Gone Shopping

I've been known to do a bit of errand-running on Saturday afternoons. This can become complicated by the Mets' proliferation of 4:10pm start times on Saturdays. I could try to go out beforehand, but often other things get in the way, or I sleep too late, or I just can't get my act together. Usually, the 5-6pm hour is prime time for me to go out.

This happened to me again yesterday. I had a whole assortment of things to do in the house, and with my other half out of town for the weekend, this meant a healthy dose of housecleaning (we have a bit of a Felix & Oscar relationship. I'm Felix). I'd finished up cleaning at around 3:45 or so, right around when I'd be sitting down to watch the game. So I decided I'd do that for a few innings, and then go out around the 4th inning, and then be back in time for the latter part of the game.

So, I'd left with the Mets down 3-2. Asdrubal Cabrera hit a 2-run Home Run in the 2nd, Logan Verrett promptly handed it back and then Ryan Braun hit a moonscraper of a Home Run into the greenish abyss of Miller Park (in my opinion the second ugliest of the "Old New" Stadiums, a ballpark with more space than they seemed to know what to do with, and so in Center Field is a giant green wall with nothing on it. The puke-green Hell Hole in Miami is, of course, the ugliest). No harm, no foul, and you figured the Mets would find a way to shoot a few more runs across against Wily Peralta.

I returned, of course, to a 5-3 score, with Verrett gone after suffering the indignity of surrendering a Home Run to Peralta in the 4th. Peralta, I'm told, is a bad hitter even for a pitcher, which of course might get him lumped in with Bartolo, except that Peralta isn't nearly as entertaining. Verrett was done for the day after that, allowing 5 runs in 4 innings and kind of wrecking the afternoon for the Mets. I figured I'd missed enough, but then Antonio Bastardo gave up a Home Run to Scooter Gennett and then another one to Ryan Braun, and at that point I figured I probably should have stayed out longer. Or maybe I'd jinxed the team by going out during the game in the first place. Either way, when you allow 5 runs in a game, it's not good.

You know, there's bad wins like what happened last night and I know some people kind of wanted to shove it under the rug and forget it happened, but I'll take 10 games like last night instead of games like this, that are just boring to watch and even worse to blog about because you have to come up with something more profound than "This Game Stunk." Or maybe I don't. This game stunk.