Avenger of Blood Author Gives Mets a Lift with Non-Literary Ineptitude

Miguel Batista's start last night tanked worse than his last novel.

A couple years back, some Mariners fans apparently took issue with their club's signing of Major League Baseball's only active novelist, a man who could twirl fastballs and snappy dialogue at will:

"I think you're right: this has got to be only the second time when the entire state has become so intently focused on one trial. Many people who came here today are carrying posters and signs demanding justice and that Thomas Santiago receive the death penalty," Molly observed."

Less charitable suspicions were confirmed when Batista dropped this quote after a meeting with Kenny G:
"He played for me," Batista said. "It was my favorite song, 'Alone.' Now, I feel like I've had everything. I've talked pitching with Sandy Koufax, had Kenny G play for me. Maybe if I could have an interview with God, then I'd be served. I'd be complete."


I'm not one to kick a guy when he's down, but this stuff is irresistable. If the title of Batista's new thriller, Avenger of Blood: A Plot Where Real Facts and Evidences Face Faith, is a bit clumsy, you can bet that Mets fans are in a forgiving mood. Just a night after being humiliated by Dickeyball, the Mets faced a man, “Dominican by birth, pitcher by profession, poet by vocation” who is actually a better writer than pitcher. Let's just say it made Carlos Delgado's 45th birthday extra special. Alas, the Mets can't expect to face a pitcher/writer hack every night. Nor can they count on Adrian Beltre's defensive splendor and well-timed throw aways to keep them batting though any more innings. But at least they took one game out of three from the worst team in baseball, a team with nothing to play for.






During a mildly entertaining SNY broadcast, Keith and Gary reiterated their stance against fan voting for the All-Star team --Keith "I played in 5 all-star games and I probably should have played in 9" Hernandez probably has a point, but did the Mets organization have to take their arguments to the extreme and come out so strongly against fan interest in baseball altogether?


Lucky I don't have heart trouble since John Maine took the opportunity in the 5th to go from cruising through a no-hit laugher to stumbling through a everybody hit nail biter by giving up something like 400 consecutive hits. Ichiro nearly made it a 8-5 lead (thus potentially leading to the re-explosion of my head) when he hooked a change up just foul and had to settle for a sac fly. But the Mariners being the Mariners, Maine got out of it with a pop up and an 8-2 lead. Still with an 8 run cushion, Maine failed to go 7 as required by the Gangsta. Which of course, makes me cranky.

***
Time again to play our continuing "Get to know your Mets Coaches"
Dan Warthen is:
A. Best-selling author of The Da Vinci Code
B. Running for the Texas House of Representatives
C. a former 12-21 big league pitcher for four seasons, now the Mets new pitching coach
D. your next door neighbor's kid who you caught ogling your daughter through a telescope


Dan Warthan--or is it Joe Maddon?--shops for rice.

Seriously, I know more about the Angel Rays manager Joe Maddon than I do about this guy. Feel free to send in your fun facts.

D'Oh P IS the Mets

METS=Making (head) Explode They're (so) Sucky

The NY Oliver Perezes

Supposedly talented. Paid like a star. Going on fumes from past successes. Could have been great. Maddeningly inconsistent. Pathetic. Unfix-able. Ladies and germs, Oliver Perez is the NY Mets. In fact, I shall from this day forth call them the NY Oliver Perezes when convenient. But seriously folks, take small comfort from the idea that Perez has punched his ticket out of town. Only a complete moron would resign this doofus.

J-Man Finds Consistency, Gangsta Style

J-Man is searching for the elusive charms of consistency. I say the pattern thus far indicates he found what he's looking for. Consistent mediocrity. Consistently scoring 0-1-2 runs in lopsided loses. At least they're not losing 2-1 lately.

Tue, Jun 17	@ LA Angels	L 6-1	34-36	Lackey (4-1)
Wed, Jun 18	@ LA Angels	W 5-4 10th	35-36	Sanchez (3-0)
Fri, Jun 20	@ Colorado	W 7-2	36-36	Maine (7-5)
Sat, Jun 21	@ Colorado	L 7-1	36-37	Jimenez (2-7)
Sun, Jun 22	@ Colorado	W 3-1	37-37	Pelfrey (4-6)
Mon, Jun 23	Seattle	L 5-2	37-38	Rowland-Smith (2-1)
Tue, Jun 24	Seattle	L 11-0	37-39	Dickey (2-3)

These guys are batshit bad. Hella horrible. Disgustingly defunct. Laughingly ludicrous. But yet I watch.

