Two straight losses to the Modesto Nuts. And this one wasn’t even close. Four hits in six innings off a guy making his first start since May due to injury. Jesus Basket Weaving Christ … really???
“We have not packed it in. But, as I told our guys, ‘perception is reality.’ And when you sit on the outside and you watch a game like tonight, perception is, ‘they’ve packed it in.’ And I won’t stand for it. I believe in accountability. I believe in how you play the game right. I’m the manager here and you have a game like that, where it looks like they are not prepared, that’s my fault. That’s where I come in. Like I told them in the room, we will find the right pieces. Because my teams play the game the right way. They play with energy. They play with enthusiasm. They play with some discipline. They are fundamentally sound. They don’t play like they did tonight, like we have been playing.”
The question here is, what the hell is Terry supposed to do? He went into tonight’s game with a lineup where Mike Baxter was hitting leadoff, Ruben Tejada was batting second, and Ike Davis was hitting third for the first time in his career. It had the feel of a lineup that was picked out of a hat to try to change what has been going on this past week or so. But not only did he get the same results from the lineup, but the pitching and defense was horrendous outside of the first five innings where Chris Young was perfect. But then Young throws a ball into right field on a simple sacrifice play, Jordany Valdespin overruns a ball that dropped right in front of him (sure, that he overruns … but first base he slides into), then Bobby Parnell and the rest of the Mets execute a rundown as if they were hillbilly handfishing? Was that energetic? Enthusiastic? Fundamentally sound? Was that the right way?
No, it was a f*cking abomination! And we’ve had four f*cking years of this garbage. And there’s no excuse for it. There’s certainly no excuse for what happened Tuesday night or what happened the last two games against this horrible team or the rest of the horrible teams that the Mets can’t beat. It’s getting ridiculous now. It’s one thing to build a foundation around young kids. But what kind of foundation is there here? Adding two young stud pitchers to a 70-win team is going to give you a 75-win team.
(Well, two and a half stud pitchers … depending on how Collin McHugh handles the Tulsa Drillers on Thursday as he takes over for Johan Santana, who has an MRI that’s so clean that the Mets are waiting 18 hours to announce the results. Yeah, that’s a good sign.)
Things have gotta change here. If Terry can’t do it this season, then Sandy had better do it next season. We know this team can’t spend to fix these problems (thanks Bernie.) But there had better be a plan other than “let’s get the cheapest guys out there and hope to catch lightning in a bottle and hope everyone stays healthy.” That approach does … not … work. There have to be some changes and if those changes involve trading some popular guys that everybody loves, then I’m for it. Not Wright, not Davis, not Dickey, not Niese, not Tejada, and certainly not Wheeler or Harvey. The rest of them? Anybody that wants to stay had better start proving it starting tomorrow, or they can all go in the right deal as far as I’m concerned, no matter the size of their online fan clubs. When the 2009 Mets went on an 18-41 run I wanted to murder people. And I placed the blame squarely on Snoop Manuel, which he deserved because he had more talent than the 2012 squad has. But this team is 11-27 in their last 38 and that’s a worse percentage than the 18-41. Does Terry deserve the blame? I give him credit for putting it on himself more than Snoop did. But Terry doesn’t have much to work with … this team isn’t very good. And it can’t come back intact next season.
(Believe me, I understand that I said that it would get worse before it gets better. I get it. I don’t expect miracles. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t get creative with some pure baseball trades … you know, major leaguers for major leaguers.)
Maybe it’s too soon for this kind of rant, but for the love … this isn’t exactly a pennant contender they’re losing to. It’s the Colorado Rockies with no Troy Tulowitzki, no Carlos Gonzalez, no Todd Helton, no Larry Walker, no Vinny Castilla, no Andres Galarraga, no Dante Bichette, and not even Niefi Perez for f*ck’s sake. Hell, this Colorado Rockies team looks more like the Rockies of 30 years ago … the hockey team. And the Mets lost to this outfit twice! Forget perception being reality … reality is reality. The scoreboard isn’t something that’s perceived. It’s reality, written in LED for all to see. When I look at that, and I look at those lineups that the Mets couldn’t beat, there’s nothing to perceive. There’s no L in perception. There’s an L in reality. There’s an L in loss. And there are two L’s in hell, which is where the Mets are right now, in perception and reality.
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