Mets Slip Deeper Into An Irreconcilable Abyss

Loss compounds loss, injury compounds injury and the Mets have seen their season sink to depths they will not recover from.


Even the underwear models are saddened by these Mets

Now we can all know again what it's like to be a Royals fan or a Nats fan; supporters of perennial losers. Oh sure, there were two years when the illusion of not being a loser lasted until September but even that turned into disaster and the franchise has now found its rightful place; the symmetry of an impoverished farm system, rotten luck, poor calibre stars, lack of charisma and vitally, an absolute dearth of leadership from ownership down to the bat boy.

So, after a weekend of lacklustre losses in San Diego the Mets turned their attention to Arizona, to the D'Bags, a team that had inexplicably given them a thumping at home just as easily (losing three of four at Shitty Field), it appears as they would on the road, a team mired in their own baseball hell of mediocrity.

The Padres and Diamondbacks are of course, the meat and potatoes of the Mets remaining schedule. If they can't even beat lousy teams like these there seems little point in playing out the remaining games of the season because there are no high points remaining, just a prison sentence of loss after loss, demoralising the franchise to irrevocable places.

It's a good job there is no demotion in MLB. As I've probably mentioned before, the football team I support in England, Newcastle United, were much like the Mets were: gutted by rotten ownership, overflowing with expensive, injury-prone players, riddled with a new super form of mismanagement and most importantly, flourishing in a culture of losing. In English football a team that finishes in the bottom three of the division is demoted to the next division down (as if the Mets would be sent to play a season in Triple AAA next season) and that is where Newcastle have found themselves.

So if you think it's bad "just" being a Mets fan, think about being a Mets fan AND a Newcastle supporter.

Newcastle have just begun their new season this weekend. This is after an off season where most of their injury prone stars had to be sold off because without the huge payoff the franchise received for being in the Premiership, they could no longer afford the salaries. The owner, who tried desperately to sell the team and recoup his £120+ million investment, found no buyers for anything less than £70 million and so kept the franchise in limbo all off season. No new players came in. The old ones just left, reducing the franchise to embers. The manager, a former star for the team, was left hanging in the ownership uncertainty and returned to the broadcast booth. The team played their first game of the season in this lesser division on Saturday sporting canary yellow kits as opposed to the traditional black and white striped kits. Canary yellow! They managed to eke out a 1-1 draw against a similarly demoted team but their chances of being promoted back to the top league again next season seem dim at best.

So again, watching the Mets suffer yet another road less against yet another struggling, inferior team is small potatoes. Take comfort in knowing it could be worse.


Oof. Is there such a thing as the Iron Glove Award?

As for the game last night, I sure hope Mike Pelfrey didn't dedicate his start to his new son, Chase. I'll skip the obvious punchlines in that one and just unveil his magical numbers: 8 hits and 5 earned runs in 6 pathetic innings. I suppose we should all be writhing in ecstasy that Big Pelf managed to made it out of the 5th inning. Especially with Angel Pagan compounding Pelf's poor pitching with an incredibly misguided failing dive attempt at Diamondback pitcher Doug Davis' sinking fly ball in the second inning which ultimately cost the Mets the game.

Only the second inning you say? Hell, the Mets don't need much to hang their heads. This isn't a battling team. Every team has a few comeback wins during the course of the season but if you remember back to the beginning of the season, BEFORE the convenient excuse of injuries set in, remember how those Mets would take an early one or two run lead, gradually allow the opposing team to come back and then stumble off quietly by games end with another loss in tow?

This of course says nothing of Pagan's comedy of errors - for an encore to his debacle in the second inning he threw some sort of side-armed ball to the infield which of course the brilliant-fielding Anderson Hernandez couldn't handle but hell, the runner advanced to third, big deal, he was already on second anyway and the single that followed him would certainly have scored him anyway.

Or how about Anderson's throw to the ghost on first in the 8th? Where was Murph? Lost somewhere near the pitching mound, of course! The 2009 Mets, as Vin Scully aptly warned us months ago, are really the 1962 Mets in disguise.


The haunted look on Wright's face says it all.

This was a ghastly game in a ghastly season compounded by the usual suspects of mediocrity and failure. "We were a bad team tonight." Jerry admitted disingenuinely. Tonight? What about all the other bloody nights in between? Have you finally narrowed it down Jerry to this one night?

So, look ahead brave Mets fans, down the long road of misery that awaits.