It’s a shame that such a heroic effort from Johan Santana and altogether excellent seasons from Reyes, Wright, Beltran and Delgado have gone to waste, and I won’t happily endure my team becoming a national joke again, but the Mets, you gotta believe, pretty much got what they deserved again this year.

Yeah the bullpen was awful but we knew that. What was hardest for me to take was the poor execution from the offense — never more obvious than in the 9th inning of what today was confirmed to be my final trip to Shea Stadium (those NLDS tickets I printed up yesterday join my 1988 World Series tickets in the ultility drawer) on Wednesday. It was a leadoff triple for god sakes.

Considerably more subtle but just as telling a moment occurred in the bottom of the 6th inning on Friday night. This was long before Mets were out of it: They’d just scored to cut the deficit to 3-1 and the tying runs were on third and first. The situation called for a pinch hitter to extend the rally with two outs and who emerges from the dugout?

Marlon Anderson.

As Randy Myers once asked of Gregg Jefferies: Are we even trying? Omar sure wasn’t when he re-signed this guy — for two years — based on a decent 60-some times at bat following a well-earned unconditional release by the Dodgers last summer. Anderson produced one hit — an infield dribbler that didn’t reach the pitcher’s mound — since his return from the disabled list and was making outs at 75% clip all year long. This was our Danny Heep? Our Matt Franco or Shawon Dunston? The first guy we called on when the correct play was to go slam one off the wall?

Anderson, we needen’t be reminded, struck out swinging, ending the rally and beginning a parade of ineffective relievers who, just like Anderson, were retained foolishly, performed ineffectively, and nevertheless remained in heavy rotation while the trade deadline came and went. Of course they lost it. Of course the weight of so many poor players was eventually too much to bear.

Omar did get rid of an ineffective manager, but whether he waited too long to do that is a fair question too. Why is not surprising that the first move of the offseason will reportedly be to retain him for too long?

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Now onto important matters: Ever alert reader Gordon over the weekend pointed out some guy wearing uniform No. 64, and on Sunday “as they were leaving the bench to make tee times” he got the above capture (see a larger photo here). Who is that guy? Any ideas? Thanks!