2008

From The Met Wiki

This was the last season at Shea, and after a bad ending to the 2007 season the Mets were looking to win the NL East. The Mets re-signed Moises Alou and Damion Easley for one more year. The Mets also gave Luis Castillo a 4 year 25$ million deal. They also acquired Angel Pagán from the Cubs.

But the two biggest things the Mets did in the offseason before the 2008 season was trading Lastings Milledge to the Nationals for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider. And bringing Johan Santana to New York from the Minnesota Twins.

After a bad start by players like Carlos Delgado, and David Wright suffering the effects of playing too many games without a break, the Mets found themselves behind in the standings. On June 17 in Anaheim, California, Omar Minaya fired Willie Randolph along with Rick Peterson, the pitching coach and let the bench coach Jerry Manual be the new "interim manager".

When Jerry took over, things took a turn for the best, David Wright was finally rested on June 24, the pitching was great, the bullpen had more then 20 innings in a row without giving up a run, the Mets went on a ten game winning streak. it looked like the Mets were on the way to the east title. After the All- Star break the Mets season started to deteriorate again due to the loss of pitchers Billy Wagner and John Maine and the absence of substantial playing time of Luis Castillo and Ryan Church due to injuries.

The Mets bullpen could not hold on to the leads the starters gave them, no lead was safe in the hands of Aaron Heilman and Scott Schoeneweis

They ended up blowing their lead of the East and Wild Card to make it another Mets collapse sending Shea stadium down on a bad note.

And to make things worse the Phillies beat the Rays in five games to win the World Series