N.Y. Mets ~ Casualties and Concerns Mount

From the desk of:  HEAD-BUTTING MR. MET


NEW YORK METS: The Flushing Infirmary Is Full.  And the Time for Optimism and Rallying Around a Team Chasing Contention Has Passed.  A Closer and Colder View is in Order.

If you cringed when Daniel Murphy's knee bent back on the TV replay; if you winced in pain right along with him when Murph went down; if you felt bad for the poor kid watching him getting helped off the field; you're a good Met Fan and a compassionate human being.


But if you're surprised by Sunday's developments, you haven't been watching enough Met Baseball over the last three years.  That Daniel Murphy is now lost for the season, and Jose Reyes again felt an unwelcome amigo in his leg are not the astonishing part.  The incredible number and ever-mounting casualties the Mets have endured....is.  It just seems to never stop.


I don't think the play at second base was dirty; malicious; or an intentional spiking.  It looked like Jose Constanza escaped injury himself; needing to spring his leg free after sliding into the bag.  However which way you saw it, the end result is the same.  Chalk up another crippling, season ending injury to fallen Met fortunes.


Jose Reyes is proving more and more he is a player who will always suffer underlying tenderness that will and does occasionally flare up, than he is making a case to be a 7 year/stupid-million dollar contract recipient.  I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn last night, but that's the way I'd describe it.  He is perhaps now a player who requires more rest over the course of a season.  Maybe 145 games a season is his new max?  Multiple bouts with his hamstring point to more permanent issues with his cranky  muscle fibers.  And regardless the outcome from his tweaked hammy Sunday, Jose Reyes needs to be given a hard cold re-evaluation before the Mets make a decision to offer him a prohibitive deal.


As far as the game Sunday; the loss; the series against the Braves; and a season rapidly losing any appeal it had going for it; August 8th is that latest date in a season we've conversed about meaningful Baseball games in Flushing in the last three years.  Be happy for that.  But as I said in my last posting, I'm going to be taking a bit of a colder approach, and being a little less diplomatic about things as the time for optimism and rallying around their chase for contention has passed.





Mike.BTB