The Horror...The Horror...

When Carlos Beltran speaks his mind, it gets people's attention. More often than not, he's 100% on the money.

Beltran's postgame statements this afternoon, calling out the Mets as an Embarrassment is, rather sadly, the truth right now. The Mets left town on Sunday looking pretty good, sitting at 28-21, right down the Phillies' necks in the standings. Three lifeless, miserable games later, the Mets are in complete and total disarray. I guess you can consider last night's rainout a blessing in disguise, because it's more than likely the Mets would have lost that game as well.

It's absolutely baffling the way the Mets run. They go from hot to cold, players seem to get injured on a regular basis, injuries are understated, injuries are kept under wraps, guys get stomach viruses and miss a week, injured players are flown cross-country, guys replacing injured guys get injured...It never stops with this team. Two weeks ago, Jose Reyes was day-to-day. Now, with the revelation that he's got a hamstring tear, we're looking at him possibly being out the rest of the season!

It's very easy to knock the Mets fan while they're down, and right now, it's very easy to be down on the Mets. But just examine the way the past month or so has played out for the Mets, between the hot streak, all these players getting injured at once, injuries suddenly getting much worse than they originally appeared, Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya talking really quickly and not saying anything...Only the Mets. That's all you can say. This only happens to the Mets. And I'm not quite sure how or why this happens, but it does. Only to the Mets.

The collective Karma around this team right now is so putrid that it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Mets go into Yankee Stadium next weekend and get swept by a combined score of 44-3. The fans would probably commit ritual suicide off the 59th Street Bridge. El Guapo and I will probably end up shooting Maker's Mark by the bottle. But one good thing would probably happen: heads would finally start to roll.

A lot of times, the coaching staff has this safety net of the fact that their players need to execute, but you have to really be concerned about the general lack of fundamentals this team exhibits most of the time. I'm not sure how often it's happened this season, but it seems like it's just about a daily occurrence that Razor Shines has gotten a runner thrown out at home plate. I'll paraphrase an old Bill Simmons joke about former Boston 3rd base coach Dale Sveum, but if Razor Shines was a school crossing guard, kids would be getting pancaked all over Central Park West. Ho-Jo remains mostly clueless; nobody seems to point any fingers at him because he's a "True Met," but considering the way David Wright has run in and out of hot streaks, and Reyes getting homer happy, and players like Church, Murphy and Castillo being inconsistent, does he actually work with these guys, or does he just stand in the dugout in his shades doing his best Art Howe impression? I'd axe these two first, just to get the ball rolling.

Then, we have the guys at the top. Manuel is homing in on a year as the team's manager, and he's basically been no better or worse than he was last season, except that half his roster is on the DL and the other half has a difficult time picking up the slack. His in-game moves continue to often be baffling, and he's still way too by-the-book. He also gives you just an unsettling enough impression that the patients are running the asylum.

Then, there's Omar, the head of the clown car. Somehow, without any fanfare, Pittsburgh dealt their best player to Atlanta for some meager Minor Leaguers right under the Mets nose. And what I wondered more than anything else was why wasn't Omar on the horn making a deal for Nate McLouth? People seem far too consumed with the Mets need for pitching, but, as the case has been so often in the past, pitching isn't the problem here. Yes, Pelfrey was rather awful this afternoon, but he's also been flat-out excellent for a month prior to this, without a victory to show for it. Santana wasn't great the other night, but whether he finished the game or not, the Mets still weren't winning. Why? BECAUSE THE METS DON'T GENERATE ENOUGH OFFENSE! Nobody, or at least nobody who talks about the Mets in a public arena seems to realize this. You can bring in whatever stud pitcher you want. The Mets will just lose games 2-1 instead of 3-1. THE METS NEED ANOTHER BAT! It doesn't matter where he plays, just get someone. But whenever Omar makes an in-season deal like this, it's always for a guy who's not quite good enough to fill the gap he's supposed to fill. Atlanta goes out and trades with Pittsburgh for Nate McLouth. Omar will go out and trade with Pittsburgh for Craig Monroe. That's not going to cut it. The M.O. for the Mets the last two seasons has been a day late and a dollar short. I'm really starting to get tired of the act.

The Mets are going to Washington this weekend, to play a Nationals team that right now stands at 14-38, on pace to post 43.6 wins this season. The Mets themselves just got swept by a Pirates team that is just slightly better than the Nationals. I have a really bad feeling about just how embarrassing things are going to get for this team.