That's Enough Of That

I said last week that if the Mets couldn't figure themselves out against the lousy Cubs, then things stood a very good chance of getting quite ugly once they went out to San Francisco to play the Giants, a team that not only had a sizable lead in their division but also the best record in Baseball. And boy, things got pretty damn ugly.

At no point did the Mets make me or probably anyone watching these games think that they had a realistic chance of winning any one of the three games, and that's even at moments when they took a lead and things were looking up. Every time the Mets had a chance to cut the Giants off, the Giants did something a little extra and got that break to swing the game in their favor. It's sort of early to pin this label on them, but perhaps the Giants have grabbed back the mantel of The Hot Team and the mojo that comes with it.

Friday night, the Mets could conceivably have done themselves a greater good had they just let Matt Cain throw a No Hitter at them. Ruben Tejada ended that with a 6th inning single, but he was summarily erased by a Travis d'Arnaud Double Play that had become so ROTE by this point that d'Arnaud found himself back in AAA by weekend's end. Jon Niese did his own yeoman's work in a basically hopeless situation, and actually found himself in the lead when somehow Daniel Murphy stuck his bat in front of a breaking ball and seemed to just kind of flick it over the right field wall at Pac Bell Colin Kaepernick AT&T Park for a 2-run Home Run. But Niese gave the run back in the bottom of the inning thanks to a predictable string of 2-out hits, and then lost the game in the bottom of the 8th thanks to the predictable 2-run Home Run by Buster Posey. All things you could pretty much see coming no matter how you sliced it. Much better than the alternative: Playing 14 innings and having Posey hit the Home Run at 3am EDT.

Saturday was slightly a little more upbeat for the Mets, but in the end the result was the same. The Mets came out early and actually built a nice little lead against Tim Hudson. Anthony Recker actually drove home a couple of runs and so did Lucas Duda, and for a few innings there was a little hope as Bartolo Colon kept the Giants at bay. But you knew it wasn't going to last, didn't you? David Wright made an error that led to an Angel Pagan 2-run single to cut a 4-1 lead to 4-3, and that lead lasted until the 9th. But you knew that Jenrry Mejia and the Mets were fucked as soon as Recker didn't catch strike 3 to Pagan, and then couldn't make a clean throw to 1st. That pretty much sealed the Mets fate right then and there, because everything that happened subsequent to that always happens to a team that makes that kind of an asshole mistake. Before Mejia even knew what had hit him, the game was tied and then the game was over when Michael Morse hit the trademark "single over the drawn-in Outfield" to seal the inevitable 5-4 Giants win.

Sunday, the Mets did a great job, if you consider greatness somehow managing to screw up every possible fundamental way to play Baseball. I'd like to give a well-informed breakdown of the game, but, really, who's got the energy? I know Curtis Granderson provided all the meaningful offense and Zack Wheeler had a regression game and that's pretty much all that needs to be said, or at least that's all that can be said politely. Everyone else may as well be flushed down the proverbial toilet. Burn the tape and never speak of this trip to San Francisco again.

Now, the Mets come home—and you know they play so well at home—and get to take on the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that I considered a total non-entity at the beginning of the season, so it makes perfect sense that they, like the Giants, have gotten off to a hot start and currently have the lead in the NL Central, or at least they did the last time I checked. I have tickets to Tuesday night's game. That should go splendidly. Hopefully it will rain. Or not. I don't know anymore.