On Wednesday afternoon for The Daily Stache, I wrote a preview for the Mets vs. National game, but what I want to write about now is the beginning in which I wrote about why the awful bullpen situation has not gotten any better (and might not for another week or two).

Last night was ugly for the New York Mets and now everyone is going nuts about the bullpen. Of course, the bullpen is dreadful, but there’s not much that can be done about it right now. Bringing up Jenrry Mejia (who has been really bad in Buffalo) or Manny Acosta (who has been good in triple-A but not as good in the majors this season) would likely amount to “rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.”

As for outside help, with so many teams still in contention (and thus, so few sellers), the price is going to be driven up on even minor acquisitions. With still two weeks to go until the trade deadline, the sellers are going to hold off on simply giving assets away just in case a buyer gets desperate at the deadline and decides to give up something besides financial relief. There’s little incentive for sellers to give up their assets just yet, and because of that, the Mets front office probably won’t get any help to the bullpen until the deadline draws closer.

Basically, I’m sick of fans being sick of the bullpen. At MetsBlog (linked above), Matt Cerrone takes Sandy Alderon to task for not making insignificant changes to the bullpen. With baseball being as random as it is, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to calling up lousy players to take the place of other lousy players. Besides, it wasn’t that long ago that Josh Edgin entered the fray to allow Terry Collins more flexibility in his use of left-handed relief.

That flexibility allowed the Mets to get their LOOGY Byrdak up against left-handed amazing person Bryce Harper. Byrdak lost that battle and Bobby Parnell lost his own battle the inning before, but the point is that the Mets were able to get the right people in place to get the job done. Last night was just a lack of execution by guys that most Mets fans would count as pluses.

On his blog, Cerrone talks about how he “had a difficult time sleeping” last night, which is kind of funny to me now. The Penn State scandal has taken me to such a level of fan distress that little Mets collapses like this now seem insignificant by comparison. Just another loss in a season that is bound to have a handful of tough losses.

Even the Septembers of 2007 and 2008 don’t seem that bad compared to the last six or so months that have consisted of me having to listen to my alma mater’s name be dragged through the mud while worrying about Penn State even having a football season in 2012.

Not only that, but the release of the Freeh report has prompted every sportswriter and his mother to chime in on how long Penn State’s “death penalty” should be. I’m still waiting for someone to propose that the NCAA should take “death penalty” literally, but what’s really irritating is that no one seems to care if such serious sanctions would make the victims feel better. THAT’S WHAT THIS IS REALLY ABOUT, AM I RIGHT?

I just want someone to ask one of the victims if punishing Penn State football would make him or her feel better. A response in the affirmative might make me back off my stance that the NCAA has no jurisdiction over a scandal that is already covered by so many criminal and civil offenses. Until then, I’ll continue thinking that any NCAA punishments handed to Penn State football as a response to the scandal are petty and redundant.

Anyway, the good part about all of this is that I can get to sleep when the Mets do something stupid. It’s not like I did anything to affect the situation, so I shouldn’t fee that bad about what happened.

Wait, I didn’t do anything to bring on the Penn State scandal either? It’s strange how easy that’s been to forget lately.