The X (Met) Files

It all seems a little too convenient, doesn't it?

It's February 12th and all of a sudden Kris Benson is out for the season with a torn rotator cuff?

I mean, call me a conspiracy theorist, but it's too strange a coincidence when a pitcher gets diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff in February after he was already diagnosed with a bum elbow last August, giving the Orioles plenty of time to poke around the arm and find something, which they don't find until now.

Sure you can chalk it up to "The Oriole Way", which lately has signaled incompetence...but with a former teammate still looking for a job the same week as training camp, and all of a sudden there's an "injury"? And it's just wee bit too convenient that Steve Trachsel is just ready to step in and play the good soldier with a $3 million contract to pitch for the O's in 2007?

All that, plus Anna Benson is nowhere to be found, and I'm not supposed to believe that foul play was involved?

Think about it for a second if you will: Steve Trachsel gets divorced at the end of the season, Kris and Anna briefly split up in the middle of the season, and now all of a sudden it's February and Trachsel just kind of shows up in Baltimore to take Benson's spot in the Orioles rotation (and perhaps Benson's woman as well?) All that's left is for a lawyer to step up to a podium and announce that the late J. Howard Marshall is Steve Trachsel's father.

It's just too freakin' bizarre...and I haven't even delved into the fact that noooooooow MLB decides to give playoff teams until the first day of the playoff series to change their roster after the Mets lose a chance to replace Anderson Hernandez with Dave Williams...the same Dave Williams who coincidentally came down with an injury of his own which will keep him off a mound until May or June. Hmmmmmmm...

The truth is out there.