Look who's 3-0 and look who's 0-3

Squawker Lisa, there's still plenty of room if you want to climb aboard the Met bandwagon. See what a closer looks like when he's 3-for-3 in saves. See a veteran pitcher coming back from a serious injury pitch five shutout innings on Opening Day instead of jumping on a trampoline. See a young starter who shows up in camp in shape, isn't nervous about pitching in New York, and instead of going on the DL, takes a no-hitter into the seventh.

I'm going to enjoy the Mets' success as much as I can now because it isn't likely to last. Maybe it's not a coincidence that they swept the Braves, who are coming off a historic collapse. The Red Sox are also 0-3 and there are lots of theories that it could be a hangover (no clubhouse pun intended) from last year, so it could be the same thing with the Braves.

One of the best pieces of news for the Mets might have been that Jon Niese's no-hit bid was broken up in the seventh inning. Terry Collins said emphatically after the game that he would have have pulled Niese after 115 pitches, no-hitter or not.

But the Mets are desperate for good publicity. They've been accused of pushing players to play through injuries. If Niese had been pulled, the Mets' great start would have been drowned in boos. Instead of celebrating Niese's strong performance and new contract, the fans would come away feeling cheated.

Last year, the Mets found a way to spoil what should have been a franchise triumph - the team's first batting title - when Jose Reyes abruptly came out of his last game in the first inning. I didn't have a problem with Reyes making an early exit, but the whole situation could have been handled better.

Imagine if Niese had thrown 130 pitches and the Braves broke up the no-hitter in the eighth or ninth. Now it's the clueless Mets risking the health of a pitcher they just signed to a five-year deal.
 
So things are actually looking pretty good for the Mets at the moment.

At least until Mike Pelfrey pitches tonight.

Imagine if Mets had Yankee-style injuries

A pitcher pitches an inning with a broken elbow. Another pitcher suffers a gruesome injury jumping on a trampoline. A third pitcher, traded for the team's top prospect, goes on the DL. Sounds like the Mets. But it's the Yankees.

The Mets have a well-deserved reputation for screwing up medical matters, but the Yankees have had their own woes lately.  The difference is that nobody is saying "Same old Yankees." Not yet, anyway.

On  Saturday, Cesar Cabral, who was on track to win a job in the Yankees bullpen, pitched an inning with a broken elbow. Now he's on the 60-day DL.

In 2009, Jon Niese appeared to injure his hamstring making a play at first. The crack Met medical team decided to let him try a practice pitch. I still cringe at the sight of Niese crumpling to the ground, now with a completely torn hamstring. 

If Cabral had been a Met, we probably would have had photoshopped pictures of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail on the mound in a Met uniform while Met trainers agree with him that the loss of his arms and legs is "just a flesh wound."

After missing most of last season, former Met phenom Ike Davis has seen his comeback complicated by something called Valley Fever. The general reaction? Only the Mets could have a player come down with a disease most people have never heard of.

After missing most of last season, former Yankee phenom Joba Chamberlain has seen his comeback complicated by an injury caused by jumping on a trampoline. The general reaction? What a good dad!

When the Mets traded top prospect Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, they were accused of negligence in failing to realize that Zambrano had a damaged arm.

When the Yankees traded top prospect Jesus Montero for Michael Pineda, manager Joe Girardi described it as "great news" when an MRI showed only shoulder tendinitis.

When reporters noted that Phil Hughes was also diagnosed with shoulder tendinitis last year, and he missed three months and finished the season with a 5.79 ERA, here was Girardi's response:

"They both got tendinitis, but I wouldn't necessarily say they're similar [injuries]," Girardi said. "There's a lot of parts to that shoulder."

Girardi's rationalizing about Pineda's injury reminds me of how some people said that Johan Santana would make it back faster than Chien-Ming Wang and others who had the same injury because all injuries are different.

Of course, all injuries are different. Pineda might miss much less time than Hughes.

Or he might miss more time.

It's way too early to judge the Pineda-Montero trade. And unlike the Kazmir debacle, this trade looked like a good deal for the New York team, or at least a fair deal, depending on how upset one was to see Montero go.
 
But it's fair to say that the trade could look better as of now. And it's fair to say that Mets are no longer alone when it comes to medical misadventures.

The Mets Are Not Like a Box of Chocolates

Sandy Alderson joked Wednesday that he should have sent Jose Reyes a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump's mother compared life to a box of chocolates because you never knew what you were going to get. But with the Mets, we now know what we're going to get. And it's not good.

