Jason Bay: Prophet Without Honor

The Mets have lost five in a row, ten of thirteen. Those are trends we haven’t seen since the atrociousness of April. There was no sign the Mets would snap out of it then, but they did. There’s no sign the Mets will snap out of it now, and, given that no return date is set for Jose Reyes, they might not. But while I’m still gullible enough to believe the Mets aren’t, at heart, a 5-13 or 3-10 outfit, the players doing the losing should use this opportunity to lie to me, if only to get me through the black hole that is inevitably the San Diego series.

It doesn’t have to be a full-out prevarication in the realm of “we’re still in this thing” or “we’re not out of this thing yet.” Just a little something along the lines of “we go out there every day thinking we’re going to win and we try our best.” Say it with enough conviction — and back it up with an occasional win — and I’ll watch Petco After Dark much less forebodingly.

You want a player quote to rile you up? Never mind Pelf’s “unrealistic” comment. Try what Jason Bay said prior to the Diamondbacks series:

“This is a dangerous road trip. Given where we’re at in the season, it could be a defining moment.”

The beauty part, according to Andrew Keh of the Times, is this doomsaying occurred to Bay as the three-game sweep was just getting underway, before Arizona had won any of the three games they were about to win. It’s like Jason visualized the result and made it so.

Now only if he could will baseballs off his bat and over fences more often than a week here and a week there.

It’s not what the Mets say that’s killing them. It’s the myriad things they don’t do. I could catalogue them beyond “win,” but Jason Bay’s rah-rah “yup, we’re sure in trouble now” pep talk already has me rooting against the sunrise. It’s darkest before the dawn, you know — especially when Jason Bay is “standing in the outfield” realizing “the Mets could very well be experiencing the beginning of the end.”

That’s Keh’s paraphrasing, by the way, and it’s the most damning Met passage I’ve read in the Times in a while, recent inane peripheral taunts included. I’m not surprised Bay said it, though. He’s keen on admitting when things aren’t going well, or when he assumes they’re not going to get much better, like when he was asked about a long fly ball he hit that appeared headed for or perhaps over Citi Field’s unforgiving left field wall yet landed short of both. His response:

“You get used to it.”

Per Thomas McKean in 1776, surely we have managed to promote the gloomiest man on this continent to the middle of our lineup. Those quotes are the most deprrrressing accumulation of disaster, doom and despair in the entire annals of Metropolitan history.

To be clear, McKean was talking about General Washington’s letters from the front to the Continental Congress, but the conclusion the Delaware Scotsman reached regarding Washington matches mine where our British Columbian is concerned — Jason Bay would depress a hyena.

This may seem like random Baygoating, except during Sunday’s loss, Gary Cohen and Ron Darling were speculating on who from the current roster are shoo-ins to be here in 2012. Gary came up with only three names (to which Ron agreed in that way Ron has of agreeing with everything): David Wright, Jon Niese and the $66 Million Man, whose presence for next year seems guaranteed not by his recent hot streak having lifted his season’s slash lines to a rousing .248/.330/.363 but by his contract delivering unto him another 32 extra-large.

Good luck pawning what’s left of that deal off on the Brewers or Giants.

For the scratch involved, I’m well past demanding offensive value in kind. I’m just asking Bay pretend to seem upbeat about the next 42 games. Try, “This is a dangerous road trip FOR THE TEAMS WE’RE PLAYING. Given where we’re at in the season, this could be a defining moment OF VICTORY!”

Lie to me, Jason Bay. What’s the harm? You’re already accepting superstar sums of money under false pretenses.