Another Late Night At The Office

After the Mets played it out until 12:24am on Monday night, last night was another late night, but for a vastly different reason. Tuesday's game was, in fact, motoring along rather briskly, having reached the bottom of the 7th inning before 9pm had struck. Monday night, the 7th inning stretch hit close to 10pm.

The pacing of this game was a credit primarily to Jeremy Hefner, who continues to impress me and everyone else who pays attention to the Mets. Hefner has, of course, been one of my flogs for quite some time now, and early in the season, he certainly deserved it. But somewhere along the line the switch flipped a little bit for him. He pitched rather poorly in the one start I attended against St. Louis, but for the most part he's pitched rather well, particularly against the Yankees, Cubs and Colorados, and last night he was outstanding against Arizona, giving up 1 run in his 7 innings of work and only departing, I suppose, because of the 90 minute rain delay that hit in the bottom of the 7th.

That rain delay, of course, is what slowed things down, and I suppose it was fortunate that it waited until last night to rain, as opposed to Monday, because what a clusterfuck that would have caused. Tuesday was a similar day to Monday in New York; a sweaty, gloppy mess of a day that makes me want to rip my skin off. You hope it rains because you hope that will knock the humidity out of the air, but generally, it just makes things worse. Sitting in 5 hours of it without it raining wasn't great. Sitting around while it rains must have been even worse. So, I guess given the choice, I'd choose the 5 hour game as opposed to the quick game with the hour-long rain delay. Tuesday's game did not end quite as late as Monday, but it was still after 11pm.

Fortunately, the Mets still won the game. Monday, the Mets kept having their rhythm broken by Kirk Gibson's petulant changing of pitchers. Tuesday, the Mets had no such trouble, although the game probably went on about 3 innings too long before the umpires decided to stop. When the puddles forming on the infield are visible and obvious, it's probably a sign that you should pull out the tarp and break out the card game, but hey, I'm no groundskeeper. What the hell do I know?

So, Hefner was great, only made one mistake to Devil Wore Prado in the 7th which accounted for the one run he gave up. The Mets also didn't have much luck against ballyhooed Patrick Corbin, who only gave up one run himself, a Home Run to Anthony Recker.

The Mets finally got something going in the bottom of the 7th, plating a run and loading the bases before the umpires finally stopped the game. I suppose nobody would have complained if they stopped things right there, but they waited 90 minutes and finally got things going again at around 10:15pm. This time, the delay appeared to ice the Diamondbacks, since the reliever they put in, Brad Ziegler, came in and promptly got whacked all over the park by the Mets, as their 2-1 lead went to 8-1 in a matter of a few minutes, removing any and all drama from the remainder of the game. This was actually rather nice, since we could then all sit back and enjoy the end of a game without something hair-raising happening. Given the rain delay and the increasingly late hour, and the Mets big inning, the D'Backs appeared to punt the remainder of the night, so the Mets ended up with a nice 9-1 victory where everyone pitched in to the war effort that saw the Mets score more runs than they've put up at Citi Field in week. And it sets up Harvey tonight with a chance to go for the kill in this series.