Burn It To The Ground

The Mets are at the point know where they are Nicky and Dominic in the sticks getting buried while they’re still breathing. They lost 4-1 to the Phillies and unless they take the next two … which is certainly possible with Jacob deGrom and Seth Lugo on the bump … you can call their season toast. As a public service announcement, I’m here to tell you that I don’t care that they’re only two and a half out of a playoff spot with just under two weeks to go. I have no faith in a 21-27 team and no longer have the desire to do the mental gymnastics that it takes to figure out how to get this team in the playoffs. Mike did a great job in paving a path to the playoffs for the Mets. They stumbled on the second step which was “take advantage of the tired Phillies”, and thus they have made it close to impossible to take the first step which was to “go 10-3”.

The Mets went down on Tuesday just as they’ve gone down all season: Rick Porcello got smoked, the Mets couldn’t get a hit with a runner in scoring position (Pete Alonso flew out to center on a glorious chance with two outs and the bases loaded in the third and Wilson Ramos hit into a double play with the bases loaded and one out in the 6th), and Jeff McNeil won tonight’s “Daniel Murphy Award” for dopey play on the basepaths as he tried to go to third with two outs and a grounder to the left side and kept a run from scoring to at least bring the Mets a little closer in the 8th. Dom Smith struck out in the 9th as the tying run to put the cherry on the sundae of sewage, end the latest Mets’ 9th inning tease, and put another shovel of dirt is in the final resting place of the 2020 Mets.

Frankly, I’m done with this season much like I am done with this year. It was all downhill ever since the dugout called a fastball to Marcell Ozuna on 3-2. The doubleheader sweep of the Yankees in Yankee Stadium seemed like it was a turning point, but in retrospect it was only a pebble that propelled us upward until the gravity of the Mets not being a very good team set in and they went right downhill again. It could have been special, or at the very least it could have been a chance to take advantage of having 53 extra playoff teams to crush some dreams and make some out of towners mad. Instead, it just seems like a wasted opportunity.

But now that Steve Cohen’s takeover of the Mets is becoming more and more imminent by the day, I have less invested in this season than ever before. I am tired of putting my hopes in fake runs that fall short and give people some false sense that there’s some sort of momentum for next season. Absolutely sick and tired of it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 162 game season or a 60 game season or a 16 game season … fake momentum is the last thing I want to be taken in by. And Steve Cohen shouldn’t be taken in by it if it happens.

Maybe he won’t be. Maybe the Mets go on a magical run and Cohen still doesn’t deviate from whatever his plan is. But I don’t want to take any chances. I want this entire thing burned to the ground. Now, I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to tell you they should trade deGrom and Alonso and start over. There’s a decent core here, but it’s being wasted in much the same way that the starting rotation of the mid-teens were wasted. Alonso, Dom Smith, McNeil, Michael Conforto, and whichever one of Amed Rosario or Andres Gimenez they decide to keep at shortstop isn’t the worst offensivcore you can build upon. And I dare say that along with J.D. Davis, it’s probably the most amount of young hitters they’ve had to build around … ever.

But that’s the easy part. The hard work in building a roster and a farm system has been a complete and utter failure. And that’s the part that has to be burned to the ground. Jeffy is going to be sent away to worry about his Overwatch league, and won’t deserve the return he’s going to get on his 5% stake when Cohen hopefully turns this thing around. But the rest of the culture that Jeffy and Fred created and held onto like grim death has to go. There seems to be a real shot that this is finally going to happen. But it isn’t going to happen until the owners vote on it in November when this mess of a season is finally over. So the next two weeks of the season means nothing to me. Not that I won’t watch and suffer along with the rest of you, but this has become the ultimate lame duck season. An entire franchise of lame ducks unlike anything we’ve seen before. And hopefully, will never see again.

Today’s Hate List

1. Shane Victorino
2. Pat Burrell
3. Brett Myers
4. Pete Rose
5. Von Hayes