Non Sequitur

There comes a time in every mediocre season where the regular season turns into glorified spring training. It’s not necessarily the same point as the point when it’s obvious to the free world that the season is over, because sometimes what’s obvious to the rest of us doesn’t seep into a locker room that continues to say that we’re fighting for the playoffs. I think that point came a couple of weeks ago.

But now, the games are starting to have a spring training feel to them. The first hint was when Terry Collins started saying that the team is fighting for jobs and that everyone’s watching. But Tuesday against San Diego, when Mike Pelfrey came in the game in the eighth inning to get some work in after being knocked out against Arizona, it was official: We’re back in Port St. Lucie, boys and girls.

Hell, what else could Terry Collins do? Pedro Beato, in the closer mix while now being discussed as the starter, was awful and didn’t look like much of either. Jason Isringhausen got the day off after save 300, and would you trust anyone else with the ball? Hell, would you trust another reliever to guard a the foul pole right now? So here comes Pelfrey. And he didn’t even finish the inning. Gave up a triple and a single and was yanked. Now according to wikipedia, a non-sequitur is “is a conversational and literary device, often used for comedic purposes. It is a comment that, because of its apparent lack of meaning relative to what it follows, seems absurd to the point of being humorous or confusing”. Now, doesn’t that sound like Pelfrey’s outing on Tuesday? For that matter, didn’t Tuesday’s whole game seem like a non-sequitur of sorts? Jon Niese got hit hard but somehow wrangled a quality start, Angel Pagan grew himself some alligator arms in the outfield, pulling up when he saw Scott Hairston coming (he must have thought Hairston was Jim Leonhard), and Hairston grasped the concept of right field on Tuesday like Michele Bachmann grasps names and dates. Yeah, I’d think last night’s game was absurd to the point of being confusing, don’t you?

Of course in logic, a non-sequitur can also be a fallacy. So logically, Mike Pelfrey is one big fallacy. Perhaps that means that his appearance tonight actually never happened … or that Pelfrey doesn’t really exist. Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many boxscores to know that he does, in fact, exist.