The Window's Closed

I missed writing about Wednesday night's game. That's actually not true. I just didn't write anything about it because what the hell was there to write about? I could have gone on some more about Zack Wheeler pitching great and continuing to improve for the 37th time, but how many times can I keep writing about the same thing? It's bad enough that that's the only positive thing I can take out of this month-long shit show that's been Mets Baseball. I could sum Wednesday night up in about 4 sentences. Wheeler pitched great. Wheeler got victimized by one bad pitch. The Mets couldn't score a run or get a meaningful hit. Wheeler took the loss because of that.

Thursday was more or less the same story. Washington just blew threw here and blasted the Mets right out of their home ballpark. For the 4-game series, Washington hit 13 Home Runs. The Mets hit none. For anyone complaining about the dimensions at Citi Field, one need not look at the ballpark, one need look at the players playing in said ballpark. Any reasonably good power hitter can hit the ball out of any ballpark, and right now, the Mets are devoid of simply anyone who can do that. How could you expect the Mets to make a peep against anyone with the lineup they've been throwing out there on a day-to-day basis? It's been going on all season, but now that some of the more useful pieces the Mets have had this season are either hurt or on other teams, the ineptitude of the offense is really coming to the forefront. The Mets scored 3 runs on Tuesday night and compared to the rest of the series, I feel as though I witnessed an avalanche of offense from the Mets. They scored 2 runs combined over the other 3 games this week!

Aaron Harang, who is basically the Mets Warm Body du Jour, was the latest victim of the no-stick crew. Harang, who arrived here about a week ago and has basically no expectations attached to him, actually pitched decently well. He gave up a trio of Home Runs in his 6 innings, but that was OK. They were all solo shots, and besides, Washington was hitting Home Runs against everyone. He only gave up 4 hits and amazingly struck out 10. But, you know, the Lucas Duda brigade was behind him, so the game was basically over once that 3rd Home Run left the yard. Which is unfortunate. The flipside of the argument is how much should I be sticking up for Aaron Harang, since he's been here all of 2 seconds and probably won't be around beyond the end of the season, but you want guys that go out there to at least look alive or something. Harang did that reasonably well and given the circumstances I have to give him that credit. It's better than spending an entire paragraph talking about how terrible Lucas Duda is.

The Mets were eliminated from playoff contention on Wednesday night, which was probably the least surprising thing that's happened to them all season, and Thursday they actually hit their low water mark for the season at 17 games under .500. Their 81 losses have assured them of a 5th straight losing season. About a month ago, I would have lauded the Mets for not rolling over and dying like they usually do in the 2nd half, but here they've gone and done it again. I realize that the Harvey injury and the Byrd/Buck trade took a lot of the starch out of the team, as well as the injuries to Wright, Davis and Parnell, but a majority of the players on this team, for example Lucas Duda, are in no way assured of continued Major League jobs. If I were them, I would be absolutely playing my ass off to no end in order to make an impression on someone of importance. But instead, an alarming number of these guys who are auditioning, like, say, Lucas Duda, have been so putrid that simply calling them inept would be kind. Lucas Duda had a good game 3 weeks ago, and somehow this was reason for excitement?

The Mets needs for this offseason are pretty cut and dry. But I have also often talked about addition by subtraction, and sometimes getting rid of some of the "promising" dead weight can be better than bringing in the big name because it relieves you of the "whatif" factor. With many of the players that we're going to be subjected to in the remaining 17 games this season, I think this needs to be the case. There's too many players on the Mets right now that it seems to me only would have jobs in the Major Leagues with the Mets. No other team would take them. I mean, sure, maybe Lucas Duda has a future as a DH with the Seattle Mariners, and maybe he'll hit 25 Home Runs with 47 RBI and be happy as a clam (You know, sort of like how I always felt Aaron Heilman was cut out for the AL West). But I don't see why any team with aspirations of contention would have half of these guys on their roster. And, really, neither should the Mets.