Last night's game between the New York Yankees and New York Mets, the so-called Subway Series*, left both sides' fans intense. The Yankees fans were obviously joyous, while the Mets faithful were crushed.

While it is difficult to fathom how a Met fan (or player for that matter) can be crushed by another tough loss when your team has lost division titles in the final week (2007 and 2008) and lost games by missing bases (Church), dropping outfield flies (Beltran), and general base running gaffes (practically the entire team), the loss last night on Luis Castillo's dropped pop up with two outs in the 9th inning has to be the ultimate heatbreaker.

Despite the dropped infield fly ball, there were many reasons for the Mets to feel disheartened. Their original fifth starter this season, Livan Hernandez is now their 3rd starter, someone they are relying on now to win important games, and not just to "give them innings." He is a so- .500 type pitcher, looking good one start and terrible the next.

Also, while David Wright had a good game and appears to be hitting well again, and despite the seven spot on the board, the balance of the lineup is putrid. They only managed seven hits, and if not for the three dozen walks the Yankees pitchers gave them, the Mets don't even score two runs - and the game is a blowout.  

While most of the blame will be centered on Castillo, it is patently unfair as baseball is never a game decided on one play, much of the blame has to go to Omar Minaya. How can the Mets, a team from New York in a shiny new ballpark, not have decent backup players to fill in when others get hurt?

Minaya had set his sights in the off season on winning right now, trying to forget about the two September disaster in 2007 and 2008. He worked in the off season to go with a top heavy, power lineup, a good starting five and strong bullpen. What Minaya did not think about was adequate replacements if any of the top players went down with injuries.

Their is nobody to replace Delgado, nobody to replace Reyes and nobody to replace the $36 million bust named Oliver Perez.

Blame Castillo all you want for last night's loss, but this season's potential loss is on Omar Minaya.



(how i dislike that term, how many of them can you have?)