Uneven

It was truly an uneven game for R.A. Dickey in Cincinnati. He threw some knuckleballs that were so filthy that Josh Thole couldn’t catch them. (Though with the problems Josh Thole usually has catching and holding on to baseballs that might not be saying much.) And other knuckleballs were not only sent over the wall, but landed in Covington. Scott Rolen: 380 feet. Jay Bruce: 414. Todd Frazier: 28,935. Nine K’s, six runs, one loss.

The effect that Jim Joyce and his umpiring crew had on Dickey’s uneven outing? Probably close to zero, when you come right down to it. And the crew coming out in the second inning to make Dickey take off his bracelets that his daughters made for him before he climbed Kilimanjaro … okay. Rules is rules, right? Even though sometimes enforcing the rules doesn’t really lend much to common sense. I mean, look at the thing. Is that small strip of bracelet on his glove hand going to distract anybody? But whatever. I mean, the same umpiring crew let Felix Hernandez (congrats on the perfect game by the way) wear this on his left wrist just short of one month ago while the Joyce crew was working that game. But whatever. It’s that selective umpiring, I get it. Fans want to see heat, as Barry Larkin says. So let King Felix wear his bracelet and come down on the knuckleballer. Fiiiiiiiiiiiine. Or maybe this was a new Joe Torre directive because he didn’t do enough to tear down common sense by not allowing the Mets to wear NYPD hats last September 11th. Again, fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

But then let’s compound that by interrupting Dickey’s rhythm warming up in the third inning by explaining themselves to him. Whyyyyyyyyyyy? The issue was resolved. Move on! Noooooooooo, Jim Joyce and company treat this like a clown car at the circus, of course! With all the missed calls at first base this year you’d think umpires would spend a little more time worrying about things that actually matter in a baseball game like getting calls right. But no, we’re going to come down on bracelets. Again, probably not much of an effect considering how the game flowed anyway. But why mess with that over a bracelet for not one, but two innings??? Good job, sheriff.

But let’s not let the selective bracelet crackdown on the fact that the Mets got four-hit by Mike Leake and are 9-21 since the All-Star break. That’s four games better than the Houston Astros, who are at best a AA team. And Mets fans are subjected to this garbage baseball with selective rule enforcement only the rancid cherry on top of a polyurethane sundae. And the truly masochistic Met fans force themselves to watch “Dog Piss Live” after the game, where Chris Carlin and Bob Ojeda stare at a puddle of dog piss and discuss what made it yellow. That’s basically what they’re doing when they’re analyzing a Mets game these days. Four hits off Mike Leake, 21 runs in the last nine games, scoring three runs or less in seven of them. Dog piss.