Wanted: 9 Healthy Starters and an Exorcist

I’ve not been one to look at injuries as the reason the Mets have been hosting a losing season. With any level of depth, my reasoning has been, the lack of a star or two should be able to be absorbed by the reinforcements and the bench. And as much as I don’t believe you can judge how a team will fare by their play the first few weeks of a season (see: Yankees), the beginning of this season left the Mets looking like there would never be a level of strength and synchronicity on this team for it to dominate the division as it did in 2006, or even contend to the end as it did in 2007 and 2008. The injuries seemed like a convenient excuse for a team that had been believing its own press.

We’ve reached a point now where the reality of how decimated the team has been must be acknowledged. Just in the past 2 days, 3 more injuries and yet another setback for a returning starter. The cries for mercy have been structured as “Imagine what the (insert team name here) would be like if they didn’t have (insert numerous star player names here).” Understanding the Mets this year requires this now be taken to a different level – Imagine if you had 2 or 3 starters on your roster and regularly rotated the remainder of the team onto the field each day from a mix of aged veterans, green pre-rookies, and odds and ends who’ve been recruited for pick-up games in A ball. The New York Mets that are playing the second half of the season are not the team Sports Illustrated ordained pre-season. No one would have ever envisioned this team would exist, and it only does because for 56 more games, a team must be fielded. That they’ve won at all is a testament to the law of averages more than skill. With all the known players occupying the triage unit, it’s a true wonder there’s a team that could possibly have a worse record in their division, let alone in baseball.

Earlier today I quipped that the banner outside New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery should read “Official Clubhouse of the New York Mets.” Somewhere, someone must surely be to blame? Is it the training staff, who some have argued hasn’t put nearly enough effort into making sure their athletes were properly conditioned? It could be, but these athletes have been playing baseball competitively almost since they were children. They didn’t just forget how to run or lose coordination because a trainer didn’t make sure they were properly warmed up.

Maybe this season is simply cursed. There was a rumor pre-opening that in building Citi Field, three Phillies jerseys were buried into the concrete as it was poured by a construction worker from Pennsylvania. When it happened in the Bronx, they dug the Sox jerseys up. I’m not a big believer in curses, but at some point you’ve got to wonder if there’s something to it when players drop like flies in unheard of numbers. Maybe those shirts need to be exhumed so peace can be brought back to Flushing.

This season is history. It would be nice to think a clean slate can begin in 2010. I’m not holding my breath. Citi Field has been devoid of any sense of Mets identity since it opened, and I’m not optimistic that any new championship drapery will be earned any time soon. I’ll still root for my team, but right now I’m still waiting for my team – the whole team - to take the field.

As an aside, lets go back about a month and revisit what I posted on July 8th:

“”For the record, I’ve got some predictions for the second half: I don’t expect Carlos Beltran to return to the team for any appreciable length of time this season. I believe the bruise he has will be found to be a more severe injury that will require more radical treatment. Similarly, I don’t expect Jose Reyes to be able to make a triumphant return, but will rather re-injure his leg quickly and either play out the season at much less than 100% or require season ending surgery. John Maine seems almost inevitably on the road to another medical intervention. Of the major players, I believe Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner will come back just in time to show they still have enough talent to be worth something on the open market next year.

And unless there’s an epiphany within management or talent well before the end of July, I’m sticking with a prediction I made after just 2 weeks of this season had passed: This team, even healthy, doesn’t have what it takes to win enough, and will end the season in 4th place in the NL East.”

There are still about 8 weeks left to the season, but right now I’m looking like Kreskin. If only I could conjure up 6 good Lotto numbers as easily…