Dillon Gee had, on the surface, a shaky outing for the Buffalo Bisons last night, allowing four earned runs on nine hits — including a homer — over 5 1/3 innings.

But Gee struck out eight and walked one, and that’s kind of Dillon Gee’s thing. He’s got 144 strikeouts and only 34 walks in 145 innings in Triple-A this year. That’s an exceptional ratio. And he’s still only 24.

Problem is he’s got a 4.84 ERA on the season. Part of that probably comes from pitching in front of a defense filled up with Quadruple-A mashers doing right by the city of Buffalo and wrong by their pitching staffs, but part of it is probably because he gets hit pretty hard. Gee has allowed 155 hits and 19 homers in those 145 innings.

I was planning on writing more about Gee, but then I saw that Toby Hyde promised to write something about Gee today, so I’ll leave it at that. I’m interested in seeing what Toby has to say.

My point is this: I’d much rather see what Gee and his stellar peripherals could do at the Major League level for the rest of the season than watch the Mets trot out Pat Misch every fifth day.

Gee’s probably not great, but they can’t all be aces. Maybe after an audition against Major League hitting in front of a Major League defense, the Mets can slot him in as a back of the rotation guy for 2011.

Also, he’d be the single biggest boon to area headline writers since Jae Seo.

OK, that’s not a rhetorical question and it’s not one I’m fully prepared to answer yet. Allow a braindump of sorts — I’m trying to figure it out.

I’m thinking about about Bob Klapisch’s column today and a couple of things I wrote this offseason, most notably this piece that pissed a lot of people off.

Klapisch strongly suggests that Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya will be canned after the season. I thought that should have and would have happened last year, so I’ll believe it when I see it. And obviously a lot of the Mets’ future hinges on whether it does.

The fanbase is angry right now, pitchforks and torches. The Mets are no fun to watch, and for some crazy reason we don’t even get to see the kids play every day. We watch Luis Castillo hobble and Jeff Francoeur hack instead, and we get mad. I’m with you.

But thinking about the future, are you more or less optimistic about 2011 and 2012 than you were last year at this time?

Last year we weren’t sure Jose Reyes would ever be decent or healthy again. He hasn’t had a great year, sure, and now his contract status is up in the air, but he has been pretty damn good since mid-May, once he (presumably) got up to speed.

David Wright, though, has had another weird year. Still a good year, but, like 2009, not as good as his years from 2005 through 2008. That’s an investigation for another post.

Johan Santana has been healthy and effective. It appeared he may have been getting exceptionally lucky — or something — at the beginning of the season, but he now appears to be striking out batters like he used to.

Oh, I could go on and on. You know the rest. The Mets are a year closer to getting out from under some big, bad contracts. Angel Pagan is awesome. Jon Niese looks pretty good. Josh Thole might be a serviceable Major League regular. Ike Davis has been pretty bad stats-wise as far as first basemen go, but he hasn’t entirely embarrassed himself — a decent sign for a 23-year-old rushed through the Minors.

They added the Jason Bay contract, which looks pretty terrible right about now. Bay looks like a pretty safe bet to bounce back a bit next year, but obviously that deal, with the vesting option and everything, looks like something of an albatross after the season Bay put up in Flushing.

And then there are the guys in the system. Fernando Martinez has yet to demonstrate he’s a hitting machine and shouldn’t be in the Majors, though he’s still quite young. Kirk Nieuwenhuis appears to have taken big steps forward, as has Wilmer Flores. But Reese Havens has struggled with injury and the crop of pitchers in High A ball has struggled.

I’m recapping lots of stuff you already know. So what do you think? Do the Mets, as a franchise, appear better or worse prepared to compete in the future than they did a year ago?

Most days I don’t miss writing The Nooner. It was a bear, and we ran out of material. The K-Rod saga makes me miss writing for The Nooner. Here are some jokes. Many of these wouldn’t have made the show. They can’t all be zingers. Some of them are reprinted here from Twitter, in case you’re not on there:

Francisco Rodriguez underwent an operation on his thumb at the Hospital for Special Surgery yesterday. The doctor struggled and almost blew it completely, but eked it out in the end then celebrated like he won the damn Nobel Prize or something.

The Mets announced that they disqualified K-Rod’s contract, presumably because it grounded its club in a sand trap.

The disqualification allows the Mets to avoid paying Rodriguez for the services he will not render for the remainder of the season. Unfortunately they have no legal grounds to disqualify Luis Castillo, Jason Bay, Oliver Perez, Jeff Francoeur, John Maine, Alex Cora or Bobby Bonilla.

The MLB players association said it will contest the move if it can muster up the energy to defend a guy who’s so obviously a jackass.

If the disqualification holds, the Mets will be able to cut K-Rod in Spring Training at the cost of only 30 days’ termination pay, or, alternately, trade him to the Oakland Raiders, where he’ll fit right in.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez faces legal trouble for hitting his girlfriend’s father, Carlos Pena. Experts agree that given Pena’s .213 batting average this year, K-Rod probably should’ve just put one over the plate. But then, he’s never had much control.

Rodriguez has been charged with third-degree assault, second-degree harassment and first-degree neckbeard.

In K-Rod’s absence, Hisanori Takahashi takes over as the guy Jerry Manuel refuses to use in tie games and critical but non-save situations. But hey, that’s baseball!