If you've been following the long, strange trip of the New York Mets this season, you know what a tangled, complicated world the front offices of Major League Baseball can be. You understand the frustrations, the egos, the outbursts, and the Machiavellian maneuvering. If you haven't been following the Mets, let me catch you up: "They are the Mets, only they got really bad sooner."
For further analysis, please click the following link and enjoy tonight's Dugout.
As we reported on Friday, the Braves traded an under-performing outfielder, Jeff Francoeur, to the Mets for an under-performing outfielder, Ryan Church. My theory? The general managers were just bored. Saturday's Dugout is after the jump.
NEW YORK – Now batting cleanup for the Mets: faith. Hitting fifth: hope. But how many runs can they drive in?
"You have to believe that somebody is going to catch fire and hopefully pick up some slack," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said Monday after the team placed center fielder Carlos Beltran on the disabled list.
"There is no doubt that this is going to be very challenging for us."
To recap: the Mets are without Beltran (fourth in the NL with a .336 average), first baseman Carlos Delgado and shortstop Jose Reyes.
That's three of the top five hitters from the Opening Day lineup and three guys who combined to score more than 40 percent of the team's runs in 2008.
WASHINGTON -- Forget their neighbors in the Bronx, there is no better soap opera in the major leagues right now than the New York Mets.
The Mets' latest chapter of intrigue (or sorrow, if you're feeling especially gloomy) has nothing to do with a rickety bullpen or a crushing September collapse. Instead, it revolves around a vicious injury bug that has already bitten first baseman Carlos Delgado and whose latest victims include shortstop Jose Reyes and setup man J.J. Putz.
"You always build a team with depth in mind, and now that's going to be a challenge for us," New York manager Jerry Manuel said.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what's ahead. You Oughta Know ... That it's awfully hard for K-Rod to earn his money if J.J. Putz isn't doing his job ahead of Rodriguez. For the second straight day, Putz had a rocky outing. He surrendered two runs in a touch and go eighth inning Sunday against the Marlins (the Mets still won the game) and followed that Monday by allowing four runs and taking the loss against the Pirates.
Putz gave up four consecutive singles during Pittsburgh's rally, and attributed much of his performance to misfortune.
"A couple hoppers up the middle," Putz said. "They hit groundballs; they just hit them to the right spot.
"There's not much you can say about that. There's a little bit of bad luck involved."
NEW YORK -- Assuming the rain holds off and they play baseball here at Citi Field Tuesday night, this could be a night for which Mets fans have been waiting excitedly for a while now -- the major league debut of outfield prospect Fernando Martinez.
In a slew of pregame moves, the Mets placed shortstop Jose Reyes and right fielder Ryan Church on the disabled list. They announced that the MRI on center fielder Carlos Beltran revealed a bone bruise on the tibia and that he would miss the remainder of the current series. They acquired shortstop Wilson Valdez from the Cleveland Indians for cash. And they called up Martinez from Triple-A Buffalo and put him in the starting lineup -- playing right field and batting sixth.
NEW YORK -- The Mets are either waiting for Major League Baseball to institute a five-day disabled list or they are just willing to play short-handed every night.
It has come to this for the Mets: pitchers Livan Hernandez and Mike Pelfrey on Monday night had "to have spikes on the whole game," as manager Jerry Manuel put it, meaning they were available to pinch hit or pinch run.
It's not just that the Mets are banged up, it's that so many of their injuries are of the good-old "day-to-day" variety.
And so the Mets are handcuffed. Or have handcuffed themselves by indecision.
After a few days of speculation, the Mets have finally made a decision on Oliver Perez. Omar Minaya announced to the press last night that Perez would go on the 15-day DL with "patella tendinitis," which I'm fairly sure is just code for, "We have no idea what's wrong with this dude, but he can make some rehab starts if we do this." In his place, Jonathan Niese has been called up from Triple-A Buffalo and will start on Friday.
I'm not entirely certain the Mets have any idea what to do with Perez. They had talked about sending him to the bullpen for some extra work, but it's not a stretch to think that they probably didn't want a guy that's averaging a walk an inning this year working out of the bullpen in any situation. Thus, we have the surprising DL visit, the safe haven for struggling pitchers for as long as the disabled list has existed, I suspect.
Three years, $36 million dollars. Regret much, Mets?
Oliver Perez, the man who signed the above juicy contract this past offseason, has been simply brutal this season. In four starts, he's allowed 23 hits, 20 earned runs and 15 walks in only 19 1/3 innings. Considering he's throwing less than five innings per start, he's putting the Mets in huge holes early in the game in addition to over-taxing the bullpen.
Apparently the Mets aren't going to let his colossal contract stand in the way of the betterment of the team. According to the New York Post, Perez had a "lengthy meeting" with manager Jerry Manuel and general manager Omar Minaya following his latest stinkbomb.
NEW YORK -- Friday night was a freebie for the Mets. Few things in baseball are a better bet than Johan Santana against the pitiful Nats, and so it was that a four-game losing streak went quietly by the wayside, giving the Mets a night to breathe and forget about that ugly three-game sweep in St. Louis.
But Saturday it all starts up again, with Mike Pelfrey set to go in the afternoon heat. Pelfrey is one of the Mets' starters other than Santana, which means he represents one-fourth of the biggest problem the Mets have had this young season.
Mets starters other than Santana are 3-5 with a 7.32 ERA this year, infecting the team's start so severely that the people running it have already started discussing a shakeup. Per Adam Rubin in the New York Daily News:
If you've been following the long, strange trip of the New York Mets this season, you know what a tangled, complicated world the front offices of Major League Baseball can be. You understand the frustrations, the egos, the outbursts, and the Machiavellian maneuvering. If you haven't been following the Mets, let me catch you up: "They are the Mets, only they got really bad sooner."
NEW YORK – Now batting cleanup for the Mets: faith. Hitting fifth: hope. But how many runs can they drive in?
WASHINGTON -- Forget their neighbors in the Bronx, there is no better soap opera in the major leagues right now than the New York Mets.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what's ahead.
NEW YORK -- Assuming the rain holds off and they play baseball here at Citi Field Tuesday night, this could be a night for which Mets fans have been waiting excitedly for a while now -- the major league debut of outfield prospect Fernando Martinez.
NEW YORK -- The Mets are either waiting for Major League Baseball to institute a five-day disabled list or they are just willing to play short-handed every night.
After a few days of speculation, the Mets have finally made a decision on Oliver Perez. Omar Minaya announced to the press last night that Perez would go on the 15-day DL with "patella tendinitis," which I'm fairly sure is just code for, "We have no idea what's wrong with this dude, but he can make some rehab starts if we do this." In his place, Jonathan Niese has been called up from Triple-A Buffalo and will start on Friday. 
Three years, $36 million dollars. Regret much, Mets? 
NEW YORK -- Friday night was a freebie for the Mets. Few things in baseball are a better bet than Johan Santana against the pitiful Nats, and so it was that a four-game losing streak went quietly by the wayside, giving the Mets a night to breathe and forget about that ugly three-game sweep in St. Louis.
