Something struck me about the latest beatdown that the Mets received on Labor Day:

It was when Mike Pelfrey was shown in the replay backing up on the base hit by Nyjer Morgan (or at least attempt to).  He was drifting back with a blank look on his face, while in the background two young kids, presumably Nationals fans are squealing in delight at the misfortune of the Mets.

Meanwhile, later in the game after Danny Espinosa hit the grand slam off Ryota Igarashi, Espinosa was greeted at home plate by the teammates he drove in giving him the cold shoulder.

Now this is a team, while well behind the Mets in the standings, are having fun along with their fans.  The Nationals, at 60-78, seem to enjoy playing baseball.  The fans in attendance seem to enjoy watching this 60-78 team (at least the ones in the front row).  The Mets, meanwhile, don't seem to enjoy anything.  How is that?  Is New York that depressing a place to play when you lose?  I understand there's less leeway here in New York.  If the Mets were spotted having fun during a win at 60-78 (or even at 67-71), about 12 different talk radio shows would be blasting them for their show of happiness.  That, along with the Phillies and Marlins making snarky comments about how that's "not the right way to play baseball".

But when Gerardo Parra of the Diamondbacks reacts like he saved Game 7 of the NLCS with a diving catch when his team is 56-82, and the Mets look like they would rather be laying tar on a roof near the equator, that has to be indicative of something.  This team looks mentally worn down from five years of disappointment.  The problem with that is that more than half the starting lineup only got here this season.  So what does that tell you?  You can come up with your own conclusions.  Besides, I don't want to make any rash assumptions, even though it tells me that whatever leadership that exists here has simply run out of energy, ideas, and fight.  That comes from five years of losing.  It also comes from a front office unable to help with ways to improve the club mid-season, for whatever reason.  Whatever it is, to me it's just more evidence that there needs to be serious changes happening.  And it's depressing.  It's not healthy to watch a baseball game and then think afterwards: "Gee, my favorite team should just forfeit the rest of the season, or fold."

That's when Dillon Gee replies "Don't worry, I'm pitching tomorrow.  You'll think differently then."  I doubt it.

I doubt it.

At least for one day, the Mets put a beatdown on somebody in much the way that Joe Pesci beat Don Rickles with the telephone in Casino.

Of course, the 18-5 blowout win which needlessly inflated the Mets' runs per game average came courtesy of Carlos Beltran and nine players who played for Buffalo this season (yes, I'm counting Angel Pagan's three game rehab stint.)  Hell, even Joaquin Arias drove in a run.  I was wondering if I had missed some sort of harmonic convergence, star alignment, or if the Mets beat guys had missed a whole elaborate sign stealing plan from Wrigley's scoreboard.  (Would fit nicely into that whole "Cubs are jinxed" romanticism if the visitors had signs relayed in their own park.)

I wonder if those 18 runs would have been a Bison record ...

Speaking of things that have to be some sort of record, 10 of the 18 runs came from batting slots eight and nine.  And poor Ruben Tejada.  He drives in five runs, hits a home run, and he thought he had done enough to get a pie in the face from Pagan as he was looking around during his post game interview.  Instead, there was no pie to be found.  It was like the guy in the Avis commercial expecting all the Yankee fans to do the roll call chant except they're looking at him like he's crazy.  (Wicked cold.)  But it really wasn't anything like that.  There was no whipped cream to smack on Ruben's face probably because Chris Carter sprays all of it directly into his mouth as part of his pre-game routine in which he does 8,000 push-ups, does 5,000 bench presses of four hundred pounds each, and sacrifices three virgins in the outfield all in a span of two hours.  (He only does this for road games, I'm told.)

Now it's on to Washington where Johan Santana will miss his next start because Nyjer Morgan bowled over him after running straight from Pittsburgh to Chicago of his strained pectoral muscle.  Santana hopes to make his next start against the University of Michigan at Port St. Lucie, where Mets officials will measure his effectiveness on 139 days rest.

The major league career of Jenrry Mejia resumed at Wrigley Field ... this time as a starter.  You, being the savvy baseball fan you are, realize that there isn't a better place for your first start in the majors than at Wrigley Field.

He wasn't great, but he wasn't particularly bad.  And hey, we're not looking at results so much as we're looking at the peripherals: poise, command, movement (not necessarily in that order).  Mejia had enough.  He doesn't need to have it all in his first start at Wrigley Field.  The last guy who started for the Mets as young as Mejia didn't do so well in his Wrigley Field debut either ... and that was not only Doc Gooden's second start, but his second appearance.  It's a tough place to be young and hyped.  He's fine.

