Mets Mail It In, Yankees Add On
New York, NY – We’re getting close to the trade deadline and we can now truly separate the buyers from the sellers. The Yankees have made some big waves lately adding one aging prima donna to the roster while putting another aging prima donna on the shelf for the next month or two. Ichiro traded clubhouses this week as the Yankees visited Seattle. The Yankees felt compelled to add some speed to the lineup after finding out that Brett “The Jet” Gardner would not play this season due to his bad elbow, bad shoulder, and presumably lumbago and infected adenoids.
Ichiro’s offensive output has dropped off precipitously over the past couple of seasons but hopefully his trade from the doom and gloom of Seattle to a World Series contender will spark his revival. He can still swipe a bag and he still has a gun in the outfield. I like the acquisition and thankfully the Yanks’ luck with Japanese position players has been much better than their luck with Japanese pitchers. Hideki Matsui was a success in pinstripes, while Hideki Irabu was most certainly not. And Kei Igawa was so bad that the Yankees paid him about $12m per season to pitch in the minor leagues. The jury is still out on Hiroki Kuroda. He’s pitched reasonably well but I still don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.
A-Rod forgot that he is supposed to use the bat to hit the baseball and not his hand. He dropped like a bag of dirt and cried like Short Matt when a column isn’t posted on time when King Felix hit him with an Eephus pitch the other day. Now he’s looking to all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men to put his hand back together again. He should be back in time to not hit in the postseason.
The Mets had punched above their weight for most of the season leading up to the All-Star Break. Lately they have fallen back to earth like Skylab. The youngsters have run out of steam and Jason Bay is back in his Rex Ryan-sized hole in the lineup. Frankly, I’m surprised that he hasn’t already landed back on the DL. Every time he runs to shag a fly ball, I think he is going to knock himself out running into the wall or tripping over his feet. David Wright has cooled off recently and RA Dickey‘s knuckleball isn’t dancing like it used to.
The Amazin’s have gone from a team looking to bolster its roster to make a run at the Wild Card a couple of weeks ago to a team thats just looking to brood young talent for the rest of this season. Speaking of young talent, this Harvey kid pitched a heluva game last night. According to people in the know, this kid is the genuine article. He will be a tremendous asset to the Mets if he pans out.
We can’t be surprised by the Met’s slip-n-slide down the standings. This is a team that most people (Mets fans included) expected to possibly hit triple digits in the loss column. They hung in there as long as they could but the wheels were bound to come off eventually. And its better that the ship sinks in July before you bet the farm on some acquisitions at the deadline. The Amazin’s have been down that road recently, only to watch the season go off the rails in September. Their best bet is to let the kids play and deal with it after the season.
Come back tomorrow for The Public Professor.
