Thankfully there are only 6 more games left of this horrible season. That also means only 6 more games left of some jerryball. Last year after the season ended the Mets did a bit of a media blitz that concluded with Jeff Wilpon, Omar Minaya and Dave Howard going on WFAN with Mike Francesa. They made a bunch of promises and some excuses that for some reason had Mets fans hopeful for 2010. I posted a blog here on this site the day after, which you can read here. I didn’t like what I heard on Francesa’s show and I got blasted in the comments section. Unfortunately I was right to be skeptical as they lied to us.
Jeff Wilpon said the Mets were committed to building a championship caliber team and that spending would not be limited. Well, after signing the bust that is Jason Bay the Mets didn’t spend much. Gary Matthews Jr., Mike Jacobs and Frank Catalanotto were in the starting lineup on opening day. For some reason Fernando Tatis and Alex Cora were still on this team. I’m sorry but those guys don’t belong on a championship caliber team.
Omar and little Jeff said that there would be no more mishandling of injuries. Unfortunately that was a big old lie as well. Look at how Jose Reyes’ oblique injury was handled. Reyes was put into the lineup while suffering with oblique injury, and only allowed to bat from one side of the plate. I don’t see how that is improving on handling injuries. Jason Bay after hitting his head off the outfield wall in Dodger Stadium not only stayed in that game, he played the next one and then flew on a plane to New York and hasn’t played since. Johan Santana’s injury was misdiagnosed as a pectoral problem. Now I’m no doctor but I think the training staff might have missed human anatomy 101. Plus Santana before being diagnosed correctly was allowed to throw and not even given an MRI. They also promised to communicate better with the fans and media about the injuries. Once Santana was diagnosed correctly, the Mets had a press conference where they tried to play down the severity of this shoulder injury by citing position players who came back from the same surgery. They of course didn’t mention that pitchers who have had the same surgery as Johan has have yet to come back and throw a pitch in the majors.
I’m sure once this season is over the Mets will do another media blitz. They will say things that sound good but in reality it will only be more cheap talk and hollow promises.