The rap on the Mets has been that they rush their prospects.  Generally, it hasn't gone well for this current regime.  Well Mejia has been rushed twice in one season ... first as a reliever where Snoop told him to just throw fastballs (thus wasting everybody's time), and now rushed through as a starter after nine starts in the minors.  But at least he's going to get to throw to major league hitters for a month before they pack the bats.  The mistake would be to expect the world from him in the next four, five starts.  He's survived the rushes to the majors.  Us, as fans, need to be careful not to rush the expectations.

I'm just happy to see that his career is back on the right track and not the track that Snoop laid down for him way back in March.  Again, at least he's playing.  Ask Nick Evans how valuable September playing time in the majors is, as he's been called back up ... presumably to make sure Mike Hessman has refreshing drinks at the ready so he can be fully equipped to strike out in the ninth.

The good news is the Mets are scouting Yu Darvish, who sources are reporting I like a lot.  Maybe they have a bad taste in their mouth from deciding that Aroldis Chapman and his 239 mph slider wasn't worth the money.  But as is the Mets luck, this is the part of the program where Darvish announces that he's wanted to play for the Tampa Bay Rays since he was six years old even though they didn't exist until he was 12.

Yup, the latest version of the Irrelevancy Tour is rolling through a town near you.  (In some cases it rolls through a town the day after a night game.)  Can you afford to miss the magic?

Sure you can.  But just don't miss the wind blown home run balls flying out towards the right field bleachers of Wrigley Field or they'll conk you on the head.  And don't eat the yellow snow.

And buy the t-shirt.  It's in the bargain bin next to those Frenchy Players Choice jerseys at the Ebbets Club Mets Shop.*

*Not really.

You might think Johan Santana is immortal.  But, like the rest of us, he's day-to-day.

That's okay, Johan.  Don't rush back.  Thursday's win aside, the season's done.  Bobby Ojeda thinks you're headed for a monster season in 2011 (that's right ... that's what he said) now that you have the pitch tipping thing eradicated.  You'll need to have a monster season if the Mets can't clear any payroll before April and you have to carry this same bunch on your back.  So forget about 2010, and keep that pectoral muscle from being shredded like Camden Yards pork.  Oh, and let's just hope that that muscle wasn't strained taking a swing at somebody in the family room.

(With the amount of time it took to get that news to the masses, I thought we had another Frankie situation on our hands ... either that or Johan decided to join the peace corps after the fifth inning.)

Besides, with Lucas Duda batting second, your team will be juuuuuuuuust fiiiiiiiiiiine.

Well since the Mets are playing like dead dogs, it stands to reason that the team below them in the standings should be even deader. Right?

Oh, I see. I team more out of it than the Mets showing some ... er, fight?

Longtime readers of this space can probably guess that I'm for hard nosed baseball, and I'm also for vigilante justice.  I don't think it makes me a bad person but that's between me and a higher being, isn't it ...

So I sighed longingly when Nyjer Morgan went after Chris Volstad.  Aah, emotion.  Where is that in Flushing?  When does anybody fight here?  Hell, Morgan ran over more catchers in a week than the Mets have in six years.  Take time out of your day for a few seconds to think about that.

Now running over a catcher who doesn't have the ball and wasn't near the plate is incredibly stupid.  Morgan would have been thrown at if he was allowed to play the next day.  So I cannot sanction that.  The second catcher obliteration?  Borderline at best.  Hard nosed baseball.  So the Marlins felt they had to bean him and protect their teammate, which I'm all for.  Morgan takes his first beaning and moves on. 

Then he steals second and third base, which the Marlins had a problem with.  Apparently, baseball etiquette says you don't do that down by 11 runs.  I love when teams justify being mad about something because it's an "unwritten rule", which for all I know says that you made it up in your head.  Up by 11 I can see.  But down by 11 runs in the fourth inning is something else entirely.  Morgan's steals led directly to a run, and the Nationals had closed that gap to five runs with plenty of time left in the game.  So why is what Morgan did a crime?

Oh, because the Marlins ... arbitrators of justice since 2007 ... say so.  I get it now.  Whether you side with the Marlins being the judges of justice or not (I'm kinda tired of them in general but I'm admittedly biased), they'll always rule the day here because nobody on the Mets has the kind of marbles to do something about it like Morgan did.  So it should come as no surprise to you when I say that I would welcome Morgan, former hockey player, here to pour some vinegar into the corn flakes of the N.L. East ... whether he's justified or not.  I'm not picky given the comatose state of the Mets right now.  Hell, I root for Sean Avery so of course I'd welcome Morgan with open arms.  This surprises you?

