Lobster Ahoy

I wish I could have truly enjoyed Thursday’s 10-9 victory. It was great, but the tone was set when Keith Hernandez talked about his white shorts with the black lobsters on them, and how he doesn’t generally like to wear clothes. That put me in suspended animation for nine innings, and I didn’t quite like the cell I was stuck in.

There are some games that the SNY boys are exquisite in their analysis, others that are exquisite in their goofiness. This was certainly the latter. And you could probably say that about the game too, although I could barely tell because I was distracted by Keith walking around in lobster shorts saying “I’m Keith Hernandez” over and over again while smoking six Marlboros at once (yeah I know, he quit … and good for him.) The important thing to draw from all of this besides Keith’s preference for nudity is that the Mets swept Cincinnati and exposed them as frauds. I didn’t know you could play spoiler in July, but apparently you can as the Mets showed. I also didn’t know you could play spoiler and still play for yourselves. But whaddaya know … the Mets have closed to 6.5 back because everybody else in the league lost (yes, everyone!)

But if the Mets are serious about making a run at this thing without Beltran, then there’s one simple rule they have to abide by. Now I’ve never told anybody this before because it’s privileged information. So don’t spread it around, okay? Are you listening? All right have your pen and paper ready to copy this down:

If you give up a home run to Miguel Cairo, and you give up this home run to Miguel Cairo on the first pitch you throw, and it’s hit so hard that Miguel Cairo does the home run pose, then it’s probably time for you to take some real estate courses.

Got that? Okay, Now we can move forward. Because let’s face it, with Frankie gone, Izzy pushing 73, and Bobby Parnell learning as we go, the back end guys are going to have to pitch some. And they can’t all be 9-4 leads. Sure, they performed well once, but Terry isn’t going to have the luxury of 9-4 leads the rest of the season … mostly because they’re not always going to be playing the Cincinnati Reds (that Joey Votto homer ties the game had it not been for a Brandon Phillips drop on a stolen base and some guy named Logan Ondrusek). And I know that there aren’t a lot of options out there to replace a guy like Acosta (especially if the Mets are in full “sell mode”).

But &$^#ing Miguel Cairo? With a home run pose? (In the conservatory with Colonel Mustard?) No, this can’t happen if you hope to make up the rest of the games. I’ll take the ghost of Eddie Kunz over Acosta right now.

But I’m focusing too much on the negative … Acosta and lobster shorts. Hey the team is still hitting. Lucas Duda is driving in runs, Angel Pagan has some water in his system (and I’ve been meaning to ask about Angel Pagan’s dehydration: David Wright has made a gazillion bucks off vitamin water … how does anybody get dehydrated on the Mets? Isn’t that a clubhouse that should be stocked?) Even Jason Bay got into the act Thursday with a three run double in the fifth (Homer Bailey’s “one pitch too many”) which was just one of three hits. Yeah, that Jason Bay! And he will go to Washington D.C. where they have these funhouse mirrors that exaggerate your flaws ten-fold, and he’ll have a good laugh and build up his confidence as his reflection looks eerily like Jayson Werth with bigger wallets in his lobster shorts. Then he thinks “poor bastard”.

It’s all about perspective.