A Little To The Left

Here's the question that you, the Met fan, need ask yourself at this moment:

Would you rather have a second lefty on the roster, even if that second lefty has proven himself to be a complete bum? Or ...

Do you fill the remaining spots with righties that have proven to be useful parts of baseball society in the spring?

Ron Villone not being able to get lefties out today against Detroit, combined with Bobby Parnell pitching a stellar inning makes the question an interesting one. You want to take your chances with righties like Parnell, Darren O'Day, Brian Stokes, and perhaps Carlos Muniz's New Splitter (sounds like a movie) against the likes of Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Raul Ibanez? Or do you want another lefty to boo at home?

And how much more difficult is this question to answer knowing that you have guys like Will Ohman out there practically begging for a job with a contender. It's such a sad sight ... I wish it didn't have to come to this for Ohman:

On Second Thought ...

Cancel that order for Will Ohman.

And if Luis Ayala goes on to become a huge bust here in New York, let it be known that at the very least, his very first pitch as a New York Met not only brushed a hitter back (a novel treat for a Met), not only brushed back an Atlanta Brave, but started a sequence where a Met reliever put water on a fire and not gasoline.

And it made possible an eighth inning rally to put the wraps on a home win for the Mets over Atlanta.

Somehow I get the feeling that after those three very uncommon occurrences, that I should play the lottery like, immediately.

Scrambled Hubris

Hey, the Braves are in town. And as such, I think it's time to revisit something:

"I've got to say that there was something particularly satisfying about taking two from the Mets and their two best pitchers right after Metsradamus dismissed us as not even in contention for winning the DIVISION, much less anything else. You said we would be lucky to break .500 (...) The Mets still can't win at Turner Field. The Mets still can't beat the Braves. Order has been restored to the baseball universe." -Anonymous Braves fan, April 7th, 2008

So how's that baseball universe treatin' ya, buddy? Seem a little disoriented? Of course you do. Now you know how Ryan Church feels. Yeah, remember him? He of the late slide that callously caused your shortstop to miss a couple of games.

Oh, by the way, Yunel Escobar has played 63 games since Church's slide. Church has played 15 ... and for a couple of months, he couldn't differentiate eggs from light sockets.

But his slide was dirty. Yeah, our bad.

But hey Anonymous, you'll always have those two games in April. They'll keep you warm during those cold winter months. Now go trade Will Ohman to us for a box of hammers.*

*Assuming your true identity is Frank Wren.

Maekgaibeo Kal Santana

So this is the way it's going to be this season.

Oh yeah. Just let Johan do everything, just like it was with Pedro in 2005. Let's not hit for Johan. Let's blow leads for Johan. Let's let Johan make all the spectacular fielding plays. Let's let Johan get on base for all of us. Let's not score until Johan leaves, but before then, lets turn a 1-0 deficit into 3-0. Let's make life extremely difficult because Johan Santana will find a way to get us out of it. Sure.

He gets paid all the money, what does he need with run support? He can buy runs. Sure, it's easy not to score against John Smoltz. But Johan's so good, we don't even need to score against the likes of Will Ohman and Peter Moylan. Oh, and Blaine Boyer too. Because Johan will get us out of it. He's our MacGyver. All he needs is a rubber band, a shoelace, and some lighter fluid. He'll balance pots and pans on a bag of ice that melts from heat produced by a toaster oven if he has to. He doesn't need runs!

Doesn't matter that we lost 3-0, Johan will get us out of that jam. We'll be 3-2 by the time the home opener comes around.