Mardi Blah

Perhaps Thursday's demotion of Joe Smith is a thinly veiled attempt to get the lad a short vacation. Perhaps, he's not going to New Orleans at all. Perhaps he's really going to Cancun or something to spend a week in the sun.

Because if he's hit a wall, as we all believe, then what will pitching in New Orleans solve exactly? The guy needs to be resting in New Orleans.

(Now may not be a great time to bring this up, but Jose Lima is 13-4 in the Mexican league.)

Speaking of hitting walls, Oliver Perez hit his in the sixth inning today, with weapons ranging from broken bat hits, infield hits, sacrifice bunts thrown to Scarsdale (at least Ollie's control to home plate isn't as bad as his control to first base), to hard hit balls off of David Wright's kneecap and long home runs by ex-Yankees. A smorgasbord of disaster for Perez, who's own error made the five runs he gave up unearned. (Mike DeJean thinks that Nady's line drive should have been and error on David Wright.)

But it was Smith that concerned the Mets brass enough that they took the completely unexpected step of sending Smith to New Orleans after yesterday's 8-4 loss to the Pirates. It started against San Diego, as he got rocked in two games at Petco. But Smith's meltdown today against the heart of the Pirates order, where the trademark movement on Smith's pitches was not there, was apparently the last straw...for now. I'm wondering how people are feeling this morning about the fact that Smith is in the minor leagues while Aaron Sele still has a job. Then again, Sele pitches once a month so if there's any arm that isn't dead, it's Sele's.

So we welcome the Jon Adkins Experience, which is kind of like those rides where you go straight down at 100 mph, except instead of down, you're going up...up...and over the left field wall. Hey, that's what we should do with Shea after the Mets move...make it an amusement park, slingshot fans from home plate over the outfield wall, and call it the Jon Adkins Experience. Or the Donne Wall Experience. Or whoever will sponsor it.

(It could be the Armando Benitez Experience, especially after what happened to him on Thursday.)

The other ride could be the Fluff Castro Experience, where you could attempt to slide into second base. But the area around it isn't dirt, but filled with a mix of quicksand and oatmeal. (Riders would actually have to make it to second base to win a prize.)