Horrifyingly Believable

"Un-fucking-believable."

Those were the words that escaped from Scott Schoeneweis after Schoeneweis, easily the worst reliever on the team, allowed an extraordinarily believable home run to some guy who might be as annoying as David Eckstein to watch play the game. It was the annoying guy's first career home run, and seventh career home run if you count how many he hit as a minor leaguer.

Pretty f'ing pathetic, but horrifyingly believable.

Schoeneweis has been awful as a Met. I don't know the numbers on him, I don't need to know the numbers on him. He enters a game, you expect him to let up runs, and if he doesn't, chances are he's made things interesting.

I seriously contemplated writing "Schoeneweis fucking sucks" and calling it a day -- end of blog, end of story -- but something about the chorus of boos that rained down as Schoeneweis got me thinking of a post I'd written over the offseason.

"The Five Mets Most Likely to Get the Victor Zambrano Treatment in 2007" (rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?) was written Dec. 13, 2006. In it, I commented on how nice it was that the 2006 Mets were virtually free of unredeemably loathsome players once Kaz Matsui and Jorge Julio were gone, with the one exception being Steve Trachsel, who sucked in spite of his won-loss record, shat on our playoff changes, and slams dudes.

And I speculated as to which 5 players on the Mets were likely to pick up the vaunted Most Hateable Met mantle. The five players I guessed were Jose Valentin, Damion Easley, Shawn Green, Carlos Beltran and Julio Franco. Quick scorecard on these five:

1. Jose Valentin -- I thought we caught lightning in a bottle with him, and while he hasn't been exactly lights out for us, he's been entirely solid, his two errors last night and his injuries notwithstanding.

2. Damion Easley -- Stand by this one, but Easley been solid enough for us.

3. Shawn Green -- All's forgiven, Shawn. If it means anything I always wanted you to do well.

4. Carlos Beltran -- Those boos could still come as 2007 has been more 2005 and less 2006. That said, he's probably safe.

5. Julio Franco -- I got you, fucker!

But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... sure I got Franco, but the other four, not so much, not this year.

The man leading the pack this year is Schoeneweis. To my credit, Schoeneweis hadn't yet signed with the Mets when I wrote that article. If he had been a member of the team I doubt I would have included him anyway, but the possibility exists. After we gave him that 3-year contract I was a little miffed given the stink we made about not signing Chad Bradford for so many years, but I was generally optimistic that Schoeneweis would pan out.

Oh, young A.F.O.M.G. ... it was all so simple then, wasn't it? Little did I suspect the nightmare that lay ahead. The blown leads. The broken ties. The inherited runners scored. The baserunners allowed.

Yessir, it's Schoeneweis who has filled Victor Zambrano's shoes in 2007. Franco's Mendoza-line average is getting, uh, old, and Delgado is having the kind of season that makes you long for Jason Phillips (Gogs!), so they're candidates as well.

But it's Schoeneweis who has thus far joined the ranks of Zambrano, Roger Cedeno (not '99) and Kaz Matsui on the 2007 Mets. At least with Delgado there's a successful 2006 to look back on, and Franco, well, he did get Beltran to take a curtain call once upon a time.

Schoeneweis though? Schoeneweis fucking sucks.

- A.F.O.M.G.

(Images courtesy of mlb.com and anothername.bravepages.com)