J.J. Putz Rides A Pale Horse

I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale; the sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the generals and the rich and the strong, and every one, slave and free, hid in the caves and –-

--No, no, wait, sorry. That's about Armageddon. I was looking for information on the Yanks-Mariners series, but you can see how I might have gotten the two confused.

Okay, so it's not quite the end of days yet. The Yankees are better than this (surely out of A-Rod, Matsui, Giambi, Cano, and Abreu, at least one or two of them will start hitting well again, right?), and they have three-quarters of the season left to play, and a comeback is plenty possible. But their margin for error is getting slimmer every day.

Out in Queens today, the Mets trounced the Brewers, winning the series, and the most enjoyable part of it was their outfield: Carlos Beltran, Endy Chavez, and the newly-called up 21-year-old speedster Carlos Gomez. Defensively, this may actually be the best outfield I've ever seen: they caught everything. It was a thing of beauty. Oliver Perez pitched very well, but he would definitely have given up more than one hit in the first eight innings if Moises Alou and Shawn Green had been in left and right. Also, Jose Reyes finally caved to the peer pressure -- turns out he was just waiting to finish filming a Reggaeton video -- and shaved his head. He actually looks pretty good, and now Aaron Sele is the lone holdout (Poor Mike Pelfrey lost his hair just days before getting sent back to AAA). I can't believe they somehow got 24 of 25 adult men to do this, and am simultaneously very impressed and a little alarmed.

Meanwhile, the much-hyped Brewers looked legitimately very good this weekend -- though maybe not quite as amazing as their record would indicate -- and it's nice to see such a long-suffering franchise turning things around. See, get Bud Selig away from a team, and watch it thrive!

But man... if the Yanks don't snap out of their funk this week, the upcoming Subway Series is going to be pretty damn lopsided, to say nothing of the Red Sox games that immediately follow. No time for love, Doctor Jones.