Except that if they give him a physical (not a given in Flushing), the doctors will probably neuter Morgan per club policy.

The lines have been drawn.  Who do you side with?

To be honest, Snoop deserved what happened Wednesday night.

Manuel on Carter, Duda, Beltran defensive outfield: "Whoooo, Lord have mercy...I've got to tell Pelfrey, Keep that (ball) down."

That's good.  Throw the outfield under the bus with a funny joke before they even play that night.  Yeah, Beltran might have lost nine steps but the steps he has left he's busting his butt with just to be out there, probably filled with some self-doubt as to whether he'll ever be the same player he was again ... this after the Mets most likely turned him into a shell of his former self by telling him that all he needed was seventeen cortisone shots.  So let's make him the subject of a joke.  And speaking of busting his butt, Chris Carter does so every day for seven damn hours before every stupid meaningless game to try to make Snoop look like a genius for putting him in the lineup (even though he was sent down at the beginning of the season to make sure that Mike Jacobs strikes out a billion times), and he rags on him.  And Lucas Duda can't play defense before he even plays a game in the majors?

Ironically, Duda made a couple of halfway decent plays in the outfield on Wednesday running down a fly ball and a base hit.  Of course, after he does that and undoubtedly put a smile on Snoop's face ... a smile he doesn't deserve ... Duda cramped up and left the game.  Truthfully, served Snoop right.  You ragged on your own team, they prove you wrong, then you lose them.  It would have made a great Twilight Zone episode, right up there with Burgess Meredith stepping on his glasses after the nuclear war.  The end of the episode sees Snoop getting punished by managing the rest of his days in the Can Am league for the Quebec team where what little salary he makes is hammered by taxes.  Oliver Perez is on the mound, Brian Schneider is his cleanup hitter, and Joaquin Arias is his left fielder for all of eternity.  Every game.

And Gary Carter and Wally Backman are on his coaching staff, sharpening hatchets at every turn.  Yeah.  That would be a great Twilight Zone episode.

I see we've reached "that" part of the season.

"Manuel wanted to give newly acquired Joaquin Arias a start -- perhaps in the outfield -- but didn't think the ex-Ranger would be ready because he has been idle for two weeks." -Adam Rubin

I suppose that now that Joaquin Arias is the property of the New York Mets, that it would be a fine time to bring up that Arias has never played the outfield in his professional life.  I have to hand it to Snoop, when I think Omar Minaya has whittled the value of the roster down to nothing, Manuel goes above and beyond to find a value that's lower than absolute zero.  To hell with the laws of thermodynamics.

But he'll find it.  He'll find it because he's relentless, and because he'll have plenty of time.

"Manuel was asked if his own tenuous status is difficult or unsettling.  "No, I'm going to be here for the next 10 years," he said with a laugh."

Tip your waitress, try the veal.  And please welcome to the stage and give a big hand to your new eighth inning guy: Rob Dibble.

There once was a guy who started with a red paper clip.  And through a series of trades, acquired a farmhouse in Canada.

The Mets have a general manager who started with a crown jewel prospect.  And through a series of trades over five years, acquired Joaquin Arias.

The paper clip has more value.

You can say a lot about the tenure of Omar Minaya's tenure.  This lineage of trades might be signature Omar.  Crown jewel prospects are either can't miss, or wheeled as part of a package for a player with immense value (Justin Smoak for Cliff Lee, for example.)  Lastings Milledge had been talked about as a guy who could bring back Barry Zito or Manny Ramirez in a trade.  Instead, the deal fell apart because of money(of course).  Milledge was exposed to the major leagues, then traded for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.  Schneider was about as useful as creamed spinach at a Texas barbecue and was released.  Church, who was devalued further by Snoop Manuel's fascination with getting Gary Sheffield at-bats, and even further by Mets doctors who thought "yeah, he can get on the plane fine", was traded for Jeff Francoeur last season.  Frenchy, after another brutal loss to the Atlanta Braves, was traded to Texas for Arias ... who was recently demoted to make room for Alex Cora.  That's how good Joaquin Arias is.

Alex Cora.

The only redeeming feature about Arias is that he's probably better than Luis Castillo, who has apparently joined a religious cult where bending is considered a sin.

For this, and this alone, Omar Minaya should be fired ... and banned from Citi Field.

Hindsight?  Maybe.  But this has been a Met blueprint: Rush up the prospects so that they can be exposed as "not-ready", then traded at ten cents on the dollar. 

