FanHouse

Every kid's been told by his parents, probably more than once, that life isn't fair. Nelson Figueroa would probably agree with that sentiment. He worked his tail off after a 2004 stint with the Pirates, traveled anywhere they'd let him pitch and made it back to the big leagues with the Mets this season. He made a couple of decent starts but quickly dropped below the standards of a major league starter culminating with last night's poor performance against Washington.

He blamed that poor performance on the "softball girl" behavior of the Nats in the dugout but his last few starts make that hard to accept. Figueroa's happy story had taken a bad turn and got worse today when the Mets designated him for assignment today to make room for Claudio Vargas.

If he reads an account of his reaction to the Nats razzing of him from the dugout, he mocked their lowly position in the standings by saying "they are who they are," it must be particularly painful. The Nationals may be bad but they're major leaguers, something Figueroa isn't anymore. Also painful is that the razzing was led by Elijah Dukes.

Dukes has talent that Figueroa can only dream about, but he's done everything in his power to squander it without making an impact on anything but police blotters. That talent, though, gives him chance after chance while Figueroa has to go to Taiwan and back for a few weeks in the bigs. Like I said, life isn't fair.