Of Course He Did!

After a tough loss last night, the Mets responded by throwing what has, to this point, been the weakest link in their rotation at the White Sox in Shaun Marcum. Though not entirely his fault, Marcum hasn't found any kind of consistency or success in his short time with the Mets, and has sort of earned a place in everyone's doghouse, primarily because he doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the team concept (whatever that is). Though he certainly earned some acclaim for his time in Toronto and Milwaukee, Marcum has seemed to find disaster at every corner this year. He's taken losses in games where he pitched decently, but got no run support. He's had games where he just simply came unraveled for one inning and dug himself an insurmountable hole. He's even lost in games he didn't even start, but found himself eating innings in an emergency situation that bordered on the heroic. The end result has always ended up with Marcum walking off the mound with this miserable puss on his face, and the losses amounted to a hideous 0-9 record and were Jonathon Niese not hurt, a likely demotion to the Bullpen.

The point is, Marcum hasn't inspired any sort of confidence to this point this season, so, of course, when everyone expected the absolute worst, and with the ignominy of being the first pitcher to start a season 0-10 staring him in the face, Marcum went out and threw 8 shutout innings at the White Sox, and the Mets responded with a 3-run rally to back him up and ultimately get him off the schneid with his first victory of the season.

An odd bit of circumstances had me listening to this game on the radio at home. This is a rarity for me, for sure, but my other half, who freelances as a makeup artist, had scheduled a session in our living room that started sometime around the 4th inning. Accommodating man that I am, and knowing that she probably would rather not work with a baseball game on in the background, I shut off the TV and went in the bedroom, where there is no TV, but there is a radio and an Air Conditioner. So, I listened to the game and cooled off, and in the shuffle of things I manged to miss the Mets 3-run rally in the 5th. I then distracted myself with some documentaries about strange, forgotten New York Neighborhoods, while Marcum continued to mow the White Sox down. Then, of course, I fell asleep, which I wasn't planning on, and was only awakened by Howie Rose yelling "Put it in the Books!"

So, what I was able to grok from the recap and the postgame show is that Marcum was quite efficient tonight, and did so in such mundane fashion that he not only bored me into some alternate forms of entertainment, he also lulled me to sleep. But, if that's what it takes for him to win a game, I suppose I shouldn't complain.