Mets General Manager Omar Minaya keeps telling fans the club's fortunes will improve once the 'good guys' return to the line-up. The good guys include such injured regulars as Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez and Carlos Delgado.

In the meantime, a ragtag bunch of minor leaguers impersonating as major leaguers have been playing. And, the word playing doesn't really do it justice. They haven't even been showing up. The team's record has nosedived as a squad once picked to contend for the pennant now finds itself vying with the hapless Washington Nationals for sole possession of the National League East's cellar.

Getting back to Minaya, his logic is flawed because the good guys won't make one iota of difference once they do suit up. Oh, they'll post some respectable offensive numbers and they'll go through the motions on the field, but Minaya has built a squad of individuals, not a team. They choked badly in two successive seasons, losing out to a less talented, but more motivated bunch of Phillies. And, they lack the intestinal fortitude needed to turn around this sorry excuse of a year.

Minaya and his current, rotten crop of Metsies need to be handed a one-way Metro card fare on the number 7 train heading west. It's time to blow up the model and, once again, start from scratch. Anything would be better than watching what purports to be a major league team botch yet another game.