Blankety Blank

If I'm not mistaken, this might be the first normal, run of the mill loss the Mets have had in what feels like 3 months.

The Mets, of late, haven't had many games like this; games where nothing they did seemed to break their way, where they ran into a pitcher who simply buzzsawed them, where they couldn't get any rallies going, and where they got a nice, solid effort from their pitchers, and that added up to a nothing game from the Mets.

And I don't know how, exactly, to react. I figured that the Mets would lose at least one game in this series, and as the Mets/Phillies series have gone, the Mets have lost the first game in 5 of the 6 series they've played this season. But usually, these losses have been of the excruciating variety. Usually, it involved a massive clutch failure, a blown lead, and a massive vomit job from more than one pitcher. Tonight, Pelfrey did his job. He got burned on an unearned run in the 1st (and my main man Squeak Scolari Victorino was right in the middle of that), burned again when Greg Dobbs (another guy I just love) poked a HR that was nearly Endy'd by Ryan Church, and with as good as Brett Myers has been, well, that was pretty much that. A rally in the 9th was a longshot, and came up a bit short, Church's drive wasn't going out, and it just only served to turn that knife even more when Squeak corkscrewed himself making the catch.

(I've finally decided on what I think is a suitable nickname for my guy Victorino there. I believe Squeak, after Squeak Scolari from Baseketball, should work, and the alternate nickname "Little Bitch" is also fitting.)

So, then, what's next? I don't know. When the Mets have lost, it's generally been a flameout that you're not quite sure they can recover from. Which is why this kind of lifeless loss makes me fairly nervous. I know that, more than likely, this is just a case of Myers, who has a history of pitching well against the Mets, and who has been unconsciously hot lately, just being on top of his game and dominating. But what if the offense is about to drop into one of their total power outages? Maybe I shouldn't worry so much. I think these losses, any kind of loss, has thrown the Mets fan into a frenzy, and it's been going on all season. It's September, and it's against Philly, so it's magnified. Maybe it'll be OK. Maybe Pedro Martinez will come out today and pop Squeak in the puss for good measure (for a team that complains about the Mets over-the-top Celebrations, this guy really likes to whoop it up himself). Maybe the monsoon that's headed for the New York area will wash the game out entirely, moving it to Sunday afternoon and wrecking the little Pizza Party the Philly fans were fixing to hold. I don't, however, know how the Mets are going to react.

You know it's a big series when you get a Saturday post out of me. But the rain has already started to fall, and today might be washed out before it gets going.