Return of the Meaty Legend

It’s been nearly a year since His MeatHook-ness began his occasional-batting-title-chasing romp to Comeback Player of the Year honors, doing it in a fashion that brought well-deserved and accurate accolades from DCO. With Dmitri Young now set to return against the Orioles, the stage is set for defense of that Comeback award. And yes, we will call for Dmitri to be the first back-to-back winner of this award if he performs at the same high level. After all, it will be another comeback, right? It’s his award to lose.

Dmitri’s comeback is sure to be as successful as Jason Bergmann’s slightly unexpected return yesterday. After all, didn’t GM Bowden practically tell Bergmann he wasn’t coming back after that >10.00 ERA he posted early this season? Seems Bowden’s faith in Bergmann is as unflappable as Manny’s faith in Luis Ayala (what’s that Manny said? “I’m never going to give up on him.” Some might call it blind, stubborn, ill-conceived management. We call it ‘tism in action, and it is why ChairManny is so lauded in these pages). Both are currently being handsomely rewarded. Bergmann shut down the Mets while his teammates took 6+ innings to warm up and get their batting/baserunning down, and Ayala, for the second game in a row, earned a hold.

Given the constantly right decision-making going on since the seemingly traditional slow start to the season, it’s hard to see Dmitri hitting anything less than .325 from here on out. And even if he struggles, hitting, say .300, there is capable backup and derided-but-now-brilliant offseason pickup Aaron Boone, catalyst of two game-saving double plays yesterday, to pick up the slack.

Thus the Nationals leave New York after a wildly successful four game series. Looking past the loss of a starting first basemen, we saw three wins, one pitcher rattled then demoted, at least two gameday crowds loudly decrying their soon-to-be-described-as-“embattled” manager, and one non-playing closer profanely calling out his absent teammates in the losing locker room:



Consider the Mets knocked down a peg. The same must now be done to these on-the-verge-of-cockiness Orioles. Boz, you’re not helping.