Rudderless

I'd say that the Mets as a team probably went out Monday evening suffering from one of those head-splitting hangovers where you feel like you just ate a 12-pack of crew socks and you want to vomit, but you just cant. And for all I know they may well have, but since the Mets hadn't done anything to get excited about in the 4 games preceding Matt Harvey's injury, you might not have been able to tell much difference.

The game certainly had a bit of a funereal atmosphere, though I wasn't there, it certainly felt like it given the way the SNY broadcast sounded. It might not have felt so bad if the Mets could have rallied behind Zack Wheeler and pulled out a win against the Phillies, a team that the Mets have been jockeying with for 3rd place for several weeks now. Wheeler, who's now like the Rodimus Prime of the Mets, certainly pitched like he meant it, but even though he only gave up 2 runs on a handful of hits in his 6.2 innings, the Mets could only muster 1 run against Cliff Lee and so Wheeler was hung with a not-well-deserved loss.

Then again, even if the Mets had won, the game appeared secondary to the Harvey news. Though Harvey has only been with the Mets but a year and a month, he's certainly carved a hearty niche for himself and appeared to be well on his way to continuing down the road of many of the all-time Mets pitchers. That may yet still happen but it's going to be delayed indefinitely and in the wake of the news is a club that not only was struggling without their Captain, but now has lost their rudder, the guy who was going to go out there every 5 days and capture everyone's imagination, win or lose.

Under normal circumstances, all eyes would have been on Wheeler, who has shown continual improvement each time he takes the mound. Even when he hasn't won, such as tonight, he's looked solid in defeat. But his solid outing tonight was overshadowed by Harvey sitting on the bench with a hangdog look on his face. That seemed to be the look on the face of every Met by the end of the evening, and the end of a really long day where very little went right for the Mets.