In Spite Of...

I'm not sure, but if I were John Maine, I probably wouldn't be too vocal about my displeasure over being pulled from last night's game. While I admire his determination, there's clearly something wrong with him. In fact, there's something wrong with most of the team.

Things lately have been dissolving into early-2008 around here. Everyone is grousing, people are calling for everyone to be fired, and for all I know this could happen pretty soon if things don't go well this upcoming weekend.

Maine's been particularly putrid lately, and it's sort of been a microcosm of the team. He goes out there and clearly, he's trying, and clearly he wants to do well, and, hell, we all want him to do well, but he's just not right. Optimally, he'd be throwing around 92-93mph, where he was when he was doing so well, but right now 2007 seems like a generation ago, and that time seems like a joy as compared to this dreck. And it's beginning to become a liability. I mean, this guy started off his last start by throwing 12 straight balls. Who does that? Seriously, who does that on the Major League level? That's High School crap. I mean, it's well and good that Warthen and Manuel finally tired of the Oliver Perez shit show and threw him in the bullpen, so let's throw Maine in there as well. Let Takahashi start, he's basically been their caddy for the first 6 weeks anyway.

So, fine. Maine's out, in comes Raul Valdez, part of the mixed bag that the Mets bullpen is, and somehow he throws 5 innings and keeps the Nationals at bay, while they go out and beat up Luis Atilano, who showed the Mets what was what just last week. An encouraging sign since the Mets used to do the exact opposite, but, then again, they saw Livan Hernandez and his heap of crap all the time last season and they couldn't manage much off him last night. Of course, 10-1, a lead that appeared to be windowdressing at the time, got whittled down to 10-7 when that mixed bag bullpen seemed to have a collective attack of 2008-itis. But, they hung on. In spite of themselves.

These victories in spite of themselves are getting all too familiar. I don't like where this is heading. They're starting to become what we thought they were, and that's not a good thing.