The Toronto Blue Jays are jumping on the latest trend, and fired manager John Gibbons. MLB.com is reporting that former manager Cito Gaston has been named as his replacement. The Jays are currently in last place in the AL East, 10.5 back from the Red Sox.

Hotfoot tidbit: Gibbons was selected by the Mets in the 1980 draft, catching 18 games over the 84 and 86 seasons with the team. His final game in the majors was with the 86 World Series team, he finished with 11 hits and 2 RBIs.

And Gary Carter misses his chance once again.

I could easily just continue the theme from below, on how the late night/early morning firings made little to no sense, pointing to many of the same reasons mentioned by Gal below, and that will be mentioned by others here and at other pro Willie sites.

Instead I’d like to question transaction #2. Putting Jerry Manuel in charge. Now I supported Willie as manager, but whether you did or did not, replacing him with bench coach Jerry Manuel makes no sense. They have pretty much the same style, which since they’ll be working with the same players, seems like it would result in the same results. Hey, you want to say the team is underperforming and its time to shake things up with a new manager, then at least make sure that new manager is someone who might actually do something new. At least in the short run we know it’ll be someone from within house, but we have the AAA man Ken Oberkfell coming up, promote him. Or HoJo. Or Tim Tuefell. All who at the very least would bring about a different style. A different style manager with the same players could in theory produce different results, but Jerry Manuel will not. It’ll just be a continuation of Willie-ball, but now with out the one thing keeping Ollie from being completely useless (the Jacket).

Unless a move is made, soon, to put a manager with a truely different style in charge, I see no way Randolph’s firing will produce any better results than that of Rick Down. If anything, all it does is move the pressure seat to Omar’s office, and increases the chance we’ll see a Met fire sale in July.

Since the Mets aren’t the only team with rumors and speculation following them around:

ESPN reports the Mariners have fired their GM, Bill Bavasi, with VP Lee Pelekoudas taking over. Seattle currently has the worst record in baseball. Bavasi was stuck with an aging team and a depleted farm system, which he was unable to turn around.

Hmm…aging roster, depleted farm system, looks like Omar has a pen pal.

The Rangers released Sidney Ponson, who was DFA’d back on the 6th. According to the AP, Ponson was cut for his poor attitude. He was 4-1 with a 3.88 ERA in 9 starts, much better than his performance last year with the Twins. Ponson had been signed to a minor league contract by Texas.

The Phillies beat the Cardinals in a game that could best be described as interesting, by a score of 20-2. The game including three solo homeruns in the first, nine runs in the fourth, and ejections a plenty. La Russo and Russ Springer were both ejected after umps felt Springer intentionally hit Ryan Howard. To top it all off, Cards infielder Aaron Miles pitched a hitless ninth inning, giving him the teams best pitching line of the night.

I’m interested in hearing more about this Aaron Miles. Will the Cards take Castillo and a reliever for him?

In Braveland, Chipper Jones was hit below the eye during batting practice yesterday, but test results show no fracture.  Reports say Chipper claimed to be ready to play last nights the Angels, but the team sat him. Chipper is currently hitting .414 for the season.

Its good to see some teams understand the importance of forcing a player with a head injury to sit. Best of luck to Chipper though, the Braves may be our Rivals but to see a player in todays game hit over .400 for the season would be quite the accomplishment.

Ollie Perez went out there and won one for good ole Trot Nixon I suppose. Ollie struck out eight, and went a full seven innings, giving up the sole run and just three hits. Show and Dirty each pitched scoreless, hitless innings, with Dirty walking one. Its safe to say Willie will get at least one night of good sleep, which I assume he’ll spend spooning with Mr Perez. Ollie did kind of err…hit a batter. But hey, its Ollie. Come one. He didn’t balk anyone, unlike certain Rangers starters. I’m just saying.

The offense followed my advice, getting more than a four run lead, primarily off a four run sixth inning, when the team jumped on Feldman, grabbing four straight hits off him. Beltran and Delgado executed the rare Met double steal, and Reyes snagged his 24th of the season. A Delgado double and an Endy Chavez ground rule double were the sole extra base hits, however the team had nine hits in total, including a two out RBI by Beltran .

