Oh Dammit

The Mets appear to have been paying Marlin Penance the last two nights after outlasting them in Thursday evening's marathon game. Friday's result was bad enough, but in a vacuum it is of course just one game. Compound that with the results on Saturday night and it feels significantly worse. After Jacob deGrom coolly pistolwhipped the Marlins for seven innings and the Mets bats gave him what should have been a protectable 2-run lead, Fernando Salas shit his pants in the 8th inning, allowing a game-tying Home Run to Hamburgers Yelich and a game-winning Home Run to Mike Stanton and the Mets snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, losing 5-4 to the Marlins.

This is, as always one of those "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" instances for Terry Collins. The haters will of course scream that it was catastrophically stupid to remove deGrom from the game after 97 pitches, in which he'd allowed the Marlins a pair of solo Home Runs sprinkled in between 13 strikeouts. Maybe that's true, but if Collins left him in and deGrom got beaten, then he's an idiot for sticking with his pitcher an inning too long.

The answer? Dammit, I don't know. There is no right answer. You go by feel and Collins felt like deGrom was done. I trust him enough at this point to know the temperature of his players. Frankie Bag-o-donuts in Hicksville is going from his gut, and his gut's been telling him "BACKMAN, BABAY!!!" for the last 4 years, and so Collins is a moron and needs to go. Tonight, Collins was wrong and so it's a field day for Frankie and his ilk. For me, it's just the irritation of seeing Dee Gordon pogo-sticking around the infield—typical Marlin behavior. I don't particularly care enough about a right or wrong move when it's essentially a judgement call. What I do know is that this is the Marlins, and invariably they're going to pull some dumb shit out of their ass against the Mets multiple times in a season. This happens to be one of those times. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise and they'll get their Marlinness out of their system early, so that the Mets can handle them the way they should be handled later in the season. Again, I don't know. But right now the only thing that's managed to get in the Mets way so far this season is the Marlins and I've had enough of this.

Is Anyone Really Surprised?

So, the Mets go on the road and in their first game hit 4 Home Runs en route to a win over the Cleveland Indians. Surprise, surprise.

It's not often that the Mets find themselves in Cleveland, a city that bears the reputation of bad weather and poor luck, but is also the home of several relatives (which I feel obligated to mention every time the Mets go to Cleveland), and is also the home of Progressive (nee Jacobs) field, one of the few out-of-town ballparks I have actually been to.

Friday's game seemed to be full of some incongruities for the Mets, never mind the show of strength that had eluded them over the season's first 8 games. First of all, I wasn't watching, which can happen on a Friday. After a long work week, I have been known to get home and immediately fall asleep with the radio on, thereby omitting any attention I could be paying to the first several innings of the game. Also, everyone was wearing 42, in honor of Jackie Robinson, a nice symbolic gesture that nonetheless makes every Met remind me of Butch Huskey (some other fans are reminded of other 42s, but this is where my mind goes). Then, there was the whole American League park thing. For one, the Mets start their road season this season playing 5 games in AL parks before ever playing in an NL park, which means everyone's favorite, the DH. And, finally, there was a lineup shuffling that resulted in, among other things, Michael Conforto landing in the #3 spot in the lineup, which I think is where he'll eventually end up on a permanent basis should he continue his current career arc.

Conforto warmed to this particular change rather quickly, blasting his 1st Home Run of the season in his first AB, staking the Mets to an early lead. Bartolo Colon, returning to the stadium where his career began 19 years prior, gave up the tying run in the bottom of the 1st but settled in from there and had his usual Bartolo Colon outing. This was, of course, a much different Colon from the sleek, young fireballer that initially appeared for the Indians way back in 1997, and in wearing #42 Colon was one of the rare Major Leaguers who actually got to wear his age on this day, but results are results and Colon continues to get them no matter what shape he's in.

The game remained tied at 1 until the Mets exploded in the 5th for a trio of Home Runs, which, if you're counting, gave them 4 for the game and increased the team's total for the season by 300%. Alejandro De Aza, who was given a rare start, started the inning with a Home Run, and both Yoenis Cespedes and Neil Walker followed with 2-run Homers and suddenly the Mets had broken open the game with this sudden, road-trip induced avalanche of offense.

It was 6-2 by time I turned in, and all-time Yankee Great Joba Chamberlain was on the mound for Cleveland without a swarm of bugs sticking to him. The Mets had ample opportunities to tack on runs, but didn't do so and it seemed to matter little. Or at least it mattered little until the 9th inning, when Addison Reed, in trying to will his way through a 2nd inning, tired and allowed a 2-out, 2-run Home Run to Carlos Santana to make a 6