Golden Boy and Golden Arm Let Jerry's Kids Down

Mama said there'd be days like this.

Well, actually she forgot to mention that after several so-so starts the Mets prize All-World hurler would go and give up a Salami to another pitcher. Felix Hernandez thought that bat looked like fun, so he picked it up and thereby helped erase any momentum achieved when the Mets and Beltran trapped the Colorado Series with a little help from their Pelf. I may keep it to myself, but I am profoundly worried about Johan. Giving up a slam to a pitcher is not cool. I see symptoms I recognize from every other superstar the Mets have imported in my life, save Piazza.


We can dress them up, but we can't take them out.

I mean, come on. The Mariners suck, 23 games under .500 suck. The hole they are in may be even worse than the one Omar dug for the Mets, and some have noticed the similarities.

No Met will start in the All-Star game, and that is how it should be. Think about it, in a world where goofy optimists, casual fans, unthinking Mets nationalists, Garden State gas huffers, and fanboys can literally "vote" a billion times each, there ain't a single Met sniffing starter-hood. And the game is in New York. The fans are sending a message: take some time off boys, you certainly suck.

As for the Jerry Manuel regime, I am not impressed. Wow, his pitchers hand the ball to each other when they get the hook!! Wow he's comfortable in his own skin!! Starting with his somehow celebrated handling of Reyes insubordination till now, I have seen nothing that indicates a rise in Met fortunes will be due to anything other than chance. Look, I understand when you feature a AAA offense anchored by Carlos Delgado, you will lose a lot of games 6 or 7 to 1. And the manager doesn't have much to work with: to sit Wright for a game, as J-Man plans on doing tonight, is to further decimate the club's awfulfense. On the other hand, I am not entirely depressed, as the Mets have started to win series which is all that really matters, while the Phillies have started giving wins away like cell phone plans. Perhaps it turns out that, despite relying on the totally unreliable (Castillo, Delgado, Pedro, Alou, ElPoopie) and giving away exactly the young players that could energize this team in the outfield and at second base (you heard me, that's Lastings and Gotay), Omar designed this team perfectly for the NL Least because .500 is about what it takes to stay in the mix. On the third hand, this part of the schedule is "get healthy time" and I have now seen the Mets at their supposed best (with Santana or Pedro on the mound) get pounded repeatedly by competing clubs and less-than-championship caliber clubs alike. As I plan to repeat ad nauseum, without front office and dugout stability, I do not expect this team to become the dynasty we all dreamed about in 2006. The Mets front office, exhibiting the beautiful combination of incompetence and impatience, turned the corner but forgot to look where they were going and got pasted.

So the adventures of Jerry's Kids, occasionally being sold by the media as the growing success of a club under new direction (His bullpen has roles!!), may actually just be the exploits of a .500 team doing what it has to do to remain a .500 team. The media wants us to be charmed by Manuel's ill-advised ramblings, but I know they are just savoring the set up. The more the media impresses the decision makers at Sterling Enterprises, the less it is impressing me. If WillieGate was not enough to convince you of the sorry state of the sports media in this country, which only gets worse as writers are taken off-line and replaced by guys in their underwear in their mom's basements, you should check out the latest Fox Sports poll, which asks Kobe Bryant what Shaq's ass tastes like. When they're not protecting the holy citadel of modern sports writing from crass and unschooled interlopers, some mavericks shout DOOM for the Mets. But I prefer to save my breath for bigger catastrophes ahead.

Off Day Blather: To Error is Metropolitan, to Forgive Really Really Hard

Go visit this guys myspace and maybe he'll let me keep the picture.

