What happened? Steve Trachsel has been a Met longer than anyone else on the team. By my count, he has given us three very good seasons (2002, 2003, 2004) and two acceptable but inconsistent ones (2001, 2006). He has earned, through his longevity, an honored if not terribly distinguished place among the decent 4th starters in Mets history (McAndrew, Stone, Lynch, etc.). He was about to go down in our history as one of these guys, not as a latter day Doug Sisk (who was actually a decent pitcher for the Mets for awhile and then just lost it and could not get it back).
As we were going into this series we were looking towards him as one of our last starters left standing, as a guy who could keep us in a game long enough to let the lineup do its work. Everybody was saying “we hope he can do it for us.” Many of us, including me, were unimpressed by the season he just had (with the run support he had, the 20-game losers of the Mets early years would have been 20-game winners), but nobody thought of him as gutless or as a jerk.
Now, it appears, he is headed for oblivion. The press and the fans and maybe the Mets management have court-martialed him and stripped him of his medals. I have never seen a baseball player lose so much respect in a single inning. A single inning after he has been with a team for 5 and a quarter seasons. Can he possibly deserve it? Frankly, I don’t trust Mets fans when they turn against a guy who has done a lot for them and I don’t trust the New York press either. I still want to know what that “family matter” was. I have never seen anything like that. There aren’t even any leaks or rumors. Could Steve have had a legitimate reason for thinking that he had to leave that game? Is it right to make fun of his contusion? Is there something wrong with him?
I am absolutely mystified. I don’t feel I know the story. So I don’t know whether or not to be angry. I am horrified at the way this is playing out. Never have the Mets needed a solid starting pitcher more. For five seasons, we had this slow, methodical, decent guy pitching for us. And now he falls off the end of the cliff and I don’t know if he ran off or if he was pushed or what.
Good-bye Steve, I guess. I saw you pitch some good games and I always liked you and defended you. But now it seems you’re just a shade cleaning out your locker, not saying good-bye, and not giving us a chance to say good-bye. Do you want redemption? Or is this just the way it is going to be?
