How did everyone screw up the Mets drama with Jorge Lopez this week?

Right. Wrong. Moral. Amoral. Sensitive. Cruel. Uninformed. Hasty. Naïve. Stubborn. All of these words can apply to this week’s drama with Jorge Lopez. The new ex-member of the New York Mets has defended himself since the glove throwing incident on Wednesday night and doubled-down on calling his team the worst in baseball.

The Mets quickly designated him for assignment after the game, citing it had as much to do with the glove throwing, cursing, and lack of remorse as it did for what he may or may not have meant to say.

But this is a much deeper topic. Included is now publicly known fact that his personal life may have had a major factor as he awaits a transplant for his son.

To save his reputation, Lopez went to Instagram to do some further damage control.

The Jorge Lopez situation feels more like a sitcom plot line based around a misunderstanding

So was Lopez really meaning to say what he did? It doesn’t take away from the plethora of other reasons why the Mets had to get rid of him.

Lopez choosing to not speak through an interpreter is a non-issue here as his comments could’ve been clarified behind closed doors even as a last resort. The Mets seemed more embarrassed by his behavior than anything. The alleged lying isn’t a good look either.

Does this all boil down to a simple misunderstanding of words even after a double check? It was out of character for a professional athlete to suddenly speak so foul about his organization. Lopez isn’t exactly the star on an NBA team or the NFL MVP on a .500 team who can talk his way off a team and into a better situation. Those theories don’t hold much water.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. And it doesn’t have anything to do with a language barrier. Somewhere along the lines, the Mets got an itchy trigger finger and rather than sleep on it and maybe talk more in the morning, they made a bad situation worse.

But perhaps that wasn’t their goal here at all. Clearly on a mission to make an example out of Lopez to show how unacceptable his behavior is, acting hastily shows they really do have a certain set of standards. Without knowing those exact standards, we’re left to wonder where it applies to a player like Lopez and not a higher-paid one. As many have pointed out, does Jeff McNeil get penalized for every bat and helmet throw?

Somehow, everyone involved in the drama seemed to make it worse. Lopez let his frustration show publicly and said some things he shouldn’t have. The Mets had a knee jerk reaction to a point where they couldn’t even back away from getting rid of him—maybe because Lopez didn’t apologize until it had already happened.

This might give us a little more insight into what’s going wrong with the Mets. There was a downed line in this instance. Could there be others?