Views from the Promenade

• Your team has to delay September call ups, because injuries have left your minor league affiliates shorthanded.
• Your team reportedly eliminates its Fall Instructional League to save $300,000.
• Your team takes three months to decide that its star shortstop may need surgery.

Really, this hasn’t been a great few days months for the Mets. It’s almost irrelevant, but they did look good in beating the Cubs today 4-1; Nelson Figueroa was especially impressive, striking out 10 and allowing just one run in seven innings of work. In other good news, David Wright will be activated on Tuesday in time to play in Colorado.

Still, with stories circulating about the Wilpons possibly needing to sell the team, the future of the franchise is likely to overshadow any wins and losses for the rest of the season. I have no idea what to believe in terms of the Wilpons and their financial situation, but the team definitely looks to be saving money by making cuts where they can — and that can’t be a good sign.

It’s hard to find interesting things to say about the Mets these days. The team has been out of contention for weeks, and every player worth writing about is enjoying a relaxing stay on the disabled list. Actually, that’s one interesting fact about the Mets: according to Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post (via his Twitter feed), the Mets players currently on the disabled list have a higher combined salary than the entire payroll of 17 teams. I joked earlier in the year that the Injured Mets might be able to beat the Healthy Mets in a seven game series; at this point, it’s not even debatable.

The Mets did look good today, even though they played in front of about 1,000 people and the game was meaningless. The offense exploded for 10 runs, and even Tim Redding looked reasonably good for a change. Speaking of starting pitching, tomorrow we get to see Pat Misch try his hand as a starter against a Cubs team that has been just as disappointing as our Mets.

It seems like David Wright is on track to come off the disabled list as scheduled — a rare occurrence when it comes to the Mets. Nonetheless, the team doesn’t appear like they’ll be taking any chances with them, which is the right way to proceed. Wright will have lots of days off until Jerry Manuel is satisfied that he’s completely recovered from his concussion.

There’s still a month to go, Mets fans! Maybe no news really is good news though; it’s certainly better than the kinds of news we had to deal with this summer. If the team can finish the year by quietly playing reasonably good baseball, I’d consider that a successful finish to a horrific year.

Unfortunately, it is. Johan Santana is going to need surgery to remove some bone chips from his left elbow. The surgery means Santana’s season is over, making him yet another Met to go down in this inexplicably cursed season. The Mets say Santana should be ready for Spring Training in 2010 — but who can have any confidence in a injury statement by the team right now? In all seriousness, it does seem likely that this is only a minor surgery, and he won’t miss that much time; he should be able to fully prepare for the next season, assuming there aren’t any major setbacks. In other injury news, Jeff Francoeur is out with a torn ligament in his left thumb, and Gary Sheffield had to be taken out of a game again tonight. Simply incredible.

As expected, Billy Wagner was quickly moved by the Mets. The recipient — after some on again/off again drama with Wagner threatening to invoke his no-trade clause — was the Boston Red Sox, who will be sending two players to be named later back to the Mets.

If the Mets season were to be distilled into a single game, you couldn’t have done much better than this afternoon’s 9-7 loss to the Phillies. It had just a little bit of everything that has frustrated Mets fans for the entire season (and beyond).

The game started with Oliver Perez, but that phase of the game quickly ended. Perez gave up six runs in 2/3 of an inning, before being pulled from the game after running a 3-0 count on Pedro Martinez. At that point, Jerry Manuel removed Perez without letting him finish the at bat. Perez has been the most frustrating player on a frustrating team: he has enormous talent, but has failed to develop any sort of consistency, and now has gotten to the point of being completely ineffective.

Speaking of Pedro, let’s be honest: he didn’t pitch very well today. Still, he was part of beating the Mets, so I’m going to stretch his performance into a representation of the frustration fans feel towards the front office. Omar Minaya has made (or in many cases, not made) moves that have come back to haunt the Mets in recent seasons, and while it’s probably for the best that Pedro ended up elsewhere, he did come back and beat the Mets today: a nice metaphor for all the front office moves gone wrong.

Finally, I think we can all agree that this has been a season of absurdities, from the endless injuries to Luis Castillo’s dropped pop-up against the Yankees. Today’s game brought us possibly the most amazing moment of the season, as the Mets hit into only the 15th unassisted triple play, and only the second ever to end a game. The Mets trailed 9-7 in the 9th, but had runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out with Jeff Francoeur at the plate. Jerry Manuel sent the runners, and Francoeur hit a shot back up the middle that was snared by Eric Bruntlett for the out. Bruntlett then stepped on 2nd to retire Luis Castillo, and tagged a stunned Daniel Murphy to end the game. Even in a season of unbelievably bad breaks, this one was a truly shocking ending to behold.