Willie may be deposed, but there is still plenty to drive us crazy. A#1 on my list is the senselessly bad defense. An under appreciated facet of the malaise of Willie, Wankers and the Mets Losing Factory is the constant mental and physical blunders they specialize in. If I remember correctly, when the man who signed Sammy Sosa took over this flailing franchise, the idea was to have a team with strong defense up the middle, a team that could emulate the Br*ves in an organizational sense. I don't remember the discussion including carrying a million catchers, featuring a bench that can best be described as lame, or running out an elderly scrub filled line-up which seems built to fail or hurt itself or both. We can see that Omar has not made much progress on the Br*ve front, unless giving hicks a media voice or driving fans away are the goals. So how is the team doing with that defense thing? I say mind-blowingly awful.

Shoddy defense and mental errors drive me insane because, unlike pitching and offense, there is relatively little mystery or luck involved in keeping your head in the game and playing solid if not spectacular, consistent defense. Players can be focused, they can be positioned, they can not be sent home on suicide missions by dopey third base coaches. And, on paper, this should be a relatively defensively gifted team.

Let us consider the defensive acumen shown in the Mets Father's Day defiling doubleheader. Jose "Wickets" Reyes and Carlos Delgado letting easy grounders go under their gloves in the first game. Brian Schneider boneheadedly putting an exclamation point on the game by running the Mets comeback into the ground in the first game. Not to be outdone, Damion Easley proved unable to catch a can of corn in the 3rd inning and Reyes demonstrating his disinterest in thinking by going to first too late when the LEAD runner was hung up between 2nd and 3rd. More horrid perhaps, was the Mets showing against the Angels, with Easley and Delgado leading the way. As far as I'm concerned, these dopes are responsible for Santana's loss the other day: giving a team like the Angels a half a dozen extra outs is more than any ace can handle. Forgetting to cover bases, missing easy grounders, good lord I can't take it. Perhaps the fact that these two men are supplying so much of the Mets meager offense lately should take them off the hook, but really we're talking Bad News Bears Replacement level defense (a stat I am in the process of developing). And Reyes has regressed defensively so quickly I can only scratch my head.

Anyhow, I hate this shit.

***
The media feeding frenzy is now at its peak; the beast got what it wanted and now I expect interest to fade as the team continues its slide towards ultimate mediocrity, unless a new era of "meaningful games" dawns somehow or the Phillies team bus goes off a cliff. Despite the overkill, I am still interested in hearing more about the following stories:

*post-Jacket postmortem. How will the organization adopt to not having a "guru" in charge of its pitching system, and just letting an ordinary schmuck run things? Was Peterson rubbing pitchers the wrong way in general? Are there any reforms possible for the pen, or will they wait for the law of averages to take hold in the second half? So far it has been all Murphy's law on the hill for the Mets. How much influence did Peterson have on the draft and in general? Will the Mets let the new manager have his own man in this position, or will they tie his hands again? Will it get better?

*How long will the universal derision last? I'm proud to be a Mets fan come hell or high, rat- infested water, but I'll admit it was nice to be taken seriously for the past 3 years. After a year or so of being recognized as one of the most exciting teams in the MLB, the Mets are back to being a laughingstock, slaves to media, and abusers of their own personnel. This is close to "meaningful games" territory, folks, and if we reflect on the journey, it is looking like the Mets flubbed the GM hire again. Will Omar pull another rabbit out of his hat like Santana after the Collapse? Will this rabbit be a smart, baseball decision rabbit aimed at sustainable success, or will it be another stupid Steve Phillips rabbit? After blowing the era of good feelings out their ass on the eve of their new stadium's debut, will the Wilpons ever get it?

* What the f*** is up with Tony Bernazard? Obviously, a good part of the media has it out for him right now, but the question is, is there fire under this smoke? Stories are tying Bernazard both to Willie's demise and Delgado and Beltran's impotence--I expect to see that Tony has a child out of wedlock with Mrs. Met any day now. I am predisposed to feeling the rot needs to be removed if this ship will ever be sea-worthy, but we really don't know the details yet.

*What the f*** is up with Ken Oberkfell not being named manager but being named subordinate to Manuel? Must the Mets always have a management designed to undermine itself? Blah.

Jerry's Kids Get Spanked by Angels: Omar wonders "can you really not fire 25 guys?"

Two Ramon "sleepyHEAD" Castro-size helmets guard the entrance to "Angela" Stadium; I hear they are a great place to meet other white elderly baseball fans.


