Fire at Citi Field - but it’s Mets’ season that’s going up in flames
ATLANTA — There was a fire at Citi Field Wednesday.
Honestly. No joke. An actual fire. Nobody was hurt, so it’s OK to let loose a hyena-like peal of hysterical laughter if you’d like, because, read that sentence again: There was a fire at Citi Field Wednesday.
Honestly, the God of Met-aphors (get it? Met-aphors!) has clearly been working overtime the past couple of days, because on Tuesday night the Mets received an official diagnosis for Steven Matz of – quote – “middle finger discomfort,” which, as we pointed out in the later editions of this newspaper, is the kind of thing that afflicts Mets fans when they watch too many Mets games.
Now there was a fire at Citi Field. There were apparently no tires involved. There were apparently no dumpsters involved. Those would be too obvious! The God of Met-aphors is more subtle than that. So instead, there was just a billowing cloud of smoke emanating from the Gil Hodges Gate, and some surreal video, and …
This is where we are with the 2018 Mets on the last day of May, a month that thoroughly undid all the good they were able to build in April. The last time a line of credit was squandered this spectacularly was when every college freshman, ever, was given their first American Express card.
A post shared by Raul Jimenez II (@raul.jimenezii) on May 30, 2018 at 12:46pm PDT
And look: yes, the Mets have been spectacularly unlucky for the better part of three years now. It’s almost as if the karmic chickens born in August, September and October of 2015 have all come home to roost. They tried (but failed) to sabotage the Mets in 2016 (even they were unprepared for the dueling emergences of Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman), then succeeded spectacularly in doing every bit of that in 2017.
Now?
Mickey Callaway was kind of joking the other day, after one or another of the absurd Mets losses that have piled up on this road trip (it’s hard to distinguish one from the others) when he said that, given the way things have been going, .500 feels pretty good all things considered (even factoring in the 11-1 start). But he’s also being kind of truthful. Much of it, the obvious stuff, is bad luck, sure.
But if, as the adage goes, luck is the residue of design, then doesn’t it follow that bad luck may well be the residue of bad design?
Which brings us to Sandy Alderson, architect of this team, overseer of a roster that seemed suspiciously thin at season’s start and has been exposed as being skinnier than a Kleenex with 110 games still to go in the season.
The most obvious of Alderson’s misdemeanors was on display Wednesday night at SunTrust Park: Jason Vargas, pitching on short rest, and available to pitch on short rest because he was so unbearably awful in Milwaukee on Saturday (and “unbearably bad” was actually an upgrade from his first three starts). Alderson ignored the fact that Vargas was one of the worst starters in the majors after last year’s All-Star Game, still signed him to two years and $16 million.
More telling, though, is the reality of Alderson’s complete body of work. He has been the GM since 2010. That’s eight seasons and (to date) seven drafts, and that’s enough time where a man makes a stamp on the whole organization. And what do the Mets have to show when they need to dip into the minor leagues?
I’ll wait …
Still waiting …
The Braves saw a lull in their lineup, they promote Ronald Acuna Jr., 20 years old, who lights up the sky right away. The Nationals are hit by an injury bug, and their answer is Juan Soto, 19 years old, who entering play last night was hitting .393 with an OPS of 1.092. The Phillies have a wealth of kids on the team or close to coming.
The Mets?
Still waiting …
Look, yes, it took a good bit of draining of the farm system to build on the fly the 2015 team that made the World Series. But that was one push. Alderson has had eight years. The bones of a good team remain in place but many of those bones are fractured, splintered and broken right now. There should be temporary answers if the farm system were any good. But it is not. So there aren’t.
The whole operation is in flames. Starting with the ballpark.