What a Mess

Written by Nikki DeMaio | 12 August 2010

Last night was a tough game to swallow.  After Jon Niese threw seven scoreless innings, things came apart for the bullpen.  The eighth inning was ugly, culminating in Melvin Mora's grand slam that put the Rockies ahead for good.  Then there's the usual:  David Wright is back to being ice cold and took it out on his bat hardcore last night, Carlos Beltran still hasn't figured things out, etc.

But let's not forget about K-Rod (as if we could today).  After the game, he apparently was incredibly short with the media, yelling for them to get out of his way as he tried to exit the locker room.  We all know K-Rod is a hothead, as he's gotten into shoving matches and the like before.. but apparently, this time he assaulted his father-in-law.  SNY had video of the man being taken away in an ambulance, while K-Rod was arrested/detained, whatever you want to call it.  From what I've gathered today, this whole thing stemmed from the fact that K-Rod wasn't used in the 8th inning last night when things were getting sticky for the team.  I'm so tired of this "me first" crap with him.  It seems like he constantly has a problem:  he's not being used enough, he's warming up too much, it wasn't a save situation, and on and on and ON.

It's just frustrating to see this kind of stuff.  Before K-Rod went all Hulk last night, things were bad enough.  The boo birds were out in droves as things got out of control and really with good reason.  There was also a "Fire Jerry" chant going at one point.  At this point, I think Mets fans are being realistic about the fact that the season is going nowhere fast - so we're looking for some changes.  Except they don't seem to be on the way.  This is probably an extreme example, but look at what Buck Showalter has done for the Orioles.  That team had no identity or purpose... and all of a sudden, they're winning games.  I don't think it's a coincidence that when the culture changed, the team changed the way they were playing baseball.  It's something to think about anyway.

Phillies add-in: For all the Mets fans reading this here's a thinking point.  What would the reaction be if this happened in the Philadelphia?  Yeah the media will be all over this, but because the Mets are a dysfunctional bunch of misfits, not because it's some heinous incident.  If this was Philly, Benny B would have 1500 words about it before noon (with ridiculous accompanying picture of course) and JerseyBuc in the comments would be making his usual snide remarks.  Just sayin'.