Excited to make history by attending the first game of the Manuel Era, how was I to know that, after sitting in an hour of constant traffic on the 5 freeway, I would arrive at a game that was essentially over in the first inning when Reyes childishly threw a tantrum and left the building after tweaking a hammy and being removed from the game? Yes, that disturbing event led to the insertion of Damion Easley at shortstop, which led to butchered play after butchered play until the Angels had an insurmountable lead (read: 2 runs). I was there folks and this was awful to watch. Any other Manuel in the National League East sits Reyes down for a game to think about showing up the manager and embarrassing the already red-faced franchise. I recommend this course of action heartily. But Manuel has already shown he is Willie-lite by already letting Reyes off the hook without a disciplining that would show this team he means business. Who is to say Oberkfell will even want to manage this mess by the end of the season?

Setting all the off the field drama aside, recall the fact is that the Mets got Johan Santana to dominate. And he has not been dominating. He may be in the near future (second half), but I have seen him just about each time he pitches and "dominance" is the wrong word to describe his performance. "Past his primey" would be a better word, if that was a word. Tonight, he was getting hit hard. Sitting behind the plate drove this home. Hard. Smack. Thwack. Swack. All over the park. It made me sick.

I could say a lot more about the putrid Met defense, and I will soon. I could also say that by the end of this game, even the Mets ball boy had to be fearing for his job. But for now, I'll let my lousy pictures do the talking.


There is nothing to do in Anaheim but at least the park isn't hard to find. Just follow the traffic.














2 or three of the 7 current Mets catchers shown here shagging during BP.















New Met shags some balls for Christ.















Joe Smith manages to keep his cool with fans around.



















Angels stadium voted best view of the freeway, 35 years and counting.



















My seats...not too shabby.




















Not a good sign---expected Manuel to bring out line up cards, but i think this was Sadly Alomar Sr. I thought Jerry promised Sadly would not be coaching third?















Oh shit, this is the new regime. Does this guy want to win? How does Delgado not DH?????















Angels Stadium--I haven't seen this many happy white folks since they renewed M*A*S*H















One odd feature of the park: are those sniper nests?




















Jose Reyes, right before he injures himself and throws a hissy fit at Manuel during the first minute of the game. No further pictures of this since my head was buried in my hands.



















Mr Bungle replaces Reyes, ruins my evening.



















Radar gun or Mets baseball IQ? hard to say.



















Jerry Manuel's Bermuda Triangle Defense. Marlon, Tatis and Easley. $137 mil. Amazin'.














This guy is an animal. And I have to note, his back looked fine to me.



















The stadium was packed. Lil Jeffy, if you're paying attention, I figured out why...



















Not the smoking embers of the Mets playoff hopes. California people just like fireworks.



















The whole story.















As I left the park, i couldn't help noticing Gene Autry in oddly Delgado-esque fielding position.

MIckey Mouse Organization to Willie and Jacket: Go To Disneyland

Mets brain trust gathers to decide organization's future.

WANTED: Accountable, Proactive GM

The organization has now completed its latest "Dance of the Dangle" (see Howe, Art) and has fired Willie and the Jacket in Anaheim of all places. And, as in most everything this organization does, it's hard not to be a little pissed off at the way the organization went about its business. As noted in the media, Sterling seems always to be caring what everyone thinks, particularly the media and the fans baying for blood, not caring about sound baseball moves. The whole Willie era seems now like it was guided by bad baseball sense. But it has become increasingly evident that Willie was only part of the problem with this complacent club. I won't be surprised if many people's sympathies have not shifted to Randolph, even if I was surprised at how mine did. Willie's firing depresses me. And it saddens me that Willie won't get to coach the all star game.
Perhaps he could go as Clint Hurdle's bullpen manager or umpire relations coach (sorry, had to get that last shot in)?

The most astute observation about this sordid situation coming out of the press has to be this nugget from a few days ago from Met-hater "Buster" Olney:

"...this is an organization with a long history of backstabbing and in-fighting, of executives battling on-field staff by leaking information to the media. This kind of stuff dates back to the days of Frank Cashen and Davey Johnson and Bobby Valentine and Steve Phillips, and only leadership at the top can settle this kind of garbage.
For example, it's an open secret that assistant GM Tony Bernazard and Randolph have serious problems with each other. But rather than settling this tension months ago -- either by firing Randolph, reigning in Bernazard and keeping him clear of the work with the major league team, or insisting on a peace between the two men -- the Mets have let this fester. This kind of thing has been a recurring cancer for the organization, and ultimately, it is Fred Wilpon, the team's owner for decades, who is responsible."