So there you have it: absurd events, disappointing performances and frustration with the front office. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 New York Mets!

Billy Wagner is finally ready to return to the majors, nearly a year after his Tommy John surgery to repair the MCL in his left elbow. Wagner will likely still be an effective lefty out of the bullpen — either for the Mets, or for a contender interested in trading for him. It’s not clear how much the Mets would be able to get for Wagner, but he shouldn’t have any problem passing waivers.

To make room for Wagner, Livan Hernandez was released. After a solid start to the season, Hernandez has been mostly ineffective, and the only thing keeping him in the rotation was the lack of other options available to the team. It’s not clear who will step into his spot now, but Tim Redding and Nelson Figueroa are both possibilities.

Ryan Church and Jerry Manuel have engaged in a war of words over the concussions Church suffered last season. For the most part, it seems to be much ado about nothing; Manuel said that David Wright (who is, of course, recovering from a concussion of his own) is a “different animal” than Church, and when the local media asked Church for a comment, he said he felt as though the Mets were taking a shot at him. I think we all know that the Mets handled Church’s concussion issue badly last season, and they’ve probably learned something from that experience that will have them treating Wright differently. No matter how much you might think Church didn’t get along with the Mets administration, it’s not as though they wanted his head injuries to linger.

Tonight’s game gave us one of the more memorable (positive) moments of the season. The Mets scored eight runs in the 4th inning, the first time they’ve had an outburst like that since last August against the Nationals. The ten hits in the inning is a new Mets record. Amazingly, this was done with a Mets lineup that often struggles to score eight runs in a series, especially with all four of their star position players on the disabled list.

I haven’t had a chance to write over the weekend, so this is my first chance to comment on the very scary fastball to the head David Wright took last night. Wright is now on the disabled list as a precaution.

I think this injury has a different feeling to it, even on a team as unhealthy and unlucky as this one. Carlos Delgado is old in baseball terms, and Carlos Beltran is in the second half of his career, so their injuries weren’t shocking. Jose Reyes has had leg problems before, so while we never expected him to be out for an extended period, I think we all knew a recurrence of those problems was possible.

On the other hand, David Wright has never had a notable injury in his major league career. He had been the one constant for the Mets over the last few years, taking the field nearly every day since 2005. Seeing a lineup without Wright in it day after day is going to look very strange, and (barring days when Johan Santana is pitching) removes all of the remaining star power that might entice the casual fan to watch a game here and there.

Of course, the nature of the injury only adds to the effect it has had. Head injuries are the scariest problem an athlete can face on the field; we all know that numerous football players have had lifelong issues with post-concussion syndrome, and Mets fans don’t have to look any further back than last season to remember the consequences that come with bringing back a player too quickly from a concussion. While all signs point to Wright being okay (though if you can’t trust the Mets’ medical staff at this point, who could blame you?), the Mets must wait until there is no doubt that he’s ready to play before even thinking about putting him on the field again. Anything else would be asking for trouble.

While Matt Cain’s behavior has been the subject of a lot of talk, I can’t bring myself to care too much. It’s agreed on all sides that Cain didn’t intend to hit Wright, which is the most important issue. The cap tipping was dumb, strange, and possibly tasteless depending on how he intended it, but all of that would be many times worse if there was even a little doubt about whether or not Cain was headhunting.

Hopefully, this will just become another footnote in one of the most injured-plagued seasons any of us should ever see. Just like with Reyes and Beltran, I don’t think most Mets fans even care when Wright comes back on the field; the important thing is that he’s absolutely ready to play when he does return, so the Mets aren’t risking further injury by playing him in meaningless games this year.

With everything going wrong for the Mets this year, it’s a pleasant surprise when something happens that can give us a little hope for the future. One of those moments happened tonight, with Bobby Parnell throwing an excellent six innings of shutout work, striking out seven and walking none while giving up just three hits.

As I’ve said before, giving Parnell the chance to start was a (rare) great idea from the Mets. There’s no downside to giving him a look, and while his first start was forgettable, his second was impressive, and he’ll have plenty of chances to show his stuff over the next month and a half.

In other Mets news, it looks like we can expect Billy Wagner to return to the team in the next few days — most likely on Sunday. While Wagner would have been a nice addition to the bullpen down the stretch were the Mets in contention, it’s now more likely he’ll be showcased for a potential deal, as Wagner would almost certainly be able to clear waivers.