Hey, it's Father's Day, so I can have what I want. (Happy Birthday to all you Fathers out there, by the way.) My perverse wish? A 12-game losing streak. It's got to be one game longer than the winning streak, for emphasis. Because as long as the Mets are playing peek-a-boo with the Nats for first place and treading water a little above .500 they're going to stand pat, not just at the trade deadline, but in the offseason, too. ("Hey, we'll be adding Wheeler and Wright, that's like trading for two All-Stars!") A 12-game losing streak now will put an end to that foolishness at least in the eyes of the beat writers, Terry and Sandy and Jeffy's true constituency. Because to stay on this path just portends more pain in the future. You can't assemble this kind of a pitching staff and this kind of offense and defense. It's just ridiculous. But there's no impact player coming, no Hernandez or Carter or Piazza unless it's made so perfectly obvious that 'The Plan', such as it is, isn't going to work. What will work? Well, to begin with, you have to identify your problem. This team is playing defense that a bunch of eighth graders would be ashamed of. I've seen more brain farts this year than Rick Perry on a bad day. And this is not only because you have the wrong players playing positions, although that's a big part of it. Why does Grandy play right and Cuddyer left? Why do you play Ruben Tejada at third and Flores at short? You can have 5 Tom Seavers on the pitching staff but it won't matter if your defense can't catch the ball or turn double plays. Steven Matz is more than ready to come up, but why should he? He'd just lose 2-0 on two unearned runs. This doesn't even get to the offense. Nobody on this team can hit consistently. No one. There's a manager who's also prone to brain farts, who plays his favorites, overworks what little bullpen he has and generally just needs to go. There's a front office who lies when you can even figure out what they're saying. I'm guessing d'Arnaud will be out for more than a few days and David Wright won't be back by the All-Star break, just to name two things. I could go on. I think Wilmer Flores needs to be traded to a team that will put him at second base and let him play, for instance. And they need to get some real professional hitters and defenders, not the Cuddyers and Grandersons of the world. That'll require a commitment on the part of ownership that you and I both know is completely lacking. So they need to be embarrassed. They've got a 4-game head start. Let's see 8 more ion a row. Yeah, I'm just venting, but I'm tired of half-assed baseball. Rant over, please put your seat backs and tray tables in their upright and locked position in preparation for landing.