NY TIMES Headline: "Mets Lose Putz for 10-12 Weeks" ---OK, What I Want To Know is How Is He Going to Pee?

Some players lead the league in hits, some in home runs, others in triples. The Mets are leading the majors in an unenviable category...no, not hit batsmen, nor is it high ERA, but rather Men on the DL. For position players, it means we won't be seeing the likes of Reyes, Delgado, Church, Ramon Martinez and Angel Pagan...for pitchers, these arms are on the shelves: JJ Putz, Oliver Perez and Billy Wagner. If you are counting, that's 8.

Latest victim is the much ballyhooed JJ Putz. If you recall I did a post about pronouncing his name a mere few days ago. Last year, same thing, his season was curtailed, while in 07, he was unhittable.

Ben Shpigel chronicles the injury and adds a few good observations in his article with the headline that is going to have many a truck driver blushing, "Mets Lose Putz for 10-12 Weeks"

Ironic that tonight's win against the Nationals (interjection here - NO one seemed to be at the game tonight - looked like it was fans of the Ebola disease who showed up - uh, not many) that the Mets rallied and won.

We are all guilty of analyzing each play, each game, each win, each loss. Just glad the team showed heart.

Carlos Beltran said the other day about the loss to the Pirates, in essence, both teams put out fields of healthy men. 'Cept many of these Mets never played with each other, let alone against a bad team.

Jerry - more infield practice! Call for it!

Waiting at the DMV Can Now Be a Pleasant Experience...

Today was a "Perfect Storm" of sports events. But, all seemed to run long time wise beyond expectations.

Wimbledon started and was stopped by two rain delays. (I tuned into a little of that).
Track and Field Championships for the US Olympic team caught my eye.
Tour de France (as a cycler, I envy these bikes..WOW)
And, the Mets...

What a long, entertaining, spine-tingling, spellbinding affair. Ollie Perez was Brilliant! (YES, I said that!) and I think he finally has his confidence back to pitch tough against a tough team and hold them to only 1 run.

Beltran's stick was stellar. Reyes was spot on with the acrobatic defense.

But, Wagner, Oh My. Did he put us through the hoops. 2 Out. 2 Strikes in the 9th. Up by two...then BOOM. A tie.

I have to add here, that in a spirit of serendipity, I fell asleep on the couch during part of the rain delay. I woke up, no lie, just as the first pitch was about to be thrown. Chalk one up for efficiency.

So, as the game was tied, we were running out of players and pitchers. I immediately thought of that Bugs Bunny episode where he was stranded on an island with 2 matches. Well, Tatis, the man who hit two grannies in an inning back in '99 pulled through again. It is nice to see another #17 (Kudos to Keith Hernandez) hitting and winning.

Two down, we gave the Phils one and Monday its ours to take 3.

Box Score (lot of innings to absorb)

PET PEEVE TIME: OK, let's get a little more hardy and have pitchers face more than 1 batter or a third of an inning.

Can A Psychic Figure out What is Going On With the Mets?

I had the opportunity today to score two tickets to the Mets-Diamondbacks game and was all keyed up for a much needed sojourn from the office.

Beautiful day. Seats in the shade. A good friend / professional colleague who I haven't seen in awhile. Good conversation at the ready.

First seven innings is like artwork. Santana, flawless. Chalked up 10 strikes, issued only 3 hits, 3 walks and the Mets were putting a few numbers up on the board.

And then it happened. That dreaded pitch count philosophy. It is akin to saying, "we'll only make this top spin 100 times, despite the fact it may be in a groove and still look good spinning, but we don't want it to spin too much. Santana got the hook from fisherman Willie and then the chaos started. Joe Smith, a sidearmer I admire, put two runs on the board for the Diamondbacks. That was OK. Mets were still up 4-2. But, there was one point when the Mets had 3 men on, no out and could not execute the simple act of getting a human being to traverse the basepath a mere 30 yards to touch the plate for that comfy run.

So, Schoenweiss comes in for a cup of coffee, 1/3 inning and then when the ball is handed to Billy Wagner, it came apart at the seems. He imploded. The crowd was stunned. We were like Hiroshima / Nagasaki observers -- and couldn't do anything about it. Game is tied, and a bit of optimism was emoted when a few reached base. Alas. (say it as if you are reading Shakespeare), it was not to be.

So, what happens to the artwork that Santana painted? Aaron Heilman. The Flushing Queens version of Lazlo Toth (go ahead, click the link and look him up -- it makes the image more cerebral) struck and it was all over.

Heilman, who is 0-3 - before I ever finish that sentence, I want to know what/why/how he is staying here.

More fun coming up for the Mets. Now we have to figure out a way to play the Texas Rangers -- if it is tough playing teams you know, imagine what must transpire to take on Josh Hamilton, David Murphy and Milton Bradley of the Texas Rangers.

My advice? Fasten your seat-belts and have a ChAIRsick bag nearby.

Casey Stengel + Yogi Berra's Logic = More Cohesive than Today's Game

"Living on the lighted stage approaches the unreal"
--Rush

The short sentence above says it all for today's game.

I happened to take it in live, and it was the first time ever in my life where I wished I was back at my desk than being at a ballpark.

Sloppy. Unreal. Bonehead mistakes on some bona fide routine plays. What was Castillo thinking when he made the error at second base? Who taught Angel Pagan how to bobble balls in left? (He's very good at that). Where was Jose Reyes in that faux rundown? David Wright had a few bad plays, and dare I say the hurling of Ollie Perez made me want to, uh, hurl. (Footnote: for those who know me, I never like to use the same word in a sentence twice, but "hurl" is appropriate and must be re-iterated).

I just had the chance to see the recap of the game on SNY and Adam Rubin's column in the New York Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/mets/2008/04/wagner-calls-out-perez-after-b.html cites that he said the word "desire" and he is right. There was no desire -- in anyone on the field today. Going through the motions is not what you call "playing baseball" in my view.

My tickets cost only $5 and we were able to migrate to the orange seats after awhile, but you know what, I still feel as a fan, I was ripped off.

A friend of mine, also a die hard Mets fan called me up and tried to console the loss by justifying that only 4 of the runs were "earned" so it was really a 4-1 game. A colleague who I went with asked, "are you a stay till the end fan?" and I replied "sure, I believe a 13 run 9th inning 2-out rally is not out of the question.

Let me conclude by coming back to the opening quote of this blog...It's like going to a Broadway play waiting to see a cast full of stars, and all that show up on the stage are just a bunch of unheralded understudies.