NL East Infection: Spreading it Around

New York Mets

Let’s get the Mets out of the way early this week.

ESPN recently went to a New York bar, where many generous people predicted the Mets would win over 70 games.  Also the Wilpons’ previous investments are now shitting money.  Also they might trade Jose Reyes because he’s so injury prone once he tried to walk away from baseball entirely, and also, the Mets are shitting money.

Washington Nationals

Okay.  That’s over.

The Nats dumped Nyjer Morgan on the Brewers, and got Lenny Dykstra’s son in return, proving that not only are they willing to overpay for former Phillies players, they are also willing to trade for the offspring of former Phillies players.  Its like, geeze, get over us already.  Right?  *High five.*

But nothing is what it seems!  The Nationals wanted to not have Morgan more than wanted to have Dykstra.  And Morgan didn’t so much lose his outfield position as much as Rick Ankiel won it.  Of course, Nyjer’s history of batshit insanity fed heavily into the decision, as Washington probably realized it would be hard for them to be taken seriously with a tantrum-prone cartoon character playing center field.

Meanwhile, did you hear?  Jayson Werth is doing fine.  He got an entire New York Times column written about him.  Take a listen, why don’t you, as we jump into the tale of Jayson Werth somewhere in the middle.

"“For most of the summer before he met Dr. Richard Berger, Werth spent his days in a fishing boat on a lake in Illinois, contemplating life. He called it purgatory.”"

Fascinating.

Yes, Jayson’s story of triumph over a life-threatening wrist injury is a good one.  And it sure is sad to see him smile that broadly in another team’s uniform.  But then again, he’s already 31 years old, so he’ll probably be dead soon anyway.  Am I right, the rest of the Phillies 30+ lineup?

More Jayson, less Nyjer, and the ability to feel like you’re piloting a starship while ordering a hot dog means this is going to be another exciting summer at Nationals Park.*

*Excitement not guaranteed

Atlanta Braves

Great news for all you baseball fans who can’t go anywhere without your laptop.  Turner Field will be offering a whole new shitload of wifi, meaning you can look up obnoxious amounts of information during the game and shout it to everyone in the section, even before they ask you to.  For instance, you could shout on Opening Day, “Hey, Alex!  Don’t worry, you’d have to drop 25 more pop-ups to reach your career high for errors!”  Or, “Oooooh, Tim Hudson attended Chattahoochee Valley Community College!  Isn’t that interes–ow!!” (That was you getting brained with a souvenir bat).

Or, if you don’t have a laptop, or a car, I have further great news.  The Braves shuttle that they were threatening to shut down, because when 170,000 people use something, its clearly become obsolete, is going to be up and running in no time.  Well, in some times.  They solved the problem of costs by offering less and less shuttles, so I assume all 170,000 people are to be forced onboard a single bus that may or may not burst on its way to the Braves game.

Florida Marlins

With Sun Life Stadium finally being destroyed in the coming months, the Miami Sun-Sentinel compiled the top 10 greatest Marlins pitching performances ever to happen in front of no one.

Mike Stanton’s star is on the rise, and he proved it by having his own quirky MLB 2K11 commercial.  The plot of this one is that 2K Sports tricked him into handcuffing a suit case full of a million dollars to his wrist.  If I followed it correctly, it ends with him being forced to cut off his own arm, but instead, he flees into the outfield, where a team of 2K snipers take aim.  I didn’t watch it with the sound on, so maybe somebody with functioning speakers could shine some light on it.