Burning Retinas

Dillon Gee has had a nice run. Look, we knew he wasn’t going 17-0, and we knew that not every start was going to be stellar. We knew that he was going to get hit around, as he has before, and not be lucky enough to be bailed out by his teammates. It was bound to happen. And Tuesday night’s loss to Oakland shouldn’t tarnish the fact that Gee has been a nice surprise.

But it doesn’t matter whether you’re 7-0, 0-7, Doc Halladay, or Oliver Perez. The Oakland Athletics came into Tuesday with a .239 batting average (sixth from the bottom in baseball), an OBP of .306 (sixth from the bottom), and a slugging percentage of .347 (third from the bottom). Six walks in the first two and a third innings of work against this team is inexcusable. The Swingin’ and Missin’ A’s? This is the team you can’t find the plate against? And it wasn’t just Gee, D.J. Carrasco couldn’t find the plate either. Maybe their retinas were burned by the bright gold uniforms that the A’s were sporting … who knows. But my retinas were burned to a Coco Crisp watching the Mets tonight. To emphasize: Crisp was their three hole hitter … and they scored seven runs. This can’t happen. I know that losing to a team where Crisp is the three hole hitter can be just as demoralizing to a team as, say, getting smoked by a lineup where Daniel Murphy is the cleanup hitter, but make them hit the ball for goodness sake, no?

Not to mention this was a perfect opportunity to expose Hideki Matsui’s defense in left field, since this was his first start in the outfield all season long. Instead, the Mets make him look like Rickey Henderson as nothing, nothing got by Matsui and his knees in the field. Jack McKeon has younger knees, and the Mets couldn’t exploit it. Outstanding.

At least Jason Bay stopped being Juan Pierre for a day and started driving the ball with a home run and a triple which was six inches from being a home run. It was like the moment in Major League II when Rick Vaughn stopped being corporate Rick Vaughn and went back to being the Wild Thing. Bay’s power stroke returning was that “oh my god” moment (yeah, I spell out “oh my god”, deal with it … I’m old.)

The high comedy of the day came when Jose Reyes said that he didn’t want to talk about a new contract during the season. The comedic part was that not that he doesn’t want to talk contract … that’s fine. But that it was because he didn’t want any distractions on his mind. Get a load of Jose, trying to avoid distractions. Jose, do you know who you play for? You can’t avoid distractions. It’s like Final Destination 2-5. It’s written in the stars, dude. Don’t want to talk contract? Well then your minor league director will challenge players to a royal rumble while shirtless.

Avoid distractions. That’s cute.