Jerry Manuel Leads Mets into First

Hard to believe, isn’t it? An interim manager giving a highly paid team the boost that they needed.

The Mets have won 10 in a row and Jerry Manuel is 18-9 overall as their manager.

Perhaps the argument can still be made that Willie Randolph was not the problem and that the turnaround was just a matter of time for a team with the obvious talent of the Amazin’s.

Yet you have to wonder about a team that blew a seven-game lead to the Phillies last September turning it around this July to catch the same team that had a 6.5 game lead over them when Manuel took over.

Who would have thought that Damion Easley and Fernando Tatis would step in and do the jobs that they are doing? Billy Wagner stepped up and got the save last night after going through a rough patch this spring. The team appears to have turned it around.

Will this continue? Well I don’t expect the Mets to play .670 ball for the rest of the season, but they could be close.

"We’ve been taking such a beating all year long for how we play the game and what we’ve done wrong and what little we’ve done right,” closer Billy Wagner said. “I love seeing guys who told us two weeks ago how bad we stunk, and now they’re going, ‘Well, you’re in first place.’ Yeah.”

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