When The Block In Your Head Is XXL

After 53 games of the 2013 baseball season, I think we have our enduring image. A defining moment. What it defines, I'm not sure. But it's going to wind up summing up this season perfectly:

That's Lucas Duda. In the seventh inning of a baseball game on Saturday with his team down by one run. Bunting. Willingly. Now mind you … not only does Duda lead the Mets in home runs, but he's as big as a manatee with the speed to match. And Justin Turner (the shortstop) was on deck. So for what reason on God's green earth would Lucas Duda, blessed with home run power and down by a run, decide that he's mother f***ing Otis Nixon? The element of surprise? The only small chance that Duda had would have been if all nine Cubs were so surprised that they laughed themselves into nine separate comas. The problem is that there isn't a coma on record that would have lasted past the point where Duda is only halfway down the line.

And that's the main problem with this team besides a severe lack of talent: It's completely disjointed. This season has now seen Ruben Tejada trying to hit home runs and Lucas Duda bunting for base hits. S playing like XXL and XXL playing like S. (Should you be surprise that there's a severe identity crisis when you have everybody playing out of position thanks to Ike Davis playing his way to Vegas? Have you seen Jordany Valdespin play second base?) I haven't been too keen on breaking down small aspects of the Mets buffoonery lately, because in the long run it doesn't matter. (They stink.) For example, David Wright getting thrown out at third base on a ball to left field Friday night. Didn't have a huge problem with it, as he was forcing Alfonso Soriano to make a good defensive play. When was the last time you saw that happen? So that was fine with me.

But Lucas Duda drag bunts? Somebody is a blockhead here. I've long suspected that Duda is that blockhead. I mean, look at him. He should be a bouncer with a simple name like Thug or Oof (as Seth McFarlane would have joked.) But with the ridiculously bizarre season that Terry Collins has bestowed on us, would you doubt it if you heard that he put the play on? Or maybe it was Sandy Alderson calling the shots. He's apparently the reason everybody is playing out of position anyway, so why wouldn't he call a bunt? Is this part of his six month plan … big guys bunting?

You might think it was just another Mets Mishap … like the bullpen imploding again as Brandon Lyon did … like Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Valdespin, and Juan Lagares getting three straight hits, and Daniel Murphy and David Wright killing the rally … like the Mets getting one out on a trapped ball in center field when they really should have gotten two or three. But even though it didn't matter much in the grand scheme of Saturday's loss to the Cubs, when a guy who is big enough to hit the ball out of the entire ballpark willingly hits a ball three feet as part of some idiotic plan, that is indicative of a much larger problem … and hopefully the solution involves a lobotomy.