Thursday, June 23, 2011

Mets Doctors Strike Again

Has there ever been anything more boring than a Mets series against the Oakland A’s? I can’t think of anything offhand. I mean, really, the Yanks got the Cubs and then the Reds, interesting (in the case of the Cubs) or exciting (the Reds) opponents while we got the friggin’ Angels and A’s.

I wouldn’t mind so much if the Mets were having a little more success. But they’re not and the future doesn’t look too good either. The Mets doctors have struck again. Now we hear they totally blew the diagnosis and treatment of Ike Davis’s bruised ankle. The walking boot they recommended did nothing but inhibit blood flow to the affected area. No healing occurred as a result, and, oh yeah, there’s cartilage damage too.

I’ve had it with the Mets medical staff. Ike was the last straw for me. How many players do the Mets need to see get worse after visiting the Mets witch doctors before they make a change. Who recommended their staff in the first place, Madoff?

Ike Davis was the Mets most promising player. A bruise will now have Ike out until the middle of August. That’s unforgivable in light of their past failures with Beltran and others too numerous to mention. If Alderson wants to really cement his standing with Mets fans, he’ll do something about this deplorable Mets medical staff.

For his part, Davis will be finally getting a second opinion, demonstrating at the very least that he’s much smarter than the Mets management. Just to recap the situation, Ike Davis was the Mets leader in rbi’s and batting average when Wright came across to destroy his leg. It only happened at all because the gork pitcher Pelfrey made no attempt to help his fielders out with a fly ball to the mound.

Meanwhile, the Mets plod on at two games below .500. The rookies who had been hitting stopped. Several of their veterans stopped hitting too. Jose Reyes keeps truckin’ though and Justin Turner continues to be the luckiest ballplayer in the world. Last night, he won the game by getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the 13th inning.

Of course, that only happened because Dickey was lights out and K-Rod blew the save in the 9th. As this is written, the last game of this colossally dreadful interleague setup is taking place and, predictably, it’s been pretty boring. I’m even getting tired of Gary Cohen, something I didn’t think was possible.

Thank God for Wimbledon tennis action and other real baseball action. Nothing I’ve watched in the last month was better than the Tsonga-Dmitrov battle I just witnessed and the Nats walk-off win against the Mariners was very cool too, with Nats reliever Tyler Clippard shutting the Mariners down for his offense in the bottom of the ninth.

Reyes just made a strong throw from shortstop to keep the speedy A’s second baseman Weeks off the basepaths. Set your DVD’s to “record”, Mets fans, because every at-bat , every nice play, every triple and every smile you see from Reyes this year might be his last in a Mets uniform.

Reyes wouldn’t agree to having contract talks during the season. I was nevertheless happy to see the Mets make the offer to talk. I’ve decided too that I’d rather see Reyes finish the season here than pick up a couple of prospects for him in some rent-a-player scheme devised by one of the real contenders for a World Series berth.

Even if the Mets wind up losing Reyes with no compensation received in return, we’ll at least get to see him finish his outstanding year in which he’s making his bid for MVP. And, by the bye, Reyes just scored again for the Mets, this time by reaching base on an error, moving right along on the basepaths and scoring on a, wait for it, Daniel Murphy 2-out rbi.

Pagan just made another bone-headed play in centerfield, bobbling a ball because he once again tried to do something he’s incapable of pulling off. Now there’s a guy I’d like to see traded. He’s a player who’ll never get better. He lacks focus, the Mike Pelfrey of the offensive side of the ball.

One exciting thing about this time of year is that I can imagine fantasy trades I’d like to see. For example, Mike Pelfrey to the Yankees for their doctors, Pagan to the Angels for a legitimate established relief pitcher, K-Rod to anywhere for a couple of hitting prospects with power.

While the Mets continue to plod along, it’ll be nice to see the NBA draft tonight, a draft most experts agree is short on talent but still, there must be some big guy out there that the Knicks could use to grab some rebounds and play defense while the most selfish player in the league, Carmelo Anthony, calls for the ball with three players draped all over him.

One of the keys I look for when a player is traded is the opposing coach’s reaction to the trade. George Karl, for example, the Nuggets coach, looked like a kid on Christmas Day when Anthony left for the Knicks, this despite his battling cancer. There’s been no more ecstatic reaction since that Bulls coach long ago couldn’t believe his good fortune when the stupidest GM in the league, Isiah, took the world’s stupidest center (Eddy Curry) off his hands.

So, now that the Knicks have Anthony and nothing else but Amare, they have needs all over the place. Anybody they draft tonight will have to fit a need. The Nets meanwhile will try to pretend they know what they’re doing. It’s just a matter of time before their ballyhooed acquisition of point guard Deron Williams goes kerplunk when he declines to sign whatever paper they put in front of him.

But even THAT might be amusing at least, more entertaining than this god-awful interleague play or another oops by the Mets (for lack of a better word)” doctors”.

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