Not Sorry I Missed It

I spent a good chunk of the day Monday thinking I might actually go to the Mets/Braves game. I didn't have tickets for it, it wasn't in my particular plan, but I thought, what the hell. The Mets were playing better, Dillon Gee was on a roll, why not go out and walk up? I used to do that all the time back in the days of Shea Stadium.

Then, I thought better of it. It was disgustingly humid and intermittently rainy all day, with no breeze or relief to speak of. The heaviness in the air sucked all the energy out of me and made me feel uncharacteristically tired all day. Ultimately, I decided against going.

For a while, I rued my decision to stay home. But in the end, I made the right choice, because by staying home, I missed the Mets 2013 specialty: A sweaty, 3+ hour game where they got great starting pitching, didn't hit at all, blew a late lead and ultimately lost a game played mostly through a rain shower that was hard enough to bother the players but not stop the game.

Dillon Gee, for the most part, was the Mets for this game. All he did was go out and stop the Braves dead in their tracks for pretty much all of his 7 innings. He started off with a 12-pitch slog with Overratelton Simmons that ended with a ground out. Things got much more efficient from there, so much so that I'd actually kind of tuned the game out. The only thing that really got my attention between the 1st and 6th inning was Marlon Byrd's line drive that Ratso Upton dove and didn't catch, resulting in a triple and later a run when Ike Davis followed with a rare single. Gee made this run hold up, and it wasn't until Gary Cohen made some thinly veiled mention of it did I realize that Gee was actually throwing a no hitter. Of course, then, I thought, "Shit, he's going to throw a No Hitter the night I decide not to go." Fortunately, or unfortunately, Bitch Freeman led off the 7th with a hit. Meathead Gattis also got a hit, but Gee muscled up, getting out of a bases loaded jam with all the ease of, say, Matt Harvey.

LaTroy Hawkins pitched a fine 8th, and Bobby Parnell came on for the 9th and things looked good.

Then, things didn't look so good. Parnell gave up a pair of quick hits, but got a Fielder's Choice and appeared to have things under control, but then came the Passed Ball that more or less sank the battleship. I'm stating the obvious, but this Passed Ball basically turded the entire game from that point forward. Parnell got the ground ball that would probably have ended the game out of Chris Johnson, except that it instead resulted in the tying run scoring. Reed Johnson followed by hitting a pitch off his lips for the lead-taking single. Choker Kimbrel was ripe for the taking in the bottom of the 9th, storming around the mound, bitching and moaning about the rain and wiping his hand on any surface possible, but Justin Turner's line drive that seemed destined for paydirt ended up instead in the outstretched mitt of Jason Heyward, and this frustrating slog of a game was over.

Perhaps, the only upside to all this is that once the game ended, I did not have to make my way home on two subway trains in the muck that was this Monday night. I instead could just shut the TV off, go in the bedroom and sit in front of my air conditioner and write about what a mess this game was, and how I'm not sorry I missed it.