Yet soon after midnight, OFFICIAL tweets — if such things exist — confirmed that Lee had indeed signed a 5-year, $115 million deal with the Phillies, with an easy vesting option for a 6th year. The Yankees had offered a bigger 6-year deal. The Rangers had offered an even bigger 6-year deal with an option for a 7th year. Yet Cliff Lee picked the Phillies. Why in God’s name would you choose to play in front of the animals in Philadelphia? When he starts losing it by his 4th or 5th year of the contract, they’re going to be booing his ass off the mound.

Apparently, that contract has a higher AAV than the Yankee offer. Maybe that’s it. Maybe he wants to beat the Yankees and he sees the Phillies as his best shot. Maybe he really likes Roy Halladay. The obvious parallel is LeBron James signing with the Miami Heat, considering the contract totals less than two other offers, but it’s not at all the same. There wasn’t an entire city with an attachment to Lee, considering he’s been on four teams in the past two seasons, and Halladay is the better pitcher. But this deal does create a seemingly unstoppable team, and I don’t see them struggling out of the gate like the Heat.

A rotation of four aces doesn’t have to share the ball like two and a half basketball stars. Halladay, Lee, Hamels, and Oswalt will take the balls on their respective days and dominate the NL to the tune of a combined 3.25 ERA. The NL East is wrapped up for the next two years, possibly three. Sandy Alderson needs to work his magic to set up the Mets to win in three years, not now. Sigh. This is awful.

But it’s almost worth it when I listen to Yankees fans on WFAN who want them to buy every single  free agent on the market crying. Maybe they shouldn’t have spit on Lee’s wife.

Ruben Amaro, Jr.:

Tonight, Pedro Martinez threw 8 scoreless innings on 130 pitches. Did he ever throw 130 pitches on the Mets? (Baseball-Reference says he only threw 120 pitches once, in 2005) I can’t believe this shit. I definitely thought he was asking too much at the beginning of the season, but at this point, it looks like he may be worth that $5 million he was asking over only 1/4 of the season. His 2.87 ERA is now better than Johan Santana’s. I want to die.

At least the Mets didn’t get swept, I guess. And David Wright actually had a two-homer game yesterday. I wasn’t sure if that would happen ever again. Josh Thole also went 4-4 in the first game of the doubleheader today. Those are about the only positive things I can think of right now. Oh, and Carlos Beltran is still able to stand after playing a bunch of games. That’s cool.

Fuck this season.

22 innings without a run. Three entire games without an extra-base hit. Holy fucking shit, you have to be kidding me. David Wright couldn’t hit me right now, and forget the rest of the team. Luis Castillo. Daniel Murphy. Nick Evans. Omir Santos. I already had a meltdown, but I feel like at the end of this week the Mets will be 7.5 games back and I’ll be due for another. If Reyes and Beltran don’t come back immediately after the All-Star Break, it’s only going to get worse and worse. It’s almost to the point where the Mets should SELL, not buy. The season is lost, why bother trying to get an Aubrey Huff? Who are we going to trade anyhow? The Mets farm system is a joke.

Trade Sheffield to someone who wants a DH rental. Trade Livan Hernandez while his value is still above zero. I’m not even sure if it’s still above zero. Fuck, just trade Sheffield. Sure, giving up on this year is wasting yet another year of the core’s prime, but what’s another year? The only reason the Mets still appear to be in it is due to the NL East being a black hole. No way they beat the Dodgers or Giants in a short series. Beltran is here for two more years. Wright and Reyes are locked up and still young. Santana is only 30. That’s the core. Delgado was never the core. Fuck him. He can sit on his broken hip for the rest of the season for all I care.

Not that I’m averse to trading Reyes. He’s always been the one I could part with. It all depends on the offer. I think the Mets would need young, major-league-ready talent in return. They need to concentrate on winning in 2010 and 2011, so they can’t just take a whole bunch of unproven prospects in return. Either that, or trade him for Halladay, and maybe even Alex Rios too. You’re going to charge ticket prices almost as high as the Yankees — spend like them. At this point, I’m shocked that anyone is still going to the games. I’m done, unless my buddy who has tickets in the very last row of Citi Field has an extra ticket to a Santana-pitched game.

The Nationals are the only team keeping the Mets from last place. Wow.

I’m pretty sure the AL should’ve won the game about 11 different times, but they managed to play down to the level of the NL — which was pretty fucking bad. Dan Uggla looked like a Little Leaguer in the field. I’m dead serious here: I watched my 10-year-old cousin play baseball last week and the second basemen on his team was more reliable in the field. And the kid was like 4 feet tall. I’m not even trying to be funny here, I swear. Oh, and Uggla completely sucked at the plate too. In his most important at-bat of the night, he got totally clowned by 3 pitches in a row, the last one being a disgusting knee-buckling curve.

But Uggla doesn’t deserve all the blame, as the rest of the NL East decided to totally suck as well. Any team that has both Billy Wagner and Brad Lidge on their team is doomed to fail, especially when they have to be used in the same game. Wagner blew the All-Star Game for the NL AGAIN, even though he only had to get one out. He came in with 2 outs and bases empty in the 8th, knowing he wouldn’t even have to pitch in the 9th, and managed to give up a run. He is beyond worthless. And then no one scored again until Brad Lidge came in 7 innings later. What a surprise.

WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED…WE ARE

CAPTAIN BLOWN-GAME

(I’m sorry)

I really don’t have much else to say on the matter. Nate McClouth managed to make an amazing throw in the 11th to prolong the game, but Corey Hart wasn’t able to repeat the performance in the 15th. Probably since he shouldn’t have been an All-Star in the first place. Pat Burrell > him, and that’s not easy for a Mets fan to say.

I realize I didn’t even mention anything about the AL, but I wanted to focus on the suck.

Oh, and Bud Selig probably shit his pants on three different occasions tonight.

Skip ahead 24 hours, and Delgado is swinging at ball four again, the rest of the offense doesn’t score nearly as much as it should against the Marlins, and Pedro is out for however long the fuck knows. There’s no way that’s grammatically correct. Maybe it was a good thing Pedro got hurt, since he was getting demolished by the MARLINS. He heard a pop, which means he probably won’t be back for a while. Unless that was all an April Fools’ joke. I haven’t watched or listened to any sports today, so maybe they announced it on Mike and Mad Dog today.

. . .

goddamn it.

At least my fantasy team is doing well, even if Pedro did suck it up.