The Mets have acquired reliever Luis Ayala from the Washington Nationals in exchange for minor league middle infielder Anderson Hernandez.

Hernandez, best known during his cup of coffee in the majors for being Jose Reyes’s best buddy, was hitting just .188 this season in Triple-A New Orleans, and Argenis Reyes had clearly blown past him on the depth chart (not to mention as Jose’s new best buddy).

In Ayala, the Mets add a veteran arm to a bullpen in crisis. Ayala is having a nightmarish season of his own, pitching to a 5.77 ERA in Washington. However prior to 2008, the right hander had a career ERA of 3.19 and the Mets will hope a change of scenery can be the cure for what ails him.

With the news that closer Billy Wagner will not be ready to come off the disabled list when he’s eligible on Monday, and another gem last night by the bullpen crew, which somehow saw the tying run come to the …

Regardless of what you think of notorious radio personalities Mike Francesa and Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, this is a sad day for New York sports fans and fans of talk radio in general. Like it or not, Mike and Chris were the best in the biz for 18 years, and now, just two weeks shy of its 19th anniversary, their enormously popular and influential “Mike and the Mad Dog” show is at its end.

Newsday’s Neil Best reported earlier this summer that a personal feud between the co-hosts might spell the end of their partnership, however the news became official this evening when WFAN announced that Russo would be leaving the company with Francesa receiving a contract extension and serving as sole host of the show.

According to Best, Russo is expected to move to Sirius Satellite Radio.

Meanwhile, the YES Network’s simulcast of the show tomorrow becomes must-see-TV for yours truly. I wonder, will they waste any time in dumping the …

Saw something in the Yankee game yesterday that I hadn’t seen in a long time: Both middle infielders attempting to cover the bag on a routine stolen base. Now I know Wilson Betemit doesn’t play a whole lot of shortstop, but even so, he should know the signs by now, shouldn’t he? My friend Dino tells me that Richie Sexson missed a sign the other day as well. Hey, it happens. But it’s happening too much lately for Joe Girardi’s Yankees.

Underline that last part, because these aren’t your big brother’s Yankees. These aren’t Joe Torre’s Yankees. These are Hank Steinbrenner’s Yankees, and in case you missed it, he’s already laid out a comfy mattress in case his new manager gets knocked to the canvas. We’ll get ‘em next year, tiger.

Torre, meanwhile, is laughing all the way to the postseason.

By the way, one could argue that the Marlins are having a better season in ‘08 with an …

Have I got a joke for you. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Frequently beleaguered New York sports franchise finds itself riding high for the first time in several years thanks to a superlative 2006 season, only to fall flat on its face in spectacular fashion the following year. Franchise suddenly finds itself in damage control mode, faced with an unexpectedly and extraordinarily pissed off fan base that no longer seems to be buying into the sham that ownership is shoveling. What’s worse, the franchise finds itself in enormous debt following the construction of their new billion dollar home, and the only way to recover that capital is by hitting said disgruntled fan base over their collective heads with staggering ticket prices.

But wait for the punch line.

The franchise needs a face. Not the face of a manager under fire, or a boy genius whose rose has lost its bloom. Not the face of a spoiled superstar who doesn’t hustle, or a worn …

The Green Bay Packers have finally cut the umbilical with legendary quarterback Brett Favre, and it seems the New York Jets are the beneficiaries.  Gang Green has acquired Favre for what is believed to be a fourth-round draft pick that will increase in value depending on the the number of snaps that Favre takes behind center.  If Favre gets 80 percent of the team’s total snaps in 2008 and the Jets appear in the Super Bowl, the selection becomes a first-round pick, according to the NFL Network.

Say goodbye to Chad Pennington, whose eight year career with the Jets has come to end with Favre’s arrival.

Said Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum: ”I have all the respect in the world for Chad as a person, as a player. We’ve accomplished a lot of good things with Chad. … He gave his heart and soul to this organization for a long, long time. I really appreciate everything he’s done.”

It’s unclear if Pennington will be traded or released.

So D-Day is …

Shocking news.  Despite persistent reports that a deal was exceedingly unlikely, the Boston Red Sox have at long last traded idiot savant slugger Manny Ramirez. Manny is headed to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-way deal that will land Pittsburgh’s Jason Bay in Boston, with the Dodgers’ Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris and Boston’s Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss headed to the Pirates.

While it doesn’t seem the Mets were ever seriously in pursuit of Ramirez (despite the urgings of this blogger), you can officially cross he and Bay off the list of available corner outfielders now.  In fact, it appears that Mets GM Omar Minaya was unable to find reinforcements of any kind on deadline day.  Disappointing to say the least.

The Yankees, meanwhile, have catapulted from pretenders to contenders in just over a week’s time.  My head is spinning.

