Rope Off the Crime Scene 'Cause Beltran's Killing the Mets

The Recap: Phillies 6, Mets 5

The Mets fell below .500 on the season and lost another one-run game, even despite "getting to" one of the best pitchers in baseball, Roy Halladay with absolutely no positive contribution at all by All-Star Carlos Beltran, whose return from the disabled list ironically continues to be the impetus of the Mets second half nightmare.

THE GOOD: Last night's 1-0 victory was nice, as Jerry Manuel took our advice by avoiding middle-relief entirely and went straight for his closer (who made the game interesting nonetheless before settling in for his 24th save) as Johan Santana won his 9th game of the year against 6 losses. (By the way, is that the best 9-6 record of all time? I remember 2 bad starts for this guy all season!)

In today's game, Jose Reyes and Angel Pagan went a combined 4-for-8 to breathe some life into the Mets lineup, but it wasn't enough to offset the criminal plate appearances by the Mets 3rd and cleanup hitters. Reyes need to atone for his atrocious fielding (he missed a routine play in the 3rd which allowed the Phillies to pile on the runs) while catcher Josh Thole had a 3-for-4 day at the plate.

If only the Mets could hit in the clutch, we'd probably also be speaking good of the Mets bullpen, who didn't allow any runs after Dickey's meltdown in the third and kept the Mets in the game, but of course that goes unnoticed since the offense is so pathetic when it really counts.

THE BAD: RA Dickey was off today and saw his record drop to 7-5 on the year, but that's okay because he's built up enough credits this year so far to offset a bad performance. (By the way, is that the best 7-5 record of all time? He's been outstanding.) However, the same can't be said for other members of this Bad News Bears ensemble.

It's a crime what Carlos Beltran is doing out there: lack-luster on defense, game-buster on offense. Many Beltran apologists are pointing out how long it takes to come back from a severe injury like he had and how it took Jose Reyes a month before he got going - but seriously folks, he's already had 77 at-bats this year with 1 meaningless homerun, with not one hit resulting in an important rbi coming in a big spot (batting in the #3 or cleanup part of the order to boot!), an average below the Mendoza line at this point (.195), and fielding his position that's making Jay Payton look like Willie Mays.

What gives here? Is he still hurt? Because if he is, we apologize for the rant, but then if that's the case, don't play. There's a difference between playing hurt and playing injured. Beltran needs to be stopped immediately because he's absolutely killing this team.

And now for some perspective: When Keith Hernandez mentioned in the booth the other day that no one should expect Beltran to start playing well because it takes at least a month to come back and get into a grove, 84-year old Ralph Kiner immediately set him straight: "In my time, we had guys missing years due to the war and they came back strong in one week. I needed 3 days when I was injured... and if a player needs more than a week to get back into playing shape and form, it's laziness on their part and it's their fault"

Well there you have it: the apologists of today and the sane thinking of yesteryear when it was all about taking responsibility. It must be tough for Beltran (and other under-performing athletes) to cash those weekly gigantic checks without getting the job done. Someone call a cop because we fans are investing our hard earned money and time into watching this crap and getting screwed in the process.

And we weren't even going to mention it because it's become so obvious, but did you check out David Wright's stat line for this game (0-for-3, 3 strikeouts) and roadtrip (2 for 23 with strikeouts a-plenty)? Once again, he came up small in games that most Mets fans would consider "big". In fact, Wright, Beltran, and Ike Davis combined to go 1-for-12 on the day. Wright and Beltran went a combined 5-for45 on the entire road trip - against Philly and Atlanta. You know.. the good teams... the teams we need to beat for a shot at, oh, I don't know... the postseason?!?!? The games that were entirely winable if we could just count on either Beltran or Wright to come up big just one time apiece in a clutch situation?!?!?

Thank goodness the Mets have Johan Santana or we'd be looking at another embarrassing sweep to a hated divisional rival.

THE UGLY: They say the true indicator of how good a team really is is by their record in one run games, where the mets are now 14-22 in such instances. Keith Hernandez always says he knew the Mets were turning a corner when he first got to Shea when the team started winning one runners and knew at that point a World Series was not too far in the future (which it obviously wasn't). Well, with these Mets, I much fear a long wait as this team was once again just 2-4 on their latest roadtrip and have not even won a road series against any National League team all season so far. It's August!... that's plain ugly.