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Mets should rally around loss of Wagner

Wallace Matthews

September 9, 2008

Losing Billy Wagner shouldn't be the end of the story for the Mets, any more than losing Tom Brady should be the end of the story for the Patriots. Great teams find a way to overcome adversity. For three years now, the Mets have told us they are a great team.

Now would be a wonderful time for them to prove it. And this unfortunate -- but by no means fatal -- turn of events gives them the perfect opportunity.

Forget about turning the caps inside out, or growing beards or shaving heads or any of the dozens of other silly rituals the Mets and other teams use to "motivate" them through times of crisis, as if the mere fact of being in a pennant race in September weren't already enough.

The Mets need something to rally around? Let them rally around Wagner. Or, at least, rally around the belief of their general manager, Omar Minaya, that the destiny of this team is not dependent upon the fate of this or any other individual.

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Rather than take this as yet another excuse for failure, built-in reason No. 629 for why once again, the $140-million Mets just couldn't quite get it done, they ought to try something new this season.

Such as winning in spite of Wagner's injury, rather than losing because of it.

With all due respect to the injured closer, his presence in a game was anything but a guarantee of victory this season. In fact, no closer is a guarantee of victory, not even Mariano Rivera, although at his best, he was about as close as they come.

Since Wagner went down with the elbow injury that ultimately ended his season, the Mets have gone 22-11. Although this does not prove they don't need Wagner, it is pretty strong evidence that they can live without him.

Jerry Manuel's painstaking mixing-and-matching with his cobbled-together bullpen and judicious use of his emergency closer, Luis Ayala, has given the Mets a creditable, if not quite fearsome, late-game presence in Wagner's absence.

There's no reason that should change now, just because the calendar says it is September and the doctor says Wagner is not coming back this year.

You want a precedent to make you feel better about all this? Try 2006, when the Cardinals lost their closer, Jason Isringhausen, in September and pressed a kid named Adam Wainwright into the role for the playoffs.

Hate to bring it up, but he saved four games for the Cardinals that October, including the one that finished off the Mets, Game 7 of the NLCS. And, oh yeah, one of the games in that series - Game 2, if I recall correctly, and I know I do - was blown by none other than Billy Wagner.

It may well have been the turning point of that series, and that season. The Cardinals, of course, went on to win the World Series. The Mets went home thinking they were the better team, just as they did last September after they were knocked into second place on the final day of the season.

This year, they have come a long way to neutralizing, if not quite erasing, the epic collapse of 2007 - and the mini-collapse of 2006 - with their play over the past three months, since the firing of Willie Randolph.

They showed guts and resilience Sunday night in salvaging the second game of the doubleheader and staving off what could have been a devastating sweep at home by their divisional pursuers, the Phillies.

So much about this team is different all of a sudden, especially the presence of Johan Santana and the resurgence of Carlos Delgado, yet, if they allow Wagner's injury to be the obstacle that trips them up, so much will be the same.

It certainly doesn't have to be. For two years now, the Mets have shown us that for them, the games and the pennant race are never enough to keep them interested. In 2006, the regular season was too easy for them stay focused in the postseason. In 2007, their lead was so big down the stretch, they dozed off and let the Phillies sneak in and steal it from them.

Well, now they have something to motivate them and something to inspire them. Whether Wagner was the most popular guy in the clubhouse or not - and I have a strong hunch he was not - the last thing these Mets should want to hear is that without their closer, their show is closed.

The show is not closed, or at least, it shouldn't be.

The truth about Billy Wagner is official now: In 2008, the Mets can't win with him.

But they sure as heck can win without him.