I know it’s hard to root for this team being how they are not even a .500 team so far and we are all still wondering if the effects of the 2007 collapse are with the team. However, there is something that’s been alarming. And no it’s not the Marlins and Royals in first place (yeah I know, wow). It’s the fact that some of you Mets fans decided to actually boo none other than Johan Santana at his last start on Saturday, who is widely considered the best pitcher in the game of baseball today.
Why did Mets fans do this? Well, there could be a few reasons for this.

1) Paranoia Paranoia Paranoia. What do I mean by this? Well let’s go through the high priced free agents or players required via trade who were supposed to save the Mets one way or another. I’ll just name a few because I know you are cringing reading this. Names such as Carlos Baerga, Roberto Alomar, Jeremy Burnitz (the 2nd time around), Bobby Bonilla. Ok I’ll stop. Names like this remind us of how a high priced free agent or traded pickup was supposed to save us, but ended up being a total joke. Granted, none of these guys were pitchers, but several of them were All-Stars at some point and were expected to be the same for the New York Metropolitans.

2) High entitled expectations. Since 1997 when the franchise “turned” the corner so to speak, we have expected the World Series crown. While the 99 teams and 2000 teams made runs, they fell short in the end leaving us for hope in the new century. However, since 2000 we have only made the playoffs once and we all know how that ended. Thus, when a favorite of ours fails, we get hard on them because we expect nothing but the best. Its almost the Yankee fan mentality which is a shame.

3) Perfection. While this leads off from my second point, we expect the big free agent names that are not going to be busts for us (Mike Piazza, Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez etc) to be perfect in every way. I am sure there are some people out there who booed Mike Piazza if he didn’t get the game winning hit every time out. Unfortunately, Johan is still human and we need to realize that even he (“our savior”) will have a few bad games.

So there you have it Mets fans. While some may want to sit there and boo when Johan doesn’t pitch 7 innings give up 2 runs on 5 hits. By no means am I condoning this behavior and in fact I am totally 100% against any type of booing for Johan. Johan shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence as some of our free agent busts, but it was a straight up analogy. Hat tip to Global NYM member Mike Rossi for the writing ideas.

Oh and if some of you were wondering, Brian Bannister is 3-0 for the Kansas City Royals with an ERA under 2. Argh.