rest of the game. Keith Hernandez had it right during the broadcast (he is Keith Hernandez after all), Willie Randolph made the right move with Joe Smith in the fourth inning. Smith made the wrong move to serve up a fat pitch to Ryan Spilborghs, who hit a grand slam.

Smith was followed up by Aaron Sele and suddenly you saw one spot where the Mets simply are not as strong as they were last year: The long-relief/spot-starter spot. Darren Oliver went 4-1 with a 3.44 ERA last year in that role, appearing 45 times and pitching 81 innings. Oliver never made a start. This year, Sele has not been as good: 1-0, 5.20 ERA and on pace for 32 appearances and 51 innings pitched. It’s not an easy role to find someone to fill — which was why Ramiro Mendoza, as a player the Yankees were able to keep from free agency, was nearly worth his weight in gold in the late ’90s.

When you consider the games Oliver won and the games he kept the Mets in, having Oliver last year compared to Sele this year could be the difference in three or four wins right now.

***

I don’t know if Randolph took Jose Reyes out of the game late because he didn’t run out a ground ball or because the game was out of hand. I hope it’s the latter. I can’t remember seeing Reyes ever dog it on a play before and it would be ashame if he got yanked for the first time it happens.

***

I made this proposal to Steve before and he turned me down, but now I present it to you, the Mets fans, in hopes of a more favorable answer: If we, as Yankees fans, agree to take you, as Mets fans, out for lunch — you know, to a place like Charlie Brown’s or Longhorn Steakhouse, not off-the-charts expensive but not Taco Bell — could we have Ramon Castro?

***

I’m ambivalent about the Mets being 0-2 since I started blogging here, but the Yankees are 2-0 with Steve blogging over at my site. I might like it here, after all.

***

Have you had enough of Kaz Matsui yet? I know I have. Hell, I’ve had enough of the Rockies in general.

To see how Steve has brought unabated good luck to the Bronx Bombers this week, head over to my Yankees blog at www.thnt.com/tj.

Pedro’s pitching again

T.J. here again. There’s good news to report on the Amazin’s, and since good news is something I’m not used to writing about with the Yankees this year, I figured I’d say a few words now rather than wait until the postgame wrap-up.

Mets beat writer John Delcos reports on his blog that Pedro Martinez threw 50 pitches in three innings of a simulated game today, putting him slightly ahead of his schedule to return sometime. He’s going to get a week to 10 days off before moving on to the next step, which would be, if all goes well, a minor-league assignment.

Without setbacks, that should put him back at Shea around the first or second week of August. If Pedro’s back sooner than expected, that’s all the better. I wouldn’t worry about Martinez pushing his rehab to get back too quick, either. I remember him saying back during spring training, or maybe last year even, that he wanted to do this right so he wouldn’t have any shoulder problems ever again.

On top of that, the Mets have shown that Pedro isn’t a necessity for getting to the playoffs this year (even if two other starters are on the DL right now), so there’s no external pressure there for him to take the ball before he’s ready (such as Roger Clemens may have felt back in May from the Yankees).

And with Pedro on the way back, maybe Brian Cashman could convince Omar Minaya to send John Maine over to the Bronx in exchange for, say, Chris Basak.

To read what kind of wacky, unrealistic trades Steve’s putting together about the Yankees over at my blog, head over to www.thnt.com/tj.