Laborious Day

I missed an entire weekend of games for the Mets, so the best insight I can offer you for the Phillies series last weekend is that the Mets won two of three and Dilson Herrera made his Major League debut. In Cleveland, I saw no Baseball either; in spite of the fact that the Indians are in some vague form of contention, I couldn't tell you how they performed over the weekend. I don't even know who they played.

I returned to New York and Baseball yesterday afternoon, just in time to see the Mets and Marlins deadlocked in a 6-6 tie in the 8th inning, which meant that Zack Wheeler did not enjoy the same kind of success he found last time he took the mound in the puke-green Hell Hole that we might know more familiarly as LoriaLand Hippodrome. Among the things I missed were Herrera's first Major League Home Run, first Major League Triple and Giancarlo Stanton doing what he usually does against everyone and hitting a Home Run of his own.

What I saw in the inning or so of game I did manage to see was about 46 kinds of ugly. In a half-inning of Baseball that was about as aesthetically pleasing as the stadium it was played in, I watched Jeurys Familia field some ground balls and then proceed to alligator-arm a pair of throws not particularly close to bases, wild-pitch a run home and then Eric Goeddel (not to be confused with Eddie Gaedel or Roger Goodell) make his Major League Debut (September 1st already?!) and walk in another run. Goeddel finally managed to end the bloodbath by getting Garrett Jones to hit into a Double Play, otherwise the Mets might still be kicking the ball around the infield and Marlins might still be circling the bases.

This was not the reintroduction to Baseball I was hoping for. In fact, if I'd known I'd be welcomed home with a half-inning like that, maybe I would have stayed in Cleveland and not paid attention for another day. I mean, the Mets made as many errors on Monday afternoon as they scored runs. And I've been watching this team all season, I know it takes a lot for them to score 6 runs in a game, so the 6 errrors they made must have happened because they exhausted themselves scoring so much. Or perhaps they kept losing track of the ball amidst the fishtanks and aquamarine walls. I don't know. Hopefully this is out of their system because with one month left in the season, it would be rather disheartening to see them dissolve into 2012 now.