Swatting the Gnats

what the f* is that thing and should it be around children?

It's cold out there. That's what I tell myself. The real, opening day, Mets will be back with their wizened hurling and thunderous lumber, just as soon as Spring arrives. The performance agains the Phillies was gritty, but underwhelming. And that ninth inning script--Wagner getting hit hard and putting some men on base and Wright getting the throwing yips--is one I could live without. With the Gnats up tonight, and the Br*ves facing the Fish and a 2-0 D-Train, I am hoping to make up some serious ground this weekend.

Dayn Pyry at it again.

I can't help myself, baseball guys who can't spell their own names right give me fits. Andrwuuw Jwones for example. Well Dayn Perry is back with another take on the Mets, an ostensibly reasonable one this time. Pyrry's point: Maybe the Mets rotation isn't as bad as all the naysayers were saying. Or naysaying. What is it that naysayers do?

Maybe I put a bit more stock in research than the average sports jester, at least when it comes to paid sportswriters. But I'm the proprietor of a novelty sports blog, dammit, and I feel it's my duty to protect my purposefully outlandish and off-base writer's territory from the unintentionally nonsensical and poorly informed writers of the world. If those two realms collide, well, it won't be pretty, think Moises Alou pregame ritual ugly.

It's one thing to get something wrong, but the kind of blunders Dawn makes continually show he is not paying attention to anything other than fantasty baseball type stuff--no intelligent fan can read his articles without doubting their content. Perry makes more mistakes in his field than Rodger Cedeno, and it continues to baffle me why we pay this guy any mind at all. Well I guess I'm guilty of paying attention too, but I'm just making fun of the guy. There may only be one sportswriter out there worse, and we all know who that is (first name starts with W, ends with allace).

Anyway, he's wrong again, or at least he looks at the stats and doesnt watch the games. Whoever those "naysayers" were, I bet they will agree with me when I say this. I think its way too early, 9 games into the season to make these kind of pronouncements about pitching, unless you are a mediocre sportswriter who needs to fill space, that is. Of course, Dayn notes this "too early" problem in his article too, but then, why does he write the article? ANYONE WHO ACTUALLY WATCHES THE METS AT ALL WILL RECOGNIZE THE FOLLOWING: Sure the rotation has performed adequately, but Maine has Perez-like issues with focus and control and Pelf has yet to be seen. Dealing out consistent walks is not likely to help a club win. Toothless and Ol Duque are what they are, 3-4 starters on a contending ballclub. As for relief, Its amazing to me that blogsters haven't run around with their heads' cut off more about Heilman's situation. Tender elbow, tender psyche, and Willie seems to think he can't run him out there every day anymore. The Show has yet to impress me.

Oh well, maybe Dawn thinks Jose C. Reyes is in the rotation, leading him to a false sense of confidence.

So if there is a point of my rant it is this: go read the article. I bet as you read, you won't be able to shake the feeling that this columnist doesn't watch the games. So I put it to you, dear reader, what is our criteria for columnists? Should they be actually watching the teams they write about, or is checking the stats once a week good enough?