Sellout

I certainly hope that whoever bought my tickets for Monday afternoon's game enjoyed themselves. From what I was able to glean by periodic ScoreCenter updates, it didn't seem like I would have had a great time.

I mentioned that I'd more or less played myself by even buying tickets for this game, thinking for whatever foolhardy reason that this random Monday game against the Giants would be a Getaway Day night game. I made the same mistake for a Cubs game coming up 2 weeks from Monday, though nobody's taken those seats off my hands just yet. But StubHub came through for me on this game, and so at least I got a little cash instead of flushing the tickets down the toilet. What I missed was a frustrating sort of game where the Mets seemed to be kind of loagy and lethargic, and their heretofore reliable bullpen ended up coughing up a slim lead to an opportunistic Giants team that came into Citi Field with their legion of fans taking up approximately 400 seats in the Outfield per game and left happy 3 out of 4 of these games.

They left happy on Monday because after Daniel Murphy staked the Mets to an early lead with a 2-run Home Run off of Tim Hudson, the Mets pretty much went in the tank. Dillon Gee pitched reasonably well, scattering 5 hits and 2 runs into the 6th inning before tiring, and although he left with a slim lead, the bullpen couldn't bring it home for him on this day. Jeurys Familia, so good of late, wild pitched home the tying run in the 7th, and his partner-in-bullpen-crime Jenrry Mejia figured he'd match Familia's faltering by allowing the go-ahead run on a 2-out double by Pablo Sandoval. The Mets seemed more interested in complaining about the strike zone, Terry Collins ultimately found himself ejected from the affair, and the Mets couldn't get off the mat on this day.

So, the Mets are now done with the Giants, and not a moment too soon, because they really gave the Mets fits all season long. Sweep in San Francisco that was in no particular doubt, and 3 of 4 here in New York adds up to a whole lot of bad baseball from the Mets perspective, no matter how you try to look at it. This doesn't put the Mets off on a key stretch of games on a good note, but they'd better get their act together with 6 of their next 9 games coming against the frontrunning, but not hiding, Washington Nationals. We'll see how this goes for them.