Screw the Future! The Mets' Time is Now

88 wins. One short. All we needed was one win against a team that was 21 games under .500. Tom Glavine. 300 game-winner. One of the most talented and prolific left-handers in the history of Baseball. Sure, Willie Randolph and Mets fans across the globe collectively thought, he's 41. But he's the only Mets' pitcher in nearly 30 years to start 30 or more games in 4 consecutive years. Ergo, everyone had faith. It could never happen to us, could it? The most pathetic and drastic collapse in baseball and potentially all sports history by our team? Preposterous! So the 41 year old southpaw takes the hill. And we smile. We're ready to tell Phillies fans to shut it after we beat them in a playoff. But the baseball gods had other plans. We all know the story. Tom Glavine has the worst outing of his career, and history is made, as our formerly proud orange and blue are now the laughing stock of  the sports world. So what was the problem? Can we truly blame Glavine, who had the weight of the entire Mets' season on his shoulders? What if any other starter stepped up and won in the week before the final one, wouldn't that have eliminated the desperation of that fateful game? Well, no matter the answer, we now know that Omar and the Mets' front office needs to get us some starting pitching. We acknowledge that Jose Reyes' bat took a hiatus, and the rest of the Met hitters followed suit, but I find it hard to believe that our best player can be the cause of the fiasco that was the month of September. 

So here we are, on Christmas Day, still without a cure to the disease of our biblical-aged pitching staff. We lost Tom Glavine, which lowers are average age, but now we're simply left without a pitcher, as opposed to a younger one. It is going to cost us, whether it is Fernando Martinez, Carlos Gomez, Mike Pelfrey or Phillip Humber. But let us imagine the benefits of completely disregarding the team three years down the line. No matter if its Erik Bedard or Dan Haren or even Johan, these men are young (which is an extremely relative term in the case of the Mets).  Sure, its possible any one of them could have a terrible game down the stretch, but these all-stars would have contributed enough additional quality starts that one game would not have cost us everything. Plain and simple, we know our window for a shot at a championship is running out. Moises Alou  Carlos Delgado really showed their age in 2007,and  even Billy Wagner is balding. Other prospects will come to the Mets. Don't simply treat us to the services of Matt Wise and Ryan Church. Get us a starting pitcher, and do it now! We cannot finish one win shy again this coming year. The loss cannot come at the hands of a cellar dweller team  It may cost us later, but we can get to the series, and we can win it all. Let's do it!