Wait Till After The All Star Break

My good friend Danny utters these words each year, nothing matters till after the All Star Break. And he is correct; history, especially recent history has shown us that the second half of the season has made silk purses out of sows ears.

The Mets, Marlins, Indians and and the Yankees have all gotten off to bad springs and risen to new heights in the second half. Boston who looked to be on the way out in 2004 arose like Lazarus from a lifeless corpse to win the World Series.

That said many are uttering wait till A-Rod is back or wait till Posada is back. Personally I think Posada is the greater loss. While he does not have Alex Rodriquez numbers, he is a strong arm tosser and a student of the game. Posada is aware of batters and provides detailed instruction to the pitchers to get to the job done. Add to that his lefty-righty batting. Not only can he impact on defense but offense as well. Have a switch hitter who can hit; even one who is slow runner still makes the job harder for the opposition.

A-Rod is still a loss. His numbers cannot be denied. He provides that element of respect in the lineup because he is a dangerous hitter. In Saturday's game, an ace like Johan Santana still feels his A-Rod scars. He would get better pitches. In yesterday's Bronx slaughter, it would not have mattered. Perez was tossing garbage, not even hittable garbage. Most of Perez's balls were at the ankles. A bat would not have worked. A 9 iron would have been better.

In defense of the NY Mets, I saw something last night that indicated growth. The Mets did not flame out and stomping on the Yankees in the Yankees house can give you a lot of confidence. The Mets have always been the step child of New York. The Yankees the favored son.

Willie and his Mets have been roasted, tarred, feathered and buried by various columnists each year; including the current. This weekend many were forced to look at the Mets differently. Now if they can only carry through on the momentum.

As for the Yankees, there is still a lot of baseball left to played and they really have no place to go but up.