$100 arm, 10-cent head

Ollie Perez is experiencing knee pain, which is why the Mets placed him on the disabled list. Yep. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn that I can give you cheap. I’ll even through in a certain left-handed pitcher.

I know I’m late to the party on this — he was DL’d Saturday — but I had to comment. I used to like Ollie, though he had a world of talent that, if it could be harnessed, would result in him being an elite pitcher. Now, I am convinced that his skills are eroding even as his head remains a problem.

We’ve had three-plus years of this nonsense, of Perez throwing a good game or two — maybe even a gem — and then imploding so spectacularly that you have to question whether he has a secret twin. Enough. The Mets need someone who can go out there consistently, pitch into the seventh and keep them in games. They do not need a guy who will strike out the side in the first and then walk the stadium in the second.

What’s especially maddening here is that Perez apparently does not see that it is in his best interests to go down to AAA, as the Mets have proposed. For whatever reason — pride, I suspect — he’d rather eat up a roster spot and pretend that he can find himself while being kept out of games. Just dumb, dumb, dumb.

If the Mets did not owe him so much money, he would have been dumped by now.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

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