Olney's main point, outside of this quote, is that it is not a good sign that the Mets were considering firing Willie Randolph. My own take probably won't knock your doors off. But here it is. I agree and I am most uneasy with in-season manager sackings because the perception always is that the manager's tenure depends on some particular series or game, as Olney points out. I can't think of a single recent, successful franchise that has a revolving door for managers.

What does it say about Met executives if their decisions are colored by stupid criteria? If the plan can't be sticked to, then what does that say about the plan? The core of the team is rotten, or at least you can say that not one of the multiyear Metsies is having a decent year by their standards. It may be that Willie could not motivate these sad sacks, and if anything is going to work, the team needs a serious shake up--more a tweaking of the roster than a cosmetic yet distracting coaching change.

Fixing the roster is Omar's department, and I have thus far been unimpressed with his sense of urgency during a season when his moves have not panned out. For better or worse, Omar put this team on the fast track to succeed immediately, raising expectations immensely. The performance of benches and pens, in my experience, tends to vary wildly from year to year, yet Omar stayed with most of the same crew of older spare parts on the bench (so much the better if they're catchers!) which became a problem when the spare parts penciled into the daily lineup went down and these guys are now the regulars. The relief corps has been no relief; the pen has now been bad for quite sometime, even allowing for the winter when I assume they were not so bad. No Met lead seems safe. The pen lacks a single fire baller outside of Countrytime, and this band of aging mostly lefties spends the bulk of its time trying to find its confidence or consistency. Omar's addiction to the aged--overtly bad with his puzzling (yet widely fan supported) signings of Alou and El Duque, and more subtlety bad with his commitments to Delgado and Castillo--has not only drained the team of any periphery productivity (outside of its core offensive players and star pitchers) but also clogged the paths of any youngsters who might come up and give the team a spark, however brief (who wants to play "waiting for Moises?").

The time to fire Rudolph was at the end of last season. The fact that the team plays in NY should not be license for a severely short term outlook. The sad truth is that the Mets just have no choice but to wait around for Beltran, Wright and Reyes to come around.

Perhaps the appointment of an interim manager will be coincident with a winning streak, though I wonder how in Hades Oberkfell and Manuel will coexist. This situation is nearly as ponderous as the retaining of Sadly Alomar as the third base coach when he seems better suited to handling the teams' laundry. Meanwhile I will grumpily head down to Anaheim tonight to catch the new Mets.

Shea-ing Goodbye (Shea it ain't So): Photo Essay Pt II

Photo essay on the occasion of my last trip to Shea, June 9, 2008, a 9-5 disappointment deluxe at the hands of the Diamondbacks of Arizona.






Takin' the 7 train, though not express unfortunately.



















Some Citifield facade shots...








More new park porn






***



A billboard features the day's starter, modelling the disguise he'd no doubt be using to leave the stadium.

This picture, taken from the section I mistook for my own for 4 innings (oops), captured the early joy of the game.




From "my" original seats, Jose Reyes could be viewed in all his goofiness.










My real seats? Well, the cowbell man comes to the Mezz too.









Glee would turn to shock when Mr. Met later turned the gun on himself.









God tries to stop the cycle of violence.

Slipping on my new lucky Mets footsies stopped the rain, but could not deliver victory.








Unfortunately, it came to this, as it so often does.










Wishing I could say the same.










One last parting shot: juxtaposing present suckiness with future hopes while walking the wrong way to the subway thanks to elderly Mets employee's directions. Thanks, pal. You cannot get to the 7 train that way.