And please don't, under any circumstances, bring up the irrelevant fact that Lastings Milledge is no great shakes as a ballplayer.  While true, it's not the point.  Good GM's recognize the value of a prospect and protect it until his career takes off or until it's time to trade him for a major piece to augment the major league club.  Bad GM's wait until the entire world sees the flaws of the crown jewel, and trades him for a light hitting catcher and a halfway-decent outfielder.  If the Mets knew that this guy was a pretender and waited until everyone else saw it too to trade him, that's inexcusable.  Almost as inexcusable as trading Scott Kazmir for their own percieved value rather than the value he actually had in the marketplace.

The massive flaws of an organization exposed for the world to see ... again.

Now Jeff Francoeur, whose Met career will be marked by a wide smile and a game-ending triple play, is a Texas Ranger.  He'll probably hit a playoff winning home run off Mariano Rivera to become a cult hero, and then be released halfway through 2011 to open up a chain of Texas barbecue joints named "Mr. 100" in honor of his home run total ... or career OPS.  Meanwhile Arias will probably pull his hamstring out of his leg through his kneecap in a freak eating accident, never to be heard from again.

Can we hire the paper clip guy to replace Omar?

I love when Bobby Ojeda opens the silo doors.

He's good for that about once a season.  But hell, somebody needs to.  It sure as hell isn't going to be Jeff Wilpon, who was down in Atlanta for the second time this season to answer questions with more questions with 18,000 of his closest enemies in Atlanta (Seriously?  18,000 people?  Far be it from me to question the ways that people in Atlanta spend their disposable income but hell the Mets drew more than that in those days they really stunk, er ... last week.)

But Ojeda was classic after a 9-3 loss to Atlanta to pretty much end the hopes of those last holdouts in fantasy land ... blasting everything from Oliver Perez to Ike Davis' lazy toss to second to Angel Pagan barking at the umpire after a called strike three ("Gee, can't be my fault ... getting tired of seeing that" ... LOVE IT!)  Don't forget that Ojeda was fired from the Cyclones by the same regime because he had the audacity to speak his mind, and now he gets paid to do it to an audience in the hundreds of thousands yet dwindling by the day.  Irony is a beautiful thing.  And Ojeda's rant was melodic.  Somebody has gotta speak their mind.  It was a rant the type that will get that roster to sit up, take notice, and most likely complain that Ojeda doesn't know what he's talking about. 

That's how you know he's right ... when the team starts whining about it.  And I hope they do.  I hope they hear every word of it and bitch and moan until Mary Poppins comes home.  Let's separate the whiners from the men who actually want to play this game and be accountable for their mistakes.  And when spring training comes next season, let's get whoever wants to whine and bitch about Bob Ojeda, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, or any announcer that dares to dole out some "harsh truth", and present them with a one way ticket to the New Jersey Jackals to play for $25,000 a season.  And that includes the manager who's responsible for a good portion of this mess and came up with this gem after the game:

 "We haven't for the most part been very good offensively all year."

Well there's an excuse to run the "Breaking News" graphic!  What's next, Snoop?  Israel and Palestine haven't for the most part been getting along in the last hundred years?  The Beatles for the most part played musical instruments?  David Eckstein for the most part is on the not-so-tall side?  Please, Jerry!  Don't hold back your keen insight!

I want everyone to remember this game come next spring and Oliver Perez is working on a new pitch in Port St. Lucie, Jose Reyes is two-three weeks away from taking live batting practice, Jeff Francoeur is smiling ear to ear for reporters because he's learned a new approach at the plate while fishing with Howard Johnson at Lake Batting Eye, Ruben Tejada is locked in a death battle with Luis Hernandez for the 25th roster spot while Luis Castillo works on a new "Get the ball out of the damn infield" drill after losing 30 pounds, winning the second base job, and replacing his knee with a recycled garbage can ... and Carlos Beltran petitions the league for the use of a golf cart in center field. And you leave me angry comments asking why the hell I'm so damn negative all the time and that I should buck up and be a man.

That's when I point to this lifeless game and all the ones before it authored by 25 men for whom October can't get here quick enough, a manager who is best suited to be the team dietitian because he's really really nice but can't come up with a strategy better than the Disjointed U, and a front office and ownership that thought that it was all injuries last season and that they just needed a little pick up from Jason Bay and some healthy bodies ... but Bay is off currently phoning his Canadian buddy Eric Lindros for post concussion syndrome advice while Lindros keeps answering his banana.

That's why.

So keep the doors open Bobby O.  Make sure your aim is true.  And wake me up for R.A. Dickey's next start.