How is it a player named Ben Sheets never played for a team whose signature promotion involves fans carrying bedsheets?
No, that’s probably not your uppermost Met concern following a very unbanner day in Atlanta, but after being subject to the worst kind of familiar — getting swept at Turner Field [1] for the thirteenth time since 1997 — what is there to say about yet another unpleasant valley Sunday (the Mets have lost six in a row on the literally taken day of rest)? The peaks of June are behind us and peeking out ahead of us are three with the front-running Nationals [2], three with the Kempified Dodgers, another three with the new age whiz kids from D.C. and then it’s off to the desert and the Coast, where no one in his right mind forecasts good this far in advance.
Johan got screwed by the spatially challenged C.B. Bucknor, who offered Sheets one kind of strike zone and Santana another, and that’s a legitimate beef [3], but that primarily explains one inning out of nine. For six, the Mets did nothing with a guy who hadn’t pitched in the major leagues in two years. Dan Warthen showed more fight against Bucknor than the Met bats did against Sheets.
What is there to say? In jockspeak, shake it off. Go after Ross Detwiler on Tuesday and take it from there. Don’t inspire innuendo-addict Andy Martino to write more silly “one team official said” conjecture [4] laced with whispers about “surly older players”. And, if all looks decent for him against the Toledo Mud Hens (in a Bison tilt to be telecast on SNY), what the hell, make room for young Harvey.
There’s your pep talk, boys. Don’t say nobody’s tryin’ to fire ya up.