I give up [1]. No, not forever, but until this team gets its head out of its collective butt. Which will be … well, if you know, please tell me.
When your team can't hit, on one level it's hard to evaluate anything they're doing — in a way they aren't your team at all, but a bunch of impostors as startling and unwelcome to the players they're impersonating as they are to all of us. So what's the point of discussing them?
But still, ohmygod. Beltran looks completely lost. Piazza looks like he'll never again be anything close to what he was. Reyes is popping everything up and can't seem to hit from the right side. Cameron is on the shelf. Mientkiewicz seems to have forgotten how to hit. Matsui seems to have forgotten how to play baseball. Wright is killing himself trying to hit five-run homers — and almost literally killed himself today catching a foul ball. (Nice play, but discretion, valor, etc.) No matter how healthy he finally is, Floyd can't carry eight other dudes on his broad shoulders.
Nor is there much hope from our once-vaunted bench. Diaz went to AAA and somehow forgot everything he seemed to have learned early in the year, meaning his resemblance to Manny Ramirez is now chiefly mental. None of Matsui's replacements are exactly worth of hosannas — Woodward is a utility guy, Anderson can't field, Cairo is hobbled, and Jeff Keppinger and (dare I say it) Edgardo Alfonzo managed to get hurt, depriving us even of hypotheticals. Daubach can draw a walk but can neither field nor run.
The pitching? Better than that, for all it matters, but not that great. Ishii's continuing presence in the rotation is baffling. Glavine finds a way to pitch badly enough to lose more often than not. (If we want to find a bright side, it would be that the other three guys — including the much-maligned Zambrano — have been more or less above reproach recently.) Nobody trusts Looper to close out a game that matters. Bell has guts but gives up too many gopher balls. Hernandez has looked decidedly mortal after a strong start. Graves may find himself, but he hasn't been reliable since the '04 All-Star break. Heilman is being wasted in the pen. DeJean having a roster spot is a travesty, seeing how he's a horrible pitcher and a bad teammate to boot. Meanwhile, Jae Seo is pitching somewhere with dizzy bat races and lots of ads on the outfield walls.
Are we too injured? Too old? Too young? Too old and too young? Too unlucky? Enduring a difficult transition? Just a more-sickening version of your typical .500 team? I don't know. Maybe you do. If so, please tell me. Tell me about the worm turning, about Willie's patience being rewarded, about a division still within reach, about Trachsel returning and a glut of tradeable starters, about healing and regressing to the mean in a good way. Tell me about Brian Bannister and Philip Humber and Lastings Milledge. Tell me about our new park. Please tell me something. Please tell me anything.