Omar Turns to Trot to deal with Biblical Disaster; Photo Essay Part I

Omar Minaya would probably deny it, but Trot Nixon was brought in yesterday to do more than answer some questions for Ryan Church in the off-chance the later ever plays again. Known for his hustle, defense, chronic injuries, and personal relationship with Jesus, former Red Sox and Indian Trot Nixon is just the guy for this troubled clubhouse:

Trot uses the camaraderie of the clubhouse to share the gospel with his teammates -- no matter how strange the request.
"They say, 'Run off to chapel and tell God to allow me to get a couple hits.' I've had guys joke about that, and I say, 'Why don’t you come to chapel, sit there in the back, listen to what our chaplain has to say and maybe talk to God a little one-on-one. Some people get quiet, change the subject real quick because I believe they know that’s what they should be doing. That’s what they’re yearning for. They just don’t know how to do it."

Although (if he sticks) Nixon's zealotous agenda and funny name will provide ample grist for the blog, I am still uncomfortable with overt religious proselytizing in sports. Let's leave that to John Smoltz, who praise the lord, now has plenty of time on his hands. However, I am now more than ever willing to try anything.

New Met Trot Nixon brings his personal relationship with this man to the table.

And, although I'm a separation of church and plate kind of guy who is concerned with the presence of Christian proselytizing in the proper realm of the Baseball Gods, it seems to me that at least Trot seems to be capable of understanding the team's position as Satan's whipping doll:

"You have a lot of ups and downs. You battle yourself, you go to the depths, and you know that Christ is there for us. But Satan's really beating down on you. I'm not here to question what God does, because He has a purpose and a reason for everything that He does in this world for each of us."

This season's Book of Johan has indeed read much like the Book of Job and we need some answers quick. While turning to Jesus instead of Billy Wagner might be a good idea, I still have my doubts. After what I witnessed in person Tuesday night in my farewell tour to Shea, I'd say it is unclear how god feels about this team. Tied 5-5 with the Diamondbacks, the wind began to whip papers and dirt from the construction site into the friendly confines of Shea--I took it as a visible sign of His displeasure. As papers and debris whipped around Shea, I became sure it was End Times (not to be confused with Endy Time) for the Mets and looked for the plague of locusts and rain of frogs.

A holy haze moves into Shea.

Instead what I got was an hour delay and $10-20 million of Mets bullpen relievers running out on the field to secure the tarp with the grounds crew, apparently in an effort to prove that "Blowing Games" did not exhaust their job descriptions. It was the most ill-advised thing I'd seen since Ryan Church risked permanant neurological damage to take some meaningless pinch hits. Some nerve Countrytime and Showenblow have, staining the last well-run division of Sterling enterprises with their taint.

Truth be told, Wags and Blow aren't that much better at this job.

To be continued...

Mets Rocking the Rock Bottom

Mets Survive Off-day Without Loss: Dispatches from the Road

I just can't believe this team. I saw them in person in LA earlier and was astounded at their suckiness, but I still didn't believe it.

So I flew here to the East coast and drove down to NYC to investigate this sad sack club in person. Had the unique experience of listening to Billy Wagner blow a save while navigating I-95 South; the Mets find new ways to lose and I, for one, am always on the lookout for new ways to listen/watch them find these new ways to lose. But frankly, if there are new ways to lose that the Mets haven't discovered this season, I'd be shocked.

Losing by walkoff hit batsman.
Losing by 2-1.
Losing while Ramon "SleepyHEAD"* Castro continues to collect a paycheck.*
Losing without Pedro.
Losing with Pedro.
Lose. Losie. Losers. Losing.

They have lost in a train. They have lost in a plane. They have lost in pain. They have lost in the rain. They have lost in vain. They have lost six ways to Sunday. I have not seen them lose in a submarine, but if a fella came up to me and told me that it was so, I'd have to take his word for it.

And in that car on Sunday, I could sense it coming. To be sure, Billy Wagner had yet to be exposed this season. But asked to do something out of the ordinary, record a 4 out save, Billy failed in the grandest of ways. He didn't just blow a save to the Padres, nor did he just blow a must-win game out his ass, nor did he just blow a save by giving up a homerun, he blew a save to the Padres in a must-win game by giving up a homerun to TONY FUCKING CLARK. It is possible to put that in one's hat, but it is not possible to smoke that. Billy's face seems destined to end up next to John Franco and Armando Benitez on the Mets Mt. Rushmore of Unsure Closers.

