Time To Break Up The Mets

Forgetaboutit! The 2009 season is O-V-E-R! Over! Over! Over for the New York Mets! And it is only April.

For 15 games this season the Mets have played comatose baseball, looking more like a corpse than an living, active ball club. For all the delusional Met fans, who spent most of the winter trying to fool themselves that this team did not need to be ripped apart at the seems after their second straight September collapse wake up! This team stinks to high heaven!

After getting swept by the St. Louis Cardinals, the Mets are now 6-9, and all the fears about the lack of starting pitching, the lack of clutch hitting, and the fears about the bullpen, other than K-Rod and J.J. Putz have all come to fruition.

The Mets are 11th in the National League with runners in scoring position, leaving little confidence in their fans that they can get it done when it really matters. On Sunday the Mets were 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position, and only manufactured two runs in a 4-2 loss to the Brewers. In today's 12-5 debacle against the Cardinals the Mets left 16 men on base, leaving the bases loaded twice and failing to drive in runners at key opportunities.

The starting pitching has been awful. Other than Johan Santana, the Mets just can't get anyone to pitch well. Oliver Perez was awful on Tuesday in St. Louis blowing a 4-0 lead by walking the ball park. John Maine, who is not one for self-confidence, got smacked around for five runs on Wednesday, and Livan Hernandez got swamped for seven runs in just four and a third innings. The Mets have no answers for opponents who face them. If you are a Met opponent who on this starting rotation scares you really, other than Santana? No one.

As for the pen, it has been overworked because of this leaky starting pitching, and it is now beginning to show. J.J. Putz gave up the game winning runs in a 6-4 loss to St. Louis on Tuesday and Sean Green got rocked by the Cards on Thursday. These guys have already pitched in eight or nine innings this season. If it continues they will all have over 80 innings of work by season's end.

Who is to blame for this mess? There is no more Willie Randolph to kick around anymore. Jerry Manuel will probably be fired if the Mets continue to play lackluster baseball, but it is becoming pretty obvious that no one can coach this baseball team. They are a group that is aware that they are remembered as the only group to not only suffer a 17 game meltdown in one season, but to suffer two meltdowns in back to back years. These guys are better suited for a psychologists sofa rather than the diamond.

The people to blame are the players, but the Wilpons can't fire them, at least not right now. The guy that needs to take the fall for this is General Manager Omar Minaya. Minaya put together this band of misfits and he is the one that refused to admit there needed to be a serious makeover after last season. Instead of throwing out-bidding the rival Braves for Derek Lowe who is 1-1 with a 3.27 ERA, better then any of the other four starters on the Mets rotation, Minaya settled for a return of Oliver Perez, who Met fans have seen enough of over the years.

Instead of going ahead and jumping into the Manny Ramirez sweepstakes, Minaya was held back by the economically scared Wilpons, and instead had to settle for Dan Murphy, who even though he is a good hitter, is out of position in the outfield. Gary Sheffield, who the Mets brought in two weeks ago has been terrible, hitting around .182 when given an opportunity.

Minaya is the one to blame. He could have made a statement this past winter if he decided to shake things up, for example not picking up Carlos Delgado's $11 million option, or signing Ramirez, or even firing a couple more assistant coaches like hitting coach Howard Johnson to get into the heads of his players that they needed to produce or else. Minaya had that opportunity and he blew it.

Now the Mets are stuck with a team that is still mentally scared by the last two seasons, and has no idea how to get over it and move on with their lives. Omar Minaya...you're fired!!