But Does It Count?

My plan for Sunday was to go out to Citi Field to see Steven Matz's Major League debut. That's not too hard to grasp, unless you know how much I dislike going to Sunday afternoon games. The weather on Saturday, however, threw a monkey wrench into this plan as the heavens opened and dumped heaps upon heaps of rain onto the area, stopping and ultimately suspending the game after 6 innings with a 1-1 tie.

So, you know, I forge ahead anyway, figure I'll get a few innings of Free Baseball in and hopefully I won't get home that late. Maybe an hour later than I normally would have.

Except. The. Game. Kept. Going.

And going...

And going...

Never mind that the resumed game started late in the first place. It was announced for 1:10pm (quite honestly, I don't know why they didn't set it for something more logical like 12:10, but that's besides the point) but some residual rain that fell throughout the 7th and 8th innings kept the tarp on the field and delayed things by about 15 minutes or so.

I should have known right then and there that this resumed game was going to turn into one of those Baseball Farce sort of games, the sort of game that dissolves into abject weirdness and makes you really start to consider the folly of this game.

Carlos Torres took the mound to kick things off and immediately gave up two hits. He was removed in favor of Alex Torres, who promptly walked the one batter he was tasked to get out. Hansel Robles followed and mercifully got Todd Frazier to pop out to finish the inning and bring us to the 1st Inning 7th Inning Stretch.

The Mets, for whom scoring runs is often a tall order, had a couple of scalded shots off of Ryan Mattheus in the last of the 7th. One, by Ruben Tejada, was ticketed for the corner but for Skip Schumaker Batmaning himself through the air to make the catch. Lucas Duda hit one to a similar spot, but this one was off the wall. Again, a sure double, except that Duda tripped over 1st Base and instead was thrown out by Schumaker at 2nd.

That was how this was going? It hadn't reached that point, but I was beginning to worry about extra innings.

Robles and Mattheus and Familia and Hoover all combined to ensure that this would be the case, aided in their conspiracy by Juan Lagares, who went over the fence to rob Jay Bruce of a Home Run, and by Michael Cuddyer, who with the winning run on 3rd base in the 9th, popped out.

Sigh. Extra Innings. My favorite. And if that wasn't bad enough, let's not forget that this was IN FRONT of the game that I'd shown up to see!

Jeurys Familia got through a rather difficult 10th inning, all but ensuring he wouldn't be available for the "2nd" game. Boris Badenov Burke Badenhop came in for the Reds and set down the Mets without much drama in the 10th. Logan Verrett, who for whatever reason I keep confusing with switch-pitcher Pat Venditte, entered in the 11th for the Mets, and did not switch-pitch, and did retire the Reds in order. Carlos Carrasco Carlos Contreras entered for the Reds in the last of the 11th, and here the Mets finally caught a break when Joey Votto yakked on a Granderson ground ball and Curtis reached 2nd on the error. Ruben Tejada followed with a walk, and just as they did in the 9th, the Mets had two on and one out with Duda and Cuddyer coming up, and just as they did in the 9th, Duda and Cuddyer each failed to do anything consequential except draw the ire of the fans that were beginning to get a little impatient.

By the 12th, I'd now officially seen as much of this game than the people who actually showed up to this game yesterday, although I was still waiting for a run and by this point lord only knows what was going through the mind of Steven Matz—something along the lines of "Score a run and get this shit show over with" sounds accurate. But neither team was cooperating. Verrett got the Reds quietly and Contreras did the same.

There have been bizarrely extended games that I've attended many times over, but never in a situation like this, where I knew I'd committed myself to a full game afterward, never in a situation where I'd walked in halfway through the game and felt like I'd sat through the whole thing, and never in a situation where I was truly afraid that nobody was going to score and this game was headed for 20+ innings. But that's what I was beginning to feel like as the 13th inning started, because unless somebody screwed up somewhere, nobody was going to win this game. Sometimes, the Baseball Stink is just that contagious. Bobby Parnell, whom I hadn't seen since his return, entered the game and got through a mostly quiet inning, aided by Kevin Plawecki throwing out Ivan DeJesus Jr on the bases.

Nate Adcock entered the game for the Reds in the last of the 13th and walked Dilson Herrera. This immediately was a good sign, because in the 9th and 11th, Herrera had made an out in front of Granderson and Tejada getting on base, and the lack of an extra out with the runners on base screwed everything up. So Herrera was on and went all the way to 3rd when Granderson singled. So the Reds had the Infield in and the Outfield in and Ruben Tejada hit a smash to Eugenio Suarez that Suarez didn't field, and didn't pick up right away, and there was Herrera vapor-locking at 3rd, and I suppose that's OK because Suarez recovered enough that he could have thrown out Herrera at home, but since he held the base, everyone was safe, and so the bases were loaded with nobody out. The Reds then had some conferencing and Skip Schumaker was brought in as a 5th Infielder with Lucas Duda up. All he needed to do was hit a damn fly ball, and yet I had this horrible fear that either he would hit into a Double Play and Cuddyer would strike out, or he would strike out and Cuddyer would hit into a Double Play, or maybe they would both hit into Double Plays. Either way, Duda didn't exactly not hit into a Double Play; his chopper was simply hit high enough that Votto had to jump to field it, couldn't hang on to it, and then could only take a bite out of it when he realized he had no time to get Herrera at home. A fitting end to a perfectly fine mess of a game, but at least the Mets won.

It was only about 2 hours and 40 minutes into the resumption of the game. Which led to me having the silent conversation with myself as to whether or not I'd seen enough of this game to have it actually qualify for my personal game log. I'm inclined to say no, if only because there have been games where I went to the second game of a Doubleheader, and showed up before the first game had ended, and watched the last inning or two, but I wouldn't count games like that. Plus, I hadn't seen the beginning of the game, or either starting pitcher pitch. Most importantly, I wasn't scoring the resumed game, since I hadn't scored the first 6 innings, I didn't want to pick up midstream. On the other hand, I saw more of the game than people who were there yesterday did, 7 innings today as opposed to 6 yesterday. Also, the game was still undecided when it was suspended, I actually saw the Mets score the winning run. Anyone out there have any thoughts on this?

This was my thought process as I waited for the game I actually came to see to begin. I'll discuss that game later.