NL East Infection: Monday is for Staying Indoors and Drinking

Florida Marlins

The perpetually third place Marlins entered the game’s final inning losing by three runs to one of the worst teams in baseball.  Two straight doubles bought them hope.  A Gaby Sanchez, clearly flustered from his recent life change, ground out cost them some of it.  And with two outs in the sixth, they were about to be robbed.  In stepped one man.

Greg Dobbs:  Professional Hero.

He’s the kind of guy whose only in there because the starting shortstop got butchered by a takeout slide.  But when he’s in there, he reminds you why you scribbled his name on the roster in the first place.  Sometimes.

Greg made sweet love to the score and left the inning having satisfied some Fish.  Which makes it all the more terrifying that we are just a series away from seeing the man who used to hop off our bench and change or possibly ruin everything.

Atlanta Braves

The weather’s getting worse in Georgia.  What’s that?  Ha, ha, no; not just because we went in there, got everybody’s hopes up about a series sweep and then turned them into hamburger meat and made them eat themselves.  Actually what it means is that we’re leaving the south and we’re taking the sun with us.

That’s right, today was the last day of sunshine and happiness in Atlanta, with a 70% chance of rain rolling into town as tomorrow crawls across the horizon.  What does that mean for Atlantans?  Well, it means that garnishing the fecal taste of a series loss could be the newly crowned official tequila of the Atlanta Braves, and if the weather is going to be as horrendous as everyone’s saying, then staying in and pounding Familia Camarena Tequila shots may be the best way to spend Monday.

Or any Monday.  But if the weather and losing aren’t enough reasons to do so, maybe they could consider that Freddie Freeman is off to one of those awful, slow starts that no one ever recovers from with almost 100% of the season still left to play.

New York Mets

Any Mets fans putting a lot of their eggs into Ronny Cedeno’s basket are sure to find themselves sobbing face down at their desks come tomorrow, as he is about to go on a 15-day vacation to sadness.

As we NL East folks have been tangled up and beating on each other in the past week, the Mets are the recipient of most of the punches, first losing two out of three to us, and then doing the same to the Nationals. Already sick of this crap, the Mets look to fix their “sucking” problem with some invisible roster adjustments involving ineffectual players.  One of them was to DFA Blaine Boyer just because his ERA  was the same as a popular N64 game.  And the guy they’re bringing in is Jason Isringhausen to try and have an ERA better than 10.80.

"After allowing six runs on six hits in four innings on Sunday afternoon, the Mets bullpen has now surrendered a total of 21 runs on 45 hits in just 34 1/3 innings this season.–ESPN New York"

So clearly, the bar is very high.

Washington Nationals

Obviously, we’re about to pile into Nationals Park for a three game series and I assume you’ve heard about this Jayson Werth character whose hot, hot bat and epic defensive skills spoiled us for years, only to leave us with a gaping hole in right field at the start of the 2011 season.  Fortunately, we Phillies fans didn’t feel scorned or bitter and will, as usual, enter this contest with the relaxed mindset of a fanbase with no feelings to shout or garbage to throw at people.

And don’t worry, everyone.  Bryce Harper is okay.