The Yanks are a bit pudgier than they were a day ago, addressing their hole behind the dish by acquiring Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for erratic reliever Kyle Farnsworth.  It will be Kyle’s second tour of duty with the Tigers, for whom he pitched in 2005.  Presumably, this means Brandon Inge will be seeing a ton of time at catcher for the revamped Tigers.

While the Yankees are thrilled with the job that Jose Molina has done behind the plate this season in the absence of Jorge Posada, Molina is not accustomed to playing every day, thus the need to add another catcher.  

The addition of Rodriguez is another steal for the Yanks, who acquired Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte for toenail clippings a few days ago, and today add a starting catcher in exchange for a guy many would consider addition by subtraction.

Pudge is batting .295 this season with five home runs and 32 RBIs in …

All is not well in Red Sox Nation. After missing the final game of the team’s series in Seattle with a “sore knee,” Boston’s enigmatic cleanup hitter Manny Ramirez opted to miss Friday night’s pivotal game (is there any other kind?) against the rival Yankees as well, raising questions as to whether Ramirez is actually injured, or looking to stick it to Sox management for the latest feud involving Manny Being Manny.

But is this really Manny Being Manny, or is this something more? While Manny has publicly stated his desire to remain in Boston - for a change - he has also incited a near-brawl in the dugout with teammate Kevin Youkilis, got in a physical altercation with the team’s 60-year-old traveling secretary, been accused of intentionally striking out against the Yanks’ Mariano Rivera in the teams’ last faceoff, and personally offended the team’s ownership with comments at the All-Star …

Only a few hours after a published report in the Daily News indicated that the Mets had targeted Casey Blake, Raul Ibanez, and Jason Bay in their search for a corner outfield bat, you can scratch one of those names off the list. The Los Angeles Dodgers have acqired Blake from the Cleveland Indians in exchange for two prospects, catcher Carlos Santana and RHP Jon Meloan.

Blake, a free agent at the end of the year, started off slowly this season, but has rebounded nicely, compiling a .289 average with 11 HR and 58 RBI.

Of all the players on the market, Blake was the one that this blogger most coveted. Sure, an Xavier Nady reunion would have been nice, and it will sting to see the X-Man in pinstripes, but one had to figure that the Pirates would be asking for an arm and a leg for either of Nady or Bay, leaving Blake and Ibanez as two competent and affordable …

According to Yankees blogging guru and Journal News beat writer Peter Abraham, Jorge Posada is not in the starting lineup tonight, and could be done for the season.

Word is that Posada is headed to the DL as he continues to struggle with a torn lambrum in his throwing shoulder. Anyone who’s watched a Yankees game this season knows that teams are running on Posada in epic, Mike Piazza-like quantities. Posada has already missed time once this season in order to rehab the injury, and it sounds like the 36-year-old veteran hopes to take that route again with an eye on returning as a DH/ first baseman and backup catcher. He will meet with Dr. David Altcheck tomorrow to determine if further rehab is even an option, or whether the shoulder requires season-ending surgery. If surgery is required, Posada would be putting the 2009 season in jeopardy were he to delay the procedure until the offseason.

You hear that noise?  It’s Brian …

According to multiple reports, the Yankees have reached a “tentative agreement” (whatever that means) with slugger Richie Sexson, whose acquisition Rob Abruzzese was pleading for just last week.

The righty Sexson brings along a .344 average with five homers in 61 at-bats against left-handed pitching this season. The Yanks, who have been overloaded with lefties since trading away Gary Sheffield a year and a half ago, were in desperate need of a righty stick. The need to add another bat was exacerbated this week with the news that Hideki Matsui could be headed for knee surgery.

Defensively, Sexson is an upgrade over Jason Giambi at first base and could start there against lefties, possibly as soon as tonight when the Yankees take on A’s starter Greg Smith.

It’s a low risk move for the Yankees, who will be paying the slugger roughly $160,000 for his services and can easily release him if he disappoints in pinstripes. The question now becomes, are …

Surprising? Not exactly. After all, it was over a year ago that we wrote in this space that Alex Rodriguez and wife Cynthia seemed on a collision course with splitsville in the wake of A-Rod’s well-publicized philandering. Who woulda thunk that Madonna, of all people, would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But wait, there’s more. This is where Lenny Kravitz comes into the mix.

Kravitz is letting Cyn-Rod stay at his Paris home, though in a statement released by the formerly-popular rocker, there is nothing to the rumor of an affair between the pair, and Lenny is simply lending a helping hand to a friend in need. You can’t make this stuff up.

As a brief aside, I learned today that Madonna and A-Rod share a mutual agent. Why is that not remotely surprising?

Via the Daily News:

Kravitz said references to him as an adulterer …

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