Happy Days!

I guess the Washington Nationals can make any team laugh and smile and goof around for a day. Even the Mets.

After spending an afternoon in the office talking with my infamous co-worker about how the Mets could very well go into Washington and get swept, a conversation which featured him bellowing at me several times, "YEAH, BUT WASHINGTON CAN HIT! THEY CAN HIT, GUY! THE METS CAN'T HIT!" it was the Mets coming out and doing the hitting, at least for two innings, and that two innings' worth was enough to offset the Nationals being the Nationals and losing to a guy who hadn't made it through the 4th inning in either of his last two starts.

That's not to say that the Nationals didn't challenge the Mets. But if there was any team that was more than capable of out-Metsing the Mets, it would have to be the Nationals, wouldn't it. The situation seemed rife for another typical Mets performance. You had the pitcher, J.D. Martin (not to be confused with Jahine Martin of the Dodgers), making his Major League Debut. Usually when a guy makes his Major League debut against the Mets, he ends up throwing 7 innings and allowing anywhere between 0 and 2 runs. But the Mets knocked him around early, and he departed for another guy who made his Major League Debut against the Mets, Former Yankee Great Tyler Clippard, who made the Mets look as good as they did against him in his ML Debut way back when.

But the Mets pitchers managed to do enough. Though it seemed like the Nationals had men on base in just about every inning, and Livan was doing just barely enough to hang on to the lead, the Nats, try as they might, just couldn't get that big hit. I felt the pain of the 372 Nationals fans in attendance last night. Really, I did. We've been watching the Mets play like that for at least 2 months now and it's not an enjoyable kind of baseball.

Nonetheless, it's better when it happens to another team than when it happens to your team. So I'll take the victory, however meager and stupid it may be. Hooray, hooray.