I probably shouldn’t publish this, because it could very well end with me getting scolded about how all of our meetings are very important and I should be paying attention to learn all the crucial intricacies of our business for better leveraging low-hanging fruit in the marketplace of the…

See, now I’m boring myself. And meetings scheduled in the middle of a pretty busy day, when the Mets are playing — even if it’s an otherwise meaningless Spring Training game — are terribly frustrating.

I had one of those and I don’t have a DVR at my desk, so I missed a good hour in the middle of the game today. Cerrone’s got a DVR at his desk and wasn’t at the office, so I guess I could have used his. But his TV isn’t as nice as the one at my desk, and I really couldn’t bring myself to watch an hour of already-played meaningless baseball on a pitiful little screen.

So I missed Jack Egbert’s entire uninspiring appearance in the Mets’ 8-4 loss to the Astros. ‘Tis a pity.

I did see all of Johan Santana’s effort. I’m sure someone somewhere will make too much of the fact that he was hit hard, since Santana allowed six hits and four runs and couldn’t get out of the second inning, but it’s Spring Training, and Santana said he felt good after his first game action coming off arm surgery, and that’s all that matters.

If you’re tempted to think Spring Training stats should count for a whole lot, consider this: Astros first baseman Geoff Blum went 4-for-4 in the affair and is now hitting .538 for the Spring. And Geoff Blum has a .697 career OPS. Everyone’s at a different spot in his preseason conditioning, the competition is all over the map, players are tinkering with certain aspects of their games, and sample sizes are tiny. The output — the actual numbers produced in Spring Training games — mean nothing.

Calling the games entirely pointless, though, is likely a bit overblown. Since the managers and GMs and organizational scouts are, in theory, watching these games to assess the talents of the players on the field and will likely partly base roster decisions off those assessments, we can try to do the same. The problem is, without reliable stats to guide us, and without any actual training in scouting, our eyes have a tendency to see what we already believe to be true.

For instance: It certainly looks to me like neither Alex Cora nor Luis Castillo really has the range to be a Major League middle infielder at this point. And man is that frustrating, knowing what I know about how Mike Pelfrey has been hammered in the press for his supposed psychological issues.

The Astros rolled out some Double-A guy named Wladimir Sutil at shortstop who made a great diving play moving to his left to start a double play. Cora dove in vain for one that wasn’t even hit too hard.

That’s a miniscule sample. I’m just sayin’s all. It’s just frustrating. If you’re going to have backup infielders who can’t really hit, it’d be nice if they could defend.

OK, moving on: Clint Everts’ breaking ball moves a lot. So that’s cool.

Jason Pridie made a nice running catch in right field in the ninth, then turned and nailed the cutoff man, who clearly doubled off Kody Clemens at first base. Clemens was ruled safe, probably because his pops was in the house and the ump feared the Rocket’s rep. But the ump should have made the right call, since that story was a big misunderstanding and Roger probably wasn’t fired up for this Spring Training game.

Ike Davis hit a home run to straightaway center, and the legend grows. He also struck out thrice. That part will get glossed over by legend.

David Wright pulled a homer. Josh Thole hit a couple of warning track doubles.

Mike Jacobs walked twice, and has now walked five times in 13 Grapefruit League plate appearances.

Finally, Astros reliever Samuel Gervacio cracks me up. He does this weird thing before he starts his delivery — it looks like he’s showing the ball to the opposing team’s third base coach, like he’s about to perform a magic trick and is assuring the crowd that it’s a regular baseball he’s about to make disappear.

Then he abruptly turns to the batter as if completely startled by the fact that there’s someone standing there waiting for him to pitch, interrupting the magic show he’s performing for the third-base coach and the fans along the left-field line.

He’s pretty good; he struck out 11.2 batters per nine innings in the Minors and I imagine he’ll end up a closer eventually, so you’ll probably see a lot more of his strange performance. But it’s still novel now, so I’ll enjoy it until some team better than the Astros scoops him up and he’s using it to dominate the Mets in the future.