Blue For You

All right, let’s get this on the table right away: The blue uniforms are sweet. Imagine these uniforms without the “Los” on them. Even Jason Bay slinking away from an unsuccessful at-bat looks better with a blue uniform (they match his eyes). My scientific twitter polling (I looked at my feed) was overwhelming in favor of these things becoming a permanent part of the rotation. Gee, an overwhelming positive response to something that the Mets come up with? This should be a layup for the Mets. A layup. Presented to Mets ownership on a silver platter: something we love and think should be brought back. A once in a lifetime opportunity has presented itself to ownership to make a change that would be … pray tell … popular.

In other words, let’s see how the Mets screw this one up.

Here’s how they can screw up: They can not bring back the blue uniforms. Or, they can bring them back, but make them look like it was a bastardized Jeff Franceour Players Choice jersey. Ooooor, they can bring them back in this style, and have Ryota Igarashi wearing one. Sorry, guy’s awful. Maybe they should have walked Uggla with first base open in the eighth down 2-1, but can Igarashi get a good hitter out for once? Uggla had trouble all night against R.A. Dickey after killing the ball for the better part of three weeks, you’d think he’d be confused for at least one post-Dickey at-bat. Instead, Swallows Man gives him a softball pitch and Uggla gave the Braves a 4-1 lead.

But it was the bottom of the eighth that infuriated me, and things like this will infuriate me until the end of time. One out, nobody on, Daniel Murphy walks on five pitches. Then David Wright works the count to 3-1 before singling to center. So that’s 10 pitches, seven balls, two runners on courtesy of JonnyVenters. Now, if you’re the next hitter, what do you do? Well, if you’re sane, you take a pitch. But if you’re Angel Pagan, you swing at the first pitch and fly to right. Then, if you’re Jason Bay, you also swing at the first pitch and ground to second base to end the inning, and there was your ballgame.

Now look, I know we all like Angel Pagan … he’s nice, he signs autographs, and it’s harder to kill him than it is to kill Jason Bay. Great. But let’s all be honest with ourselves here: Pagan is killing this team. He’s killing this team almost as bad as Bay is killing this team. We can safely say that this was the most important game of the season, probably the last “most important game of the season” we’ll have, and Pagan and Bay swing at the first pitch from a guy having control problems. This team works hard and is resilient. And Pagan and Bay also work hard, and are resilient. But for the love, put your resiliency and hard work aside and take a pitch! Venters was having control problems and this was the best chance anybody is going to get from this guy, and you swing at the first pitch for the love of holy beings! Why? This team has made it its mission to work counts and take pitchers. Why, against the wild card leader, would anybody decide that they would want to go rogue??!?!!??

I don’t have the answers to that. Pagan and Bay don’t have the answers to anything right now. The only question now after a 4-1 loss is “when does this team get mathematically eliminated so we can start paying attention to Zack Wheeler’s career, Ike Davis’ microfracture surgery, and Johan Santana’s shoulder fatigue?” The answer is: just a matter of time. The Mets are getting dominated by the likes of Jose Constanza for crying out loud. The guy is making diving catches, driving in runs, and just generally being the new no-name who has become a general pain in the ass the likes of which we haven’t seen in Flushing since … well, Emilio Bonifacio earlier this week. Constanza will be the next speedy fielding stud who the Mets will sign and will immediately forget how to hit and play the outfield once he puts on the Mets uniform.

I just hope it’s blue.