27 May, 2010
New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel feels the heat, but maintains long-term vision for club
Posted by: admin In: Baseball Articles
- Mets Manager – Jerry Manuel
In the solitude of the manager’s office – the office he was no longer supposed to be occupying, according to numerous published reports last week – Jerry Manuel was talking about what it has been like to have his job seemingly hanging on every series of this topsy-turvy Mets season.
He was originally supposed to be gone if the Mets didn’t get off to a fast start, which they didn’t, losing seven of their first 10 games. Then, after a 9-1 home stand that lifted the Mets over .500 was offset by a 4-10 record on two road trips, dropping them into last place, the Manuel death watch was back on. There he was on the eve of the Subway Series, depicted in a cartoon on the back page of the Daily News, underneath the bold headline, “Throw Jerry from the Train?” Some of the other papers didn’t stop at merely suggesting Manuel would soon be fired – they flat-out called for it.
“I never get caught up in what people are saying,” Manuel was saying Wednesday night in the hours before the Mets took their second straight from the first-place Phillies, 5-0, to go over .500 again for the first time since May 13, “because this job demands that leadership remains steady.”
At least outwardly, anyway, he remained unflappable in the face of increasing Met adversity and the gathering firing squad. Maybe that was because Manuel was looking way beyond the Subway Series, and even this series with the Phillies. Indeed, he was looking far beyond Jose Reyes‘ .215 batting average on May 15, the day he moved him back into the leadoff spot; beyond Jason Bay‘s one home run going into the Yankee series; beyond Ollie Perez‘s latest implosion and John Maine‘s latest shoulder weakness (and accompanying drop in velocity).
