I realize it's only one game, but last night was not encouraging.
Jeremy Hefner, who's pitched well enough of late to garner a smattering of recognition for it, was terrible. No two ways about it. He got tagged for 4 in the 1st, by the 3rd the score was 11-0 and the toe tag was on this one. I don't know whether it was the week off that did it to him, but Hefner looked like the old lousy pitcher we'd been seeing early in the season as opposed to the guy with a bit of bulldog. Some questionable (I'm not sure because I didn't see it—circumstances and the placement of air conditioning led me to listen to the game on the radio) defense didn't help, but Hefner just didn't make his pitches, didn't put hitters away and eventually the Phillies just started smoking him. This could also be the case of Philly just having his number, because they've done this to him before, but whatever the reason, Hefner put the Mets in a hole that they couldn't get out of.
Not that they didn't try. I have to give the Mets some credit for not just rolling over and dying last night, because they certainly had every right to after the score went from 11-0 to 13-3, but they continued battling and at one point were a long hit away from actually being in the game. But 11-run comebacks tend to require the right amount of luck and opponent's ineptitude that they don't happen very often, and last night was an example of that. It took quite a bit of effort for the Mets to trim the deficit to 13-6, and eventually they got it to 13-8, but that's where things ended.
Not quite the start we wanted to see, particularly when you think about the Mets really making a concerted effort not to completely unravel in the 2nd half of the season. The hope here is that with Harvey and Wheeler scheduled over the weekend, that will put a stop to this before it gets started and we can have a nice, enjoyable, forward-looking end to this season.
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