Anyone hoping to see a real life version of "Major League" play out over the final three-quarters of the Mets season has to feel sorely disappointed right now.
Not because anyone is dying to see the clubhouse decorated by a cardboard cutout of Fred Wilpon in his skivvies, but because the most poetic response to being called a crappy team would be to play like something much better. Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger aren't walking through that door, though, and the Mets seem all too happy to make Freddie look like a soothsayer.
Wilpon apologized to Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes before Tuesday's game, but he didn't make an apology for his April assessment of his team in the infamous New Yorker interview. That's a good thing because he would have wound up looking twice as stupid if he did try to roll things back.
The Mets got decimated by the Cubs 11-1 on Tuesday night in a performance that made everyone who got offended by Wilpon's harsh rebuke of his team feel pretty stupid for wasting their time and energy. By the end of the evening, Wilpon's choice scatalogical term for his team seemed like an understatement.
Jon Niese was a shell of the pitcher who braved horrid conditions to shut down the Nats last week and the Mets supported him by fielding the ball with all the grace of the Bad News Bears. Ronny Paulino made two errors and the outfielders treated the ball like it was radioactive on a night when a little effort would have gone a long way.
The one run tells you how well the offense played, so we'll just skip ahead and say that there wasn't a single thing that went right. Heck, the Mets couldn't even handle getting injured the right way.
Jason Bay, who seems set on going down as the worst free agent signing since Bobby Bonilla yet avoided the owner's wrath, left the game in the seventh inning with a calf injury.
At this point, we're well past waiting for Bay to become the player everyone thought he was so the prospect of an injury -- and the ensuing playing time for Fernando Martinez that would follow -- isn't really disheartening.
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Alas, Bay said he'll play on Wednesday which really defines adding insult to injury. Only the Mets could frustrate you when one of their players isn't hurt as bad as it originally appeared.
There is some good news, though. The Wednesday weather report for Chicago is miserable.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
