Jason Bay, Tampa Bay, Rangers and Giants

It’s been a passing strange baseball season so far and strangest of all might be in Citi Field where starters surprise and big hitters utterly collapse at just the wrong moments. But if you like baseball, you’re getting your money’s worth from teams like Texas and San Francisco.

One has to wonder if our totally clueless cleanup hitter, Jason Bay, will ever get his act together. In fact, his at-bats are so horrible, one has to wonder if he ever takes batting practice. Although I fully expected streakiness when the Mets acquired him, I don’t think I fully appreciated how bad those plate appearances would look. And they feel worse than they look, being that there are always men on base when he comes to the plate.

The Mets could’ve swept the Reds if Bay were only mediocre. They’ve gotten good pitching, the rest of the lineup has been doing more than its share, and then Bay just totally kills them. It’s very frustrating, to say the least. The only interesting thing about a Bay at-bat is whether or not he’ll get the bat on the ball at all. He misses most pitches by such a wide margin that a foul tip becomes some wondrous event.

Jerry Manuel keeps talking about his history. He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t mean he should keep that number four spot in the order when he hasn’t a prayer of doing anything even remotely good. I mean….he’s been making Gary Matthews look good.

Maybe it’s the four spot that’s the problem. Looking back at his Boston and Pittsburgh years, he batted mostly in the fifth spot. But even then he had long streaks of futility to go with long streaks of wonderful productivity. We haven’t seen one of those streaks yet. I wonder if we ever will.

I had hoped Omar would have gone after Holliday in free agency. The Mets preferred Bay, supposedly based on his defense and speed. And it’s true, he does play a nice left field, and he does manage to not get doubled up on many of his DP grounders. Most of his paltry RBI total has come from fly balls or weak grounders.

Maybe Bay needs glasses or contact lenses. He’s late on just about everything. Okay, that’s enough. I can’t even stand my own whining. If he doesn’t ever hit….fine. That’ll at least spell the end of Omar for good. We’ll see less of the Matthews’s and Tatis’s of the world year after year… all the retreads .

Meanwhile, this baseball season might turn out pretty special. The Rays look great in the AL East and Evan Longoria looks like an MVP. Then Texas is really starting to come on with Josh Hamilton starting to look like an MVP candidate. Seattle’s got a lot of pitching but pitching hasn’t helped the White Sox much.

The NL East has been pretty amazing so far with Washington looking much better, Florida hanging in there and of course, our Metsies and their surprising pitching. The NL Central has the Cards up top, but it looks pretty even below them. The Giants in the West are making the Dodgers look bad.

Biggest story to me is that of the Texas Rangers. It’s an exciting team, with young up-and-comers like Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler. Texas has a good old fella too in Vlad Guerrero, and there was nothing better than watching KC’s usually lockdown closer Joachim Soria get nicked for the tying home run from Hamilton and the game-winner from Vlad. Hamilton’s was a real moonshot too, high in the upper deck in right.

Tampa Bay is great too, if just because they’re scaring the hell out of the Yankees, that self-proclaimed juggernaut of the American League East. The Yanks are great…. just ask them.

But what are we talking about really? Arod is batting .253 with just a pair of homers. Teixeira’s batting .178 with just a pair of dingers of his own. If it weren’t for some surprises in their rotation, like Hughes and Pettite, added to the two you knew would be good, Sabathia and Burnett, the Yanks just might be in trouble. Cano can’t carry them forever and neither can Swisher, although I’d love to see it. If anybody’s going to take them to the World Series again, it should be one or both of those two.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s got it all. Four of their five starters have ERA’s under 3 and the fifth is at 3.15. And in addition to guys you’ve certainly heard of, Upton and Crawford, Longoria and Pena, the Rays can boast of their relatively new rightfielder, Ben Zobrist, who gives them a little bit of everything, including speed and defense.

But, like many baseball fans, there has been no more exciting team than the San Francisco Giants, another team getting good performances from just about everybody. Top of the list goes to Tim Lincecum, of course, but they’ve also got Matt Cain, Barry Zito and Jonathan Sanchez performing like aces. Relief? How about Brian Wilson, whose fastball is almost as amazing as his hairdo.

They’ve been getting some timely hitting too, although their lineup can’t compare with some of those other teams I’ve mentioned. Chief among their batsmen is the redoubtable Pablo Sandoval, a roly-poly type whose fielding at third belies his waistline. He’s like Prince Fielder with more athleticism.

The bad news is that those same Giants are coming to Citi Field this weekend to faceoff against our lovable Metsies. They’ll roll out Jonathan Sanchez tonight against Pelfrey, a matchup that could be a great one. Then on Saturday afternoon, the Mets get a break in a matchup of Santana vs. Todd Wellemeyer, their one starter who doesn’t have great numbers.

The hammer comes down on Sunday though as Lincecum will face Ollie Perez and things could get really ugly. It’s to be hoped that Jason Bay wakes up. Stranger things have already been happening in Major League Baseball.