This team is making life hard for novelty sports bloggers. They are not funny. And tomorrow night, as I gather with the other fools who believed in these gutless wonders long enough to invest in tickets for their performance, suck in the near fatal humidity and suffer the record temperatures that will greet me at Shea, I will be surely not be laughing.


*Castro's new nickname
**tWO YEAR $4.6 million contract that is.

D'oh P serves up a San Francisco Treat

Doh'P and ESPN do in Mets before they even start to flail

D'Oh P sucked it all right.

Oliver Perez gave a vintage performance--vintage Tom Gl***ne--tonight in a disturbing loss to the Giants: he contributed a fabulous 1/3 of an inning giving up a mere 6 runs to put the game immediately out of reach. And don't worry about Perez. Lil' Ollie was happy to skip off the field when Uncle Willie came out to hook him--there's video games and pop in the clubhouse! At least Victor Zambrano was upset that he sucked. I could spend more time pissing on Oliver but according to the NY Times this dope doesn't necessarily understand the kind of money he's pissing away:

Over his past three starts, Pérez has given up 15 earned runs in 11 1/3 innings as his earned run average has swelled to 5.70 from 4.25...The pitching coach Rick Peterson can work with him on staying focused and maintaining his arm slot, but nothing can change Pérez’s contract situation. Manager Willie Randolph has said several times that Pérez is not the type to dwell on his pending free agency and, by association, the millions of dollars he could be in line to earn.

He'd be nice to keep around, if the Mets didn't have to pay him. So a night after they looked so sweet, the BAD METS are back, all the awfulfense, all the Doh'P implosions, all the Heilman inefficiencies that you have grown to love or at least expect.

The fattest Molina and the cinder block hands of Ray Durham keyed the brutal attack of the fearsome Giants of San Fransisco land. Or maybe they didn't. The game was moot by the second inning.

Perhaps to allow Jon Miller and Joe Morgan to sleep in, ESPN forced the Sunday game into a late start, thus ensuring that the Mets, due in San Fran the next day, would have to fight through a jet lag fog to compete on Monday night. Oh, the odds they faced. They would have to overcome Mother Nature for pete's sake!

But for an alternative view, let's hear from metsfanmurph, a commenter on Metsblog:

Now I am going to have to hear Gary Cohen bitch and moan about the travel…… I don’t want to hear how tough it is to fly first class and get 10 hours of sleep to play a baseball game.
I have worked midnight to 8 and then had to be back into work at noon, so I don’t want to hear about how the Mets “dragged into San Francisco.”

I hear ya brother.

So we have to look forward to tonight's Zito-Pedro battle, where some $179 million of waste, give or take $13 mil. Let's be honest, at $53/4 years is too much to pay a clubhouse jester, even a very good one.

Smile on My Face due to Mets Ascension to Third Place

Delgado and Heilman ponder the vicissitudes of the Mets season in the clubhouse

We never know which Mets are going to show up-- the 2006 Regular Season Wow the Mets are Back wunderkinds or the graceless 2007 September to Dismember Bozos. Yesterday the Mets managed to climb back over .500 and into a third place tie with the Br*ves. And really, this game would deserve one of my patented holy funking whoopdie wow!!'s, except for I caught Major League on late night basic cable the night before and could only think of what the Mets might accomplish if the Wilpons wanted to move the club to Florida--why they could even beat a team in the same league for the World Series (that's what seemed to happen when Cleveland took on the Yanks in a Yankee Stadium filled with Clevelanders, but I wasn't really paying attention).

But really, there was nothing to complain about on the field tonight, as the Mets ran, hit, threw and caught just like we dreamed about on the eve of this disastrous season. I mean, I swear I even saw some power. It was blueprint. It would be nice if these guys could now NOT go all cold at the same time, offensive slumping being the only thing this team has truly done together all season. Maybe the magic of Fernando and Pedro show will take hold after all--I mean, this is the team that shaved their silly heads in solidarity not so long ago.

The good news is the Mets are clicking occasionally. The bad news is the Philmes are possessed, beating down teams in their way like Bret Myers beats women. The good news is the Mets next two opponents truly suck eggs. Also, yours truly will be gracing the Mets with my presence in the opening game of the D-Backs series, so look busy, Mets here I come. According to Joe Morgan, Shea is filled with fans of Joe Torre, so I am anxious to see this for myself.