The Met starters were once again solid, but this time the bullpen held up, and the team was able to finally beat up on another team’s pitching. Consistently too, instead of just scoring a quick few early (which they did) and then petering out (which they didn’t). Now lets make it two in a row.

The interleague matchup that the MLB has been wishing for since the late 90s, Texas Rangers vs the the Mets. Oliver Perez takes the mound for NY, 4-4 5.37. He’ll face Feldman , 1-2 4.31

Keys to the game:

• Ollie goes long. Ollie’s last four starts all were less than six innings, the worst of which was a third of an inning, and even his best game he went just over five (he allowed just one run). Ollie needs one of those rare seven inning games, I know we already had one of those this season, but do it Ollie, do it.
• Runs. The Rangers bullpen is right up there with the Mets bullpen. Being that one of the best closers in the game can’t go an inning without letting in two runs, maybe we need to aim for a larger than four run lead.
• A new bullpen. Chances are between now and gametime thats not happening, so we’ll have to settle for the current bullpen getting outs. For novelties sake gentlemen.
• More catchers. I was raised in a household that firmly believed you can never carry too many catchers on your roster. I’d say five minimum. Hopefully some roster moves can be made.

Game time is 7:10, as always catch it on SNY and WFAN. Or drop by the Hot Foot Bleachers , where we will calmly and rationally be discussing ways in which the Mets could turn it around.

After a quick start, the Mets lost a lead and ended up beaten senseless by the DBacks offense. The Mets scored all five runs over the first two innings, including a double by Wright and a two RBI single from Alou on the first pitch he saw. However, the team is once again back to its previous struggles, unable to put anything together after the first few innings.

The Dbacks went the other way, with their scoring coming in the second half of the game, mostly after the non Trax related rain delay. Maine gave up three over five, and then the Backs tied it up against Vargas. Joe Smith gave up his first homerun of the season,and three more runs including another homer got taken off of Dirty. Luckily for him, all the fans had gone home.

This one’s on everyone. While the bullpen clearly came apart last night, the offense has to take some too. Scoring can’t be limited to just the first inning or two. Its great and all that they’ve now gone two games in a row scoring more than one run, but now lets work on scoring runs after the third inning.

They can call it playing it safe all they want, Alou coming out early means he wasn’t ready to come back just yet. Sure, Alou for a half game is better than Fernando Tatis for a full game, but is it worth it if he gets hurt sooner because he didn’t heal all the way? Is Alou ever going to even heal all the way?

If anyone has a Nunez jersey on order, you might want to look into cancelling, he was DFA’ed sometime after the Tornado strike.

Steve "The Human Rain Delay" Traschel could have slowed down major league baseball for the last time. The Baltimore Orioles have DFA’d him, following what could be described as a poor start to the season.

For the year, Trax is 2-5 with a ERA of 8.39, spread over 10 games. Trax got rocked hard and knocked out early frequently, including 9 earned runs in less than two innings against the Rays, and a six run, three inning game against the Angels.

In six years with the Mets, Trax went 66-59, with a 4.09 ERA. Trax often benefited from a large amount of run support, and is best known for his slow delivery. That being said, he ate innings, going over 200 twice in his six years with the team.

New fifth starter anyone?

Moises Alou and Marlon Anderson have both been activated from the DL, Ramon Casanova has been sent back down to clear room, and so that people finally stop asking Omar why he has three catchers on his roster.

While Alou, when healthy, does bring both an excellent veteran presence as well as a good bat to the Mets, I think over the struggles of the last week the fans and media are putting a little too much faith in Alou’s abilities as a cure for what ails the Mets. Sure, maybe he can kick some butts behind closed doors to knock some of these players back into shape, but lets face it, his stay and him as a solution are both temporarily. Chances are a month and a half from now he’ll slide wrong and go right back out. At least we can enjoy some Alou while we can.