Mets Show they have Pride and Poise to go with their Heart, Hustle, and Fortitude

Brian Stokes, warming up in the bullpen before coming in to relieve Johan Santana.

Terribly bad. Just Awful. Not good at all. By the time you read this Johan Santana, hopefully, will not be on the DL with arm trouble, and this start will be forgotten in a season of misery and bad luck. The Mets awful-fence barely made AJ Burnett sweat, loading the bases only to have their ineptitude shine through. I half expect opposing pitchers to walk the bases full against the Mets, knowing that the Mets just can't handle the pressure.

Jerry Manuel supplied the only real in-game entertainment in the 6th by arguing briefly with Umpire Jim Wolf, who should truly be ashamed of himself that he can't do his job after all the practice he's had. Since the Mets could have lost this one on their own, the umpires picked a dumb game to become conspicuous, calling borderline strikes and dip shit checked swings at pivotal points in the game. But this game was lost by a combination of Johan's terrible game and the Mets lack of offensive ability.

The Brian Bruney-K-rod dispute heated up in the pre-game. If you are having difficulty placing the name, Bruney is an absolute nobody who has done nothing in the game, unless a few drunken trips to the tattoo parlor and a make-out session with Andy Pettite count, and he believes that K-Rod's approach to baseball is unpleasant to watch. Since Bruney does a lot of watching and should know, K-Rod gave Bruney a chance to air his grievance face to face in the outfield today.

The Bruney-Krod dust-up was originally a creation of the media, but now the principle players have indulged them. But what is this crap from the Klap? Is there nothing else to write about? What the hell does Mariano Rivera's (alleged by Klap) less than classy dismissive attitude towards K-Rod have to do with last night's loss? Klap takes K-Rod's comments as fodder for a non-story: “I want to be remembered as either better than [Rivera] or equal to him” in a few years.” What's he supposed to say? "I want to be remembered as either better or equal to Armando Benitez"? The media expects players to genuflect to Rivera to the extent that they're not allowed to imagine or aim to be better than him? Rivera was great in a steroid era. We'll see if he ever gets nabbed taking PEDS along with the rest of the Yankees, but its a bad idea to invest too much of your journalistic integrity in any player, even Mr. Holy Rivera. Here's the Klap's words:

Rivera is to K-Rod as a Bentley is to a Saleen Mustang. One is eternal, a classic; the other is pure combustion, noise and fury off the red light. K-Rod is the one who raises his arms in self-congratulation after every save - and he was ready to signal to the heavens as A-Rod's pop-up descended toward Castillo.

What is the point of this? This is autopilot Yankee favoritist bull-dingy and a real waste of virtual ink. The pressures presented by the decline of the print media are real, but many established sportswriters have nothing to say. Added to the media idiocy around Raul Ibanez' "doth protest too much" slagging of a blogger who he thinks ties his elderly renaissance to PEDS (Raul can be forgiven for spouting off without actually reading the post, but can the media?), and Ken Rosenthal writing a story that alledges Jerry is losing or will lose the Mets clubhouse without even bothering to connect any evidence to his insinuations, it's been another bad month for sports journalism. It would be nice if these guys could give it a rest with the indignation and Yankee-blowing, and come up with real stories that are researched and interesting before they bitch about the integrity of mom's basement dwellers. Just like Ibanez' future drug tests, the proof is in the pudding.

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Wondering if there is a man more hated by his teams fans than Castillo after what he did to that pop-up? Wondering what happened to Aaron Heilman? I can help you out in one fell swoop. Here's hapless poopeyface Aaron Heilman, inducing Milton Bradley into brainless play. It sure is hard to focus when Heilman pitches, but when he was on the Mets, fielders didn't normally need to worry about fieldable balls. They always get into the stands somehow.

Milton Bradley Loses Track Of Outs from Mark Townsend on Vimeo.

swiped from Bugs and Cranks via CSTB).

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The difficulty Sunday's game presents is figuring precisely where it fits in on the list of the Mets most pathetic losses of 2009. Here is the tale of the tape: The Mets last remaining hope, Johan Santana gets absolutely walloped during a rivalry game, and the Yankees continue to pile on into the 7th exposing the shitty underside of the Mets bullpen. Mets load the bases to no avail early, then fold like a blanket. I see this one breaking into the top 5 possibly. Here's my prelininary ranking of the Mets stinkers, seeing as Oliver Perez has yet to truly leave his mark on this season:

1. Jerry Pulls the Goalie: Unbelievably F*cking Stupid Church Can't Find His Way Home, Mets commit 5 errors and Disrespect the Game of Baseball May 19
2. Castillo's Can of Corn Mets have big game against Yankers won, and Luis bails out A-Rod of all people, putting a point on the worst week of baseball many have seen June 12.
3. Murphy's Law Game, in a bad omen for the whole season, Daniel Murphy squanders a dominant Johan start and the Mets drop a series vs the Fish, April 12
4. Beltran Bel-trots Home in St Louis, can't be bothered to slide (he was "too close"), Murphy Breakdances in the Field April 21
5. Another Gift for the Phillies, Mets hammer Cole Hamels, but Beltran and Wright can't field worth a shit, Mets leave 16 on-base June 10