A Weekend Worth Forgetting

Maybe it would have been better to have been pissing down rain all weekend.


A grand summation of a futile weekend.

Two days, two losses show the Mets, even with Santana, haven't moved far from the miserable collapse of 2007.

You'll struggle to excuse this ugly weekend.



The Mets had John Maine and Johan Santana going for them. Carlos Delgado, thought to be spinning out of his prime at light speed, Ryan Church, Angel Pagan and Brian Schneider, all thought to be potentially equal part of offensive inadequacy, are hitting .350, .381, .313 and .357 respectively.



But if you examine Games 4 and 5 of the 2008 season you will notice that not only did the Mets lose to their arch rivals. Not only did they lose twice. Not only did they fall into the bowels of the NL East, most importantly, they just didn't impress.

Maine's debut was hardly representative of his Spring. Four innings pitched? Three walks, eight hits, four earned runs? Is this an attempt at sabotage or further proof that Spring Training stats are utterly useless when it comes to predicting a regular season performance.

Meanwhile, Jorge Sosa and Nelson Figueroa, both tabbed as potential Pedro replacements, shat themselves harder with every pitch and in essence, destroyed any prayer the Mets had of a comeback in Game One.

Sosa surrendered a grand slam to pinch hitter Kelly Johnson in the 7th and allowed two hits, walked a man and surrendered two earned runs just to make sure there was no chance for the Mets batters to stage a miraculous comeback.

End result? An 11-5 loss. An ugly 11-5 loss that was just compounded and grew worse seemingly with every inning until eventually, whilst listening, one became convinced of the argument the Mets appeared to making. Yes, they are no good. Yes, their rotation is in tatters, yes, their hitters can't hit with men on base again, yes, their bullpen is woefully inadequate and no, these are challengers for the NL East.


Please save my job! Please save my job!

The second game wasn't much better in that the Mets lost again and worse still, lost with their ace on the mound.

You were allowed your 20 some odd hours of optimism with Santana taking the mound against Brave ace John Smoltz who was making his first start of the season.

And frankly, the Mets were never too far from snatching an important victory but yet again, reality conspired against them. The 1-0 deficit they carried with them from the bottom of the 3rd inning until the bottom of the 7th when the deficit doubled>

They even made things exciting for a few seconds, managing to score their first run of Sunday in the 9th before gently succumbing again; a second loss in two games against what might now be the favourites to win the NL East.

That certainly can not describe the Mets any more.