Dirty Carrots and Dirty Diapers

I tried really hard to stay positive at last night's game. At the outset, I heard El Guapo say something to me about Dirty Carrots. At least, I thought he was talking about Dirty Carrots. Turns out, he was talking about Jody Gerut, who somehow has come back after years of injury and inconsistency and found a spot in the Padres outfield. Apparently I've just gone deaf.

Gerut then stepped into the batters box and promptly whacked the first pitch of the game over the fence.

"Stupid Dirty Carrots," was all I could say in response.

Even after Gerut's blast, I stayed positive. Even after Brian Giles teed off and hit the ball halfway up the scoreboard, I said the Mets were still in it.

They were never really in it. Even when they were in it, and the game was tied, they weren't really in it.

The game, for the most part, was one of those forgettable, sleepy midweek affairs that seem to make up a large chunk of the games I attend. Those weekday nights where nothing exceptional happens during the game, and the Mets usually put forth an uninspired effort and lose the game.

If there was but one positive, and there would only be one positive out of a game like this, it would be Daniel Murphy, who seemed to be the only guy playing with some kind of urgency, pinging a triple down the first base line in the 1st, laying down a nifty bunt and nearly beating it out in the 3rd, driving home the tying run in the 5th, and coming up with a couple of nice defensive plays in left. Is there anything this guy can't do?

Well, yes.

He can't will his team to victory. Despite outhitting the lowly Padres 9-6 (and 9-4 after the first 3 batters of the game), the Mets could do very little to make those hits count. Wright fell asleep on the bases in the 5th, bungled a grounder that could have ended the inning in the 7th, Delgado and Beltran have stopped hitting, and that all added up to a mostly forgettable 4-2 loss that was punctuated by, of all things, El Guapo and I being subjected to a woman changing her baby's dirty diaper in plain sight, 2 rows in front of us in the 9th inning. That pretty much served as the perfect capper to a perfect stinker of a ballgame.