Views from the Promenade

While several players will be changing hands today, the Mets look like they’ll be holding rather than buying or selling at the trade deadline.

Some bigger deals have already been made today, including Orlando Cabrera being moved to the wins, the Tigers picking up Jarrod Washburn, and the Red Sox apparently adding Victor Martinez.

The Mets won’t be getting a game in with tonight’s rain, so they’ll play a day/night doubleheader tomorrow. Considering how well the Mets have performed over the last four days, I can only hope this doesn’t break their momentum.

If the Mets can split tomorrow, they’ll have cut nicely into the deficit they’ll be facing down the stretch as they attempt to claw their way back into the wild card race. If they win both, it’s a whole new ballgame — the Mets will be back in serious contention with 61 games to go. The worst case scenario? Getting swept by the Rockies tomorrow would more or less undo everything the Mets have accomplished over the last four games. But with Niese and Santana scheduled to start, I’m hoping the Mets will take a minimum of one game.

Today was shaping up to be an awful day for the Mets. Omar Minaya embarrassed himself at his afternoon press conference when he turned the firing of Tony Bernazard into a three ring circus starring Daily News beat writer Adam Rubin. Then through five and a half innings against the Rockies, the Mets trailed 3-1 and looked to fall another game behind in the wild card race — if you could even consider them to be a part of the race to begin with.

Then, the Mets put a couple of runs on the board in a sixth inning rally to tie the game. Still, this felt like the type of game the Mets have been losing all year long: a close game in a critical situation against an important opponent.

When the Mets loaded the bases in the 8th, there was a buzz at Citi Field that could be felt even watching the game on television, a buzz we haven’t had in a long time. There was real tension in the air when Fernando Tatis stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in a tie game. The fans were ready to ignite; all they needed was a spark.

When Tatis drove an 0-2 pitch over the left field wall, they got that spark. The Mets went on to win 7-3, and it actually felt like a big win, a feeling I thought we’d all be going without for the rest of the season.

The Mets could lose the next three games, the Minaya/Rubin scuffle could dominate the headlines for the next week, and the team might never sniff the playoff race again. But for at least one night, the Mets gave us just a little hope that the season isn’t over yet — and with all the off the field issues plaguing the Mets right now, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

It looks as though the Tony Bernazard saga is at an end. Omar Minaya is currently giving a press conference discussing the firing of Tony Bernazard. The decision to let go of him was based on an investigation by the Mets’ HR department, which had been underway before the recent stories came to light. None of this is surprising, but it’s good that they let Bernazard go — he was becoming a distraction to the team and taking the focus away from the baseball being played on the field.

There’s a subplot developing in the press conference after Minaya mentioned that they felt the need to further investigate the published reports, in part because Daily News reporter Adam Rubin had previously lobbied for a job in player development. At this point, it seemed as Rubin became the focus of the press conference; Minaya was then asked several questions as to whether this meant he doubted Rubin’s motives, which he denied — but stated again that in the back of his mind, he had to keep Rubin’s interests in mind. Naturally, Rubin did not react well to this, asking Minaya if he was accusing him of attempting to tear down Bernazard, which Minaya again denied.

Even when the Mets have a press conference, there’s drama! Expect to hear a lot more about the Rubin situation in the coming days, because that was a very uncomfortable situation in the press room.

Finally. We’ve been asking to see Jon Niese for weeks now, and when the Mets finally made the call, he delivered with an excellent start. The offense also responded, with David Wright, Jeff Francoeur and Omir Santos all hitting homers as part of a 10-run outburst.

Games like tonight’s just go to show that allowing younger players a chance to play doesn’t necessarily mean putting a bad team on the field. A player like Niese, who had been excelling in Buffalo recently, deserves a chance to play when the team is struggling and he’s likely to be better (or at least, no worse) than the veterans he’s replacing.

