Mets Disappoint Rick Astley, Fans, Everyone

Astley: "The Mets have sullied my good name."

When he was alive, Rick Astley got a lot of mileage out of the word "gonna." Such as in "Never gonna give you up" or "When is this team gonna play up to its talent level with heart and fire?"

According to the interwebs, in 2007 Rick Astley was "victim" of a viral Internet meme in which 13 million Internet users were tricked into watching the video for the song they are now playing at Shea, Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up, "a practice known as "Rickrolling." Well, in Shea yesterday 56,000 fans were tricked into viewing this sad sack of a team under the pretense that the team's solid rotation, experienced bullpen, stingy defense, and young hitting stars would gel, shrugging off the lousy luck of 2007 to start a chain of compensatory victory that will result in a trip to the 2008 world series. They assumed that the Mets would go out of their way not to defile Shea on its last opening day, before it is disassembled and seats sold at unethical prices to suckers just like you and me. This loss was so lackluster, even Rick Astley's name has been sullied.

Instead we fans got more of the same. Failure of the starter to keep his composure. Failure to lay down a timely sacrifice. Failure to not hit Chase Utley with a ball everytime he stepped on the field in an offensive capability. Failure to hit Utley hard enough when they did hit him. Failure to be a great defensive catcher as advertised. Failure to hammer weak old pitching. Failure to have a second baseman with usable knees. Failure to set the table. Failure to clean that table. Failure to come up with plausible apologies for Scott Schoeneweis' presence on the roster.

Three miserable losses in a row. Meaningful loses, in Wilpon parlance. It's not yet time to fire up the "Willie Watch," but one wonders if the team and this manager who seems to lack the ability to inspire them are meant to be "Together Forever."