Manuel's Outburst May Motivate

As I was flipping through channels last night, skipping from baseball game to baseball game, I came across some guy arguing with an umpire over balls and strikes. Shockingly, this guy was in a New York Mets jersey. In the 4th inning of last night's laugher at Shea, Carlos Beltran was unhappy with 2 quick strike calls on him. This prompted a little chat between him and home-plate umpire Brian Runge. Noticing how upset his star was, Jerry Manuel hopped out of the dugout and began a nice conversation with Runge. After what may have been a pre-mature ejection, Manuel and Runge began a cute eskimo kiss, rubbing noses until Manuel walked away. Beltran than followed, incensed that his manager was tossed out of the game. "That's what I expect from the manager in a situation like that," Beltran said. "He basically came out to protect us. That's the way it should be." A quote like that makes me feel better about Manuel being manager. In only his 7th game, Manuel got himself tossed from a game, showing his emotion and while it didn't result in any immediate results, it showed the team something Willie Randolph never really showed them, that Manuel is going to back them up when they need it. Not often do you see a guy like Beltran get tossed from a game, and rarely do you see the player ejected after the manager. The Mets have needed some sort of spark all year and maybe this could inspire them to play some real baseball. This team is way too good to be performing this poorly and Manuel knows it. Now it's the players' turn to realize that the can't play like this all year long.