Of course, it’s only one start, but regardless of how he pitches, I’m glad Niese is getting the chance to show his stuff on the major league level. No matter how much scouting or statistical analysis you do, there’s no way to be sure a player can perform other than by throwing them into the fire, and this is the perfect time to find out if some future Mets are ready to take the heat.

I feel like a broken record, but the Mets might have hit a new low this week. Not only did they lose two out of three to the Nationals — a team I thought even they could handle — but they did it while scoring only one run in the last two games.

Once again, we have Johan Santana taking the mound for the Mets tomorrow night, and I’m sure they’ll get a good performance out of him. Unfortunately, guessing whether or not the offense will back him up with any run support is a much harder prediction to make.

Maybe we’ve all been spoiled over the last few years, but it’s very hard for me to deal with having over two months of meaningless baseball ahead for the Mets. Of course, it’s not entirely meaningless; we’ll get to see some new faces and give playing time to players who could use time to develop, like Daniel Murphy. But with no realistic hope of a playoff birth, the results, the wins and losses, will mean almost nothing the rest of the way — the first time that’s happened since late 2005. As much as the collapses of the last two seasons have hurt, I’m not sure that this feels much better.

There are two big off-the-field stories today for Mets fans. Starting with the one that’s more relevant to how the Mets play baseball, Omar Minaya says that the Mets will be buyers at the trade deadline if things stay roughly where they are today. It seems a little unrealistic to think that the Mets have a shot at the playoffs right now, but at the very least, I’m glad they won’t be looking to trade away their major league talent. As much as the team has struggled this season, they’ll still be viewed as a contender going into 2010 with a healthy roster.

Today’s bigger emerging story is that of Tony Bernazard, Mets Vice-President for Player Development. Here’s a brief list of the things that have come out about Bernazard in the last few days:

• About 10 days before the All-Star break, Bernazard reportedly took off his shirt and challenged the AA Binghamton Mets to a fight as part of a tirade;
• At a recent home game, he reportedly became angry that a Diamondbacks scout had the seat he wanted behind home plate. According to reports, when a subordinate suggested he wait until the half-inning was over to take his seat, he screamed at the employee, including profanities;
• Francisco Rodriquez confirmed that last week in Atlanta, he and Bernazard had a confrontation on the team bus.

According to a report from the New York Post, at least one anonymous Met (described as a veteran starter) had said that Bernazard is “crazy” and that nobody likes him. But every article I’ve read on the subject seems to think Bernazard’s job is safe; he’s said to be close to Jeff Wilpon, which won’t hurt his chances of sticking around.

Assuming that all these allegations are true, is there any other team that would allow someone like this to continue working in a prominent role in their organization? And yet, since this is the Mets we’re talking about, it hardly seems out of the ordinary. It’s not as though the Mets needed more distractions this year.

Struggling as a team, and need a pick me up? There’s nothing better than seeing the Washington Nationals coming up on your schedule. Even the Mets look good when they’re taking on the hapless Nats. Livan Hernandez came back with a strong start, and despite some shakiness in the eighth inning, the bullpen came through as well.

In other news, there’s a lot of talk going around that the Mets rejected an offer for Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay. The reported offer had the Mets shipping four prospects to Toronto in exchange for Halladay: Fernando Martinez, Jon Niese, Ruben Tejada and Bobby Parnell.

My first reaction was shock: how could the Mets pass up a no-brainer like this one? The more I think about it though, the less certain I am that it’s such a good deal. It’s nowhere near the steal the Mets got when they traded for Johan Santana. Still, it seems like this is the kind of deal Mets fans are begging for, the same kind that the front office so rarely pulls off. Would the Mets be better in the long term if they made this deal? I’m not sure, but I know the fanbase would be energized by seeing Santana and Halladay in the same rotation, throwing gems night after night.

I’m interested in seeing if anything more comes out about this story tomorrow; if it does, maybe it’ll shine some light on why exactly the Mets chose not to make the deal. It’s possible that the deal being reported isn’t exactly what was on the table when Omar Minaya rejected it.