Flying Start

And after two games, everyone's ready to sound the alarms.

The Mets at least put up a fight on Monday afternoon, when it took them 10 innings to strike out 18 times and lose. Tonight, they didn't strike out as frequently, only 13 times, but they also only managed 1 run and 3 hits against Gio Gonzalez and the other Washington Nationals, so it stands to reason that the Mets simply had fewer at bats with which to strike out. If the Mets offense is going to put forth these kind of performances every night, it's going to be a long season.

I was late arriving home from work, so I actually missed the interesting part of the game, which involved Juan Lagares hit a triple and not get stranded at 3rd Base, thanks to a David Wright sacrifice fly. I arrived home to see the Mets ahead 1-0, which was nice, but the lead was, naturally, short-lived. Bartolo Colon, all 283 pounds of him, was on the mound and pitched reasonably well in his Mets debut. But with the Mets offense consisting of players doing little more than swinging through pitches, Colon was left on a rather short leash, and the Nationals, with their lineup of professional, potent hitters eventually tied the game in the 4th, and then took the lead in the 5th thanks to a pair of Home Runs from Ian Desmond and, gallingly, Gonzalez himself.

The Mets had a reasonably decent opportunity to claw back into the game in the last of the 5th, thanks to a Ruben Tejada single (he's hit in both games now—stop the presses), but Colon couldn't bunt him over (and appears ill-prepared to bunt in general) and even though he was running when Lagares pulled a pitch just fair down the Left Field line, he still managed to get himself thrown out at home by a reasonably good margin.

And that, my friends, was the Mets last good opportunity to keep the game in reach. The remainder of the affairs involved such highlights as Gonzalez Germen getting lit up like a Christmas tree, Lucas Duda being sent up to pinch hit following a Tejada walk and like clockwork striking out, and several other Mets doing the same to close out a completely terrible 5-1 loss.

The pessimistic way to look at this would be to think that the Mets right now stand to strike out 2511 times this season if things hold to form. Curtis Granderson, Travis d'Arnaud and all the 1st Basemen are currently 0-for the season, and the Mets are getting completely outclassed by a much better team. It's probably not that dramatic after 2 games, but there's already a goodly share of bad news flying around. Hopefully, Zack Wheeler, one of the bright spots on the team, can wake the team up tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully.