Column A, Column B

The Weekend wasn't a total wash for the Mets, seeing as how they won on Saturday, but in the grand scheme of things, losing 3 of 4 in Pittsburgh isn't exactly the way you want to make your presence known. It was mostly a forgotten weekend of games for me. Saturday, as I have been for the past several weeks, I was out of the house and not near a TV while the game was going on, and therefore I missed the Blue Bombers, behind Jon Niese and an early flurry of hits and runs, beat Gerrit Cole in his much-ballyhooed return from the Disabled List 5-3.

Sunday, I was home and had the game on, and with Bartolo Colon on the mound, certainly you figured the Mets would have a fighting chance. Colon, who gives the impression, of course, that he's far too old and out of shape to do anything of consequence, has been more good than bad this season, particularly recently, where his starts have generally consisted of him pitching very well and very deep into games and coming away with wins. When he's looked good, he's been great, and that's been the case for him over the last several games he's pitched. Unfortunately, when he's been bad, he's been particularly putrid, and he ends up looking less like the Bartolo Colon that plows his way through innings and more like the fat, sweaty, uncomfortable Bartolo Colon that he appears to be (or, more appropriately, Shaun Marcum). Sunday was one of those days for Bartolo Colon. The Pirates whacked him around early, and by the middle of the game I had tuned out in favor of other activities like cleaning my bathroom and doing laundry. The remainder of the game was a blur, the Mets scored a couple of runs late in the game and I don't really know how they did it, and the result was a 5-2 game that had the feel of an 11-3 game.

There seems to be very little in between with the Mets lately. They win boring or they lose boring and, sure, every once in a while they have games like Friday night that get kind of wacky, but then again even those games offer more to get frustrated about as opposed to glimmering good times. Then again, they had a glimmering good time game on Tuesday night this week. But games like that could be counted on one's total digits this season. The upshot to all this is that while the Mets have been mostly boring this season, so has the rest of their division, and we'll get to see that first hand when the Mets voyage down to good ol' Atlanty to play the wonderful Braves. It's scheduled to be about 97˚ all three games. This probably won't go well, but we'll see I guess.