The Ballclub was fully represented tonight, as George and I were at the game. Things certainly started out well enough. Chris Young got off to a flying start, striking out the side in the 1st inning and allowing the Colorados very little from there. Through 5, he hadn't allowed the Colorados a sniff of anything, retiring each of the first 15 men to the plate. But, Chris Young is Chris Young, and even though the Colorados are boasting a B-team lineup, nobody in the ballpark was fooled. Chris Young wasn't throwing a perfect game. Chris Young wasn't even going to throw a no hitter. In fact, with the way the Mets offense has been lighting things up, this 1-0 lead was dicey, at best.
Sometime around the 5th inning was, basically, the highlight of the night. I received a surprise visit from my Mets Ticket Rep, who came to give us a pair of field level tickets. Sweet! Free upgrade! So we hopped downstairs from 518 down to 109, and arrived just in time to see the massacre begin. Just as we settled in, Andres Torres was picked off 2nd base. Somehow, he was called safe after sneaking back in, but it seemed fairly obvious to me that he'd been tagged out. Jim Tracy came out to argue and the call was reversed. Terry Collins responded by storming out and going fairly batty, and getting himself ejected, but really, what was the point? The umpires convened and made the right call. So, fine. Back to the carnage.
It started out innocuously enough, with an infield single from Cheech LaNoseHair. Didn't seem like much, but it ended the perfect game (the ovation afforded to Young seemed more a courtesy than anything else), ended the no hitter, and more or less served as the turning point of the game because everything basically unraveled from there. Two batters later, there was Chris Young making a throw to first on a sacrifice bunt that only he or Jon Rauch might have been able to catch (whether or not Murphy alligator-armed it is irrelevant, the throw was terrible), and the lead was gone. Then, Charlie McCharlieman got a hit, the Colorados took the lead, and the game was essentially done from there. Once the Colorados pushed the lead to 3-1, you knew it was over because the Mets aren't hitting a damn thing. They couldn't hit Jhoulys (not Gustavo) Chacin, of the 7.07 ERA and just off the DL, what chance did they have to somehow catch up?
It only got worse from there, since once the Mets lost the lead, they basically decided to abandon all fundamentals. Jordany Valdespin neither caught, nor managed to field a fly ball in front of him. Wild pitches abound. Runners getting thrown out. Ike Davis makes a good play at first to start a rundown in the 9th, Thole runs D.J. Schmegeggie back towards Wright, throws to Wright...and then Wright is left to chase the runner home as Bobby Parnell is somewhere holding his jock rather than covering home. The end result? At least we had a nice view of this loss. See? There's always a silver lining. Even on Mets Turd Sandwich Night.
No comments:
Post a Comment