Earlier today, the David Wright trade speculation was interrupted by a rumor that the Mets were shopping Ike Davis. Are Met faces of the franchise turning into Spinal Tap drummers?

Now Jon Heyman is tweeting that Jon Niese is on the block. If Niese goes, he could set a record for shortest tenure as one of the players pictured at the start of SNY telecasts. (Then again, considering that Jason Bay has also joined the opening montage, maybe SNY should just open their Mets programming with pictures of Shake Shack.)

Last week, ESPN's Keith Law ranked the top 50 players age 25 or under. No Mets made the list. But one Met was mentioned among those who just missed being in the list - Niese.

Supposedly, the Mets are getting younger and building for the future with a focus on pitching. One would think that they would want to hold on to a well-regarded homegrown young lefthander who has already shown that he can pitch in New York.

This is not to say that Niese should be untouchable. But if it turns out that the Mets are trading him for even younger players just to avoid having to go to arbitration with him in a year means the Mets are turning into the Oakland A's, who are desperately trying to trade young pitchers like Gio Gonzalez because they can't afford to keep anybody. Not what we thought we were getting with Moneyball East.

Meanwhile, Matthew Cerrone talked to an agent who speculated that the Marlins would trade Reyes to the Yankees once Derek Jeter's contract is up. And the Post's Kevin Kernan speculated that David Wright could eventually replace Alex Rodriguez at third for the Yankees.

I remember when Met and Yankee fans debated over which team had the best left side of the infield. It would be intolerable to see both Reyes and Wright reunited in the Bronx.

Sure, it's a worst-case scenario, but who would have thought that Darryl and Doc would win more rings with the Yankees than with the Mets?

Despite it all, I'll continue to root for the Mets. But I'm beginning to wonder if that's because, to use another quote from Forrest Gump's mother, stupid is as stupid does.

Mets Disrespect Jon Niese by Batting Him Ninth

Turmoil rocked the Mets clubhouse today when manager Terry Collins gave Jon Niese no advance warning before posting a lineup that had the pitcher batting dead last.

Niese was blindsided after being one of only two Mets to have an extra-base hit in Monday night's loss to the Marlins (Niese hit a pinch-hit triple in the eleventh inning).

Niese allegedly confronted Collins in the manager's office and demanded to know why he was batting behind the likes of Jason Pridie and Ruben Tejada. According to some reports, Niese told Collins he "needed a day."

Other reports claim that Niese was going to tell Collins that he needed to sit out the game because he had some sort of injury, but he couldn't think of an injury that someone on the Mets hadn't already had this season.

Face of the franchise David Wright reportedly angered Mets management by refusing to criticize Niese. Wright claimed that plenty of players have "needed a day" here and there. When it was pointed out to Wright that he was resisting going on the DL even after finding out that he had a stress fracture in his back, Wright reportedly said something along the lines of, "yeah, but nobody ever tried to bat me ninth."

Fortunately, Tuesday night's game was rained out before the situation could escalate. Now the Mets have some time to figure out how to handle Niese, who is one of the last links to the Mets' glory years (Niese first came up in 2008, the last year the Mets had a winning record).

Football mentality needed to watch Mets

At some point during a football game, a player on your team is likely to get hurt. Maybe he will limp off the field on his own. Maybe he will have to be helped off by fellow players and the medical staff. Maybe he will need the cart.

If it looks serious, fans will first be hushed, then cheer their fallen player as he is carted off. In many cities, they will cheer a fallen opponent as well (in Philadelphia, not so much).

We are used to this in football. Even a player being immobilized on the cart is not as shocking as it once was, especially since, thankfully, the player is often able to give a thumbs up as he leaves the field.

But I am not able to get used to injuries in every baseball game.

Maybe it is just bad luck. Maybe it really is some sort of curse. But whatever it is, the Mets have to step back and take an objective look at training methods and handling of injuries.

After Jon Niese got hurt, he was able to stay on his feet and attempt a warmup pitch. And then he collapsed to the ground in agony with a complete hamstring tear.

I am not a doctor or a trainer and have no idea how the warmup pitch affected the initial injury. But the Mets have a bad tendency to minimize injuries. They delay putting players on the DL in hopes that they can come back quickly.

On another team, letting an injured player throw a warmup pitch would seem like the natural thing to do. And it probably was.

But it would be nice to be confident that the Mets' medical staff was making the best decisions for the players, and the way things have gone this year, it is hard to have that confidence.