Francisco Rodriguez

I really hate to do this. The story has died, and thankfully so. By now, everyone involved is moving forward, which makes us all better off.

This picture only kind of looks like New York Mess...er...Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez is about to cave in some schmuck's jaw.

Greetings fantasy baseballers, and welcome to another edition of the Wire.

Hopefully you heeded the past weeks’ advice and picked up Pat Burrell, Mike Minor, Daniel Hudson and others, before it was too late. This week is sort of a special edition with a look at a trio of closers—mostly of the present, and mostly with no future. Regardless, they have one thing in common—they will receive the lion’s share of save opportunities for their respective teams.

With the news that New York Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez is done for the year, it’s only logical to look at the candidates to replace him.

I am going to venture to say that the last week has not been the best week in Francisco Rodriguez's life.

First he had the embarrassing incident with his stepfather last week, which resulted in Rodriguez being placed on the restricted list. Now adding insult to injury—or in this case, injury to insult—Rodriguez is done for the year in Flushing.

Oh, how things can change so quickly. The Mets signed Francisco Rodriguez to be their new closer, replacing Billy Wagner, at the start of the 2009 season to a 3-year, $37 million contract.

Fans and members of the media thought the Mets were finally landing a star reliever, after years of frustration at the closer position.

After John Franco, the Mets never really had a legitimate closer. It started with Armando Benitez in 1999, who went on to blow Game 1 of the 2000 Subway Series.

It has been announced that Francisco Rodriguez will need to undergo season-ending surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb.

It can be concluded that the injury came from the altercation that Rodriguez had with his father-in-law earlier in the week.

This is just another story in the sad state of affairs of the New York Mets.

Rodriguez had no business being on the Mets roster at any point this year after the altercation anyway. Now, he will most likely be placed on the DL and another reliever will be brought up.

Francisco Rodriguez's recent altercation at Citi Field with his girlfriend's father may have come as a surprise to many around baseball.

But his downhill spiral has not.

K-Rod's most recent mess-up only sheds light on the fact that he has been disappointing this whole season. But that was just on the field. Now he's decided to blow it off the field as well.

Check out Sammy's video preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9xHB81eJjg&feature=youtube_gdata

NEW YORK—The last time the Philadelphia Phillies came to Citi Field, they left without scoring a run. No, not just the last game they played—the entire series they played back in May.

What Johan Santana did today for the New York Mets was nothing short of amazing, and this is a franchise that knows from amazing.

Much the same way he pitched a gem when the Mets needed a win at the end of the 2008 season, Santana came up huge a day after the Mets saw another eighth-inning lead disappear, only to have their closer, Francisco Rodriguez, arrested for assaulting his father-in-law near the clubhouse after the game.

Do we have a Flushing Zoo on our hands?