Sore Winner

So Mets fans get to enjoy their new bullpen for, what ... less than 48 hours before Cole Hamels decides to urinate in the oatmeal?

In an interview on WFAN today with Joe Beningo and Evan Roberts, Hamels was promoting the Phillies' World Series DVD when he was asked outright, "Do you think the Mets are choke artists?"

"Last year and this year I think we did believe that [they were choke artists]," he said. "Three years ago we didn't because they smoked everybody, and I think we all thought they were going to win it all. Unfortunately that didn't happen. But, yeah, that's kind of what we believed and I think we're always going to believe that until they prove us wrong.

"For the past two years they've been choke artists."

What? Hasn't Cole Hamels heard about our new and improved bullpen? Forget K-Rod and J.J., We've got Rocky Cherry! It's over!

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Wait, the Yankees ... who just paid $60 million more than the next highest bidder ... want that next highest bidder to help them subsidize Mike Cameron's contract if they trade for him?

The gall on that franchise never ceases to amaze me.

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Did you get your message from K-Rod?

I did ... and I was immediately frightened. Because doesn't the music in that little vignette sound eerily similar to the 1:13 mark of this clip:

To Your Health

You ever watch a Met game at Shea and wonder aloud: "what have you been drinking?"

Once a night, you say?

Then you'll be interested in this tale about a former Met, from a book excerpt via the fine folks at FanHouse:

Interestingly, another Padre, center fielder Mike Cameron, had a more intimate experience with game-day tipsiness:

"Sh-t, I've played drunk.

"When?"New York City.

"What were the circumstances?

"I went four for four with two jacks and eight ribbies. I'm not saying that's the only day I played drunk, but that was the best one."

So how long before we find out about all of the substances the 2007 Mets were on during the last three weeks of the season? Greenies? Doobies? Frosted Mini-Wheats? When? When will we know?

And if they weren't on anything, don't you think they should have been?

Pass the courvoisier.

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Hey, the Mets are bringing back Moises Alou and Damion Easley! So much for that whole "let's get younger" thing. Maybe they'll stick around for the 2009 grand opening of our brand new park...which apparently is going to have all the angst of the old park at double the price (if you believe in that whole feng shui stuff.

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The fine folks at Maxim magazine think that we, as baseball fans, get excited over some pretty dumb things.

Peanut vendors who throw the bag. Every section's got one and, somehow,every section is filled with people who are impressed. Go ahead and whoop it up for the 50-year-old man in the neon shirt whose only skill is throwing bags of snacks accurately, but we choose to pity him.

Actually, we whoop it up for him because we're secretly hoping that the Mets will sign the guy in the neon shirt to replace Guillermo Mota in the bullpen. Look, Ed Glynn was a hot dog vendor before he reached the majors. And when he got to the majors, he...well, he wasn't that great, but that's probably because it's hard to throw hot dogs accurately (especially with all that ketchup on it).

But I'll take the 54-year-old Glynn over Mota, any day of the week. And that, my friends, is why we cheer the peanut vendor.

The Injury Plague Continues

NEW YORK (AP) -- Billy Wagner was placed on the 15-day DL after tonight's game due to inflammation of the metatarsal bursa scarpal tunnel. The ailment is more commonly known as "Motaitis".

Wagner says he felt discomfort soon after the ninth inning, when he blew the save against the San Diego Padres.

"It's tough, but we feel the need to just give him some time to rest, heal, and work out his problems in a rehab session" said Willie Randolph. "I know in my time here that some people can pitch with it, and some can't."

"Aaron Heilman, who has been pitching through Motaitis since the beginning of the season, feels the move to put Wagner on the DL was the right choice.

When one person has Motaitis, you can kind of pitch through it" said Heilman, who gave up the game winning homer to Adrian Gonzalez in the tenth inning on Thursday. "But when it becomes an epidemic, something has to give. We can't let an ailment like that affect the entire clubhouse where all of a sudden nobody can get anybody out. We're gonna miss Billy, but honestly it's the best thing for the club."

Yeah, leave it to me to take a shot at Guillermo Mota after a loss that he had nothing to do with. But I can't help it. To put it bluntly, the bullpen...the strength of the team in 2006, is going to be its death in 2007. (Oh wait, it was our death in 2006, wasn't it? Oh crap.)

It really was a hell of a game on Thursday. And I can say that because both the Phillies and the Braves have both lost so I can look at Shea's happenings from merely a baseball standpoint, and not from an "I'm going to hit myself in the face with a mallet" standpoint. In fact, this whole series contained three restaurant quality games between these two teams. And if we do see these guys down the road in October, it's either going to be really fun, or really excruciating. (Could you, for example, stomach a seven game series where Heath Bell has a 0.00 ERA against the Mets and Mike Cameron has two walk-off hits?)

Here's my one question: How, on God's green earth did the Mets ever let Marlon Anderson get away? The freakin' guy was money in '05, money in 2006 with the Dodgers. He could have been money in 2006 with the Mets instead...what if it was Marlon Anderson pinch hitting for Chad Bradford in last year's Game 7 instead of Michael Tucker?

I'm just sayin'.

Science Lab Blows Up

Saturday night's 11-4 loss to Pittsburgh may have signaled the end of a couple of experiments for the Mets.

First to explode: the Kaz Ishii experiment. In a season of good start, bad start, good start for Ishii, tonight was due to be bad start, and it was. But unfortunately, the Mets absolutely needed Ishii to pick to club up after their worst loss of the season on Friday. Instead, he was the ultimate downer. Not only did he put the Mets in a 3-0 hole, including giving up a HR to the immortal Humberto Cota (fast becoming the Pirates version of Pat Burrell) on an 0-2 count, but he committed the cardinal sin of giving up a run immediately after the Mets tied the game in the 6th on Cliff Floyd's solo HR (an inning after Mike Cameron pounded a two run dinger to put the Mets on the board). And it was a run created solely after two men were out. So on a night where the Mets needed Kaz Ishii to step up and help his club, he showed the intestinal fortitude of soggy mashed potatoes.

Next to explode: the Danny Graves experiment. With the game still in reach at 6-3, Danny Graves came in for a struggling Heath Bell. Graves gave up an RBI double to Cota, and a grannie to Jack "95 lbs soaking wet" Wilson to basically end all hopes.

Graves and his tattoos were a cheap option, and it's not like he replaced someone useful. But the Mets had to find out about him, and unfortunately, they'll probably go to him again. Sometimes when you don't particularly care for someone working under you in a real job, you need an excuse to get rid of that person. Sometimes that excuse comes when you stop coddling that person and you let them run with a normal workload...and when said person fails, you have your excuse to get rid of them. With the Mets having a $5 million option on Graves for next season, they can't just use him exclusively in mop-up situations and expect to have a good excuse to decline the option for 2006. They needed to give him a normal workload, and that was tonight. He failed, so that's that. The Mets will probably use him a couple of more times for confirmation, just as they did with Hitaway DeJean in Seattle.

The one thing about the Mets this season is that a struggling player will get enough rope to hang himself. But Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya will have no problem playing executioner and pull the level on that's player's career, even if it is in the middle of the season. I see it happening with Graves at the end of this campaign, and I see it with Ishii much sooner than that. In any event, next time you see either of these experiments in the game, always be sure to wear your protective goggles.