Jerry’s 1 year Anniversary

Jerry Manuel entered Wednesday night’s game having survived one year as Mets manager. Taking over for Willie Randolph, Jerry inherited a 2008 Mets ballclub that was under .500 and a few months after completing a historical collapse of the NL east. But the man with the cool glasses and the calm presence in the dugout helped turn around the team and some of its players. Who can forget Carlos Delgado going from bum to hero? The Mets turning around what looked to be a disappointing season too a first place team in September? Even though the season didn’t end the way we wanted, the improvement on the team was obvious after Jerry took over.

But now we look at 2009. The Mets are 3 games over .500 after 63 games and 3 games behind the 1st place Phillies. Jerry has taken a bad rap now for being TOO calm in the dugout and over managing. Has the love for him has warn off and questioning if they need to change managers?

My personal opinion is No for 3 reasons:

1) Jerry has a year and a half on his current contract with the Mets. They are already paying the rest of Willies contract and they wouldn’t want to pay for 3 managers.
2) How is it Jerry’s fault that players keep on getting injured. Alex Cora is a solid player, but he’s not Jose Reyes. The Daniel Murphy/Fernando Tatis platoon is starting to look like a cartoon at the bat.
3) It’s only game 63! We have 99 game games left and only 3 games back of the Phillies. We aren’t the Nationals; we aren’t going to finish 30 games back.

As Jerry continues his managerial career with the Mets, I think we have to give him until late August to decide what to do with him. By then Reyes,Putz, Wagner and hopefully Delgado will be back by then and he can push again not to lose the NL East Lead. But until then, just get till the 9th with the lead. Give K-Rod the ball and hope that Jerry did fly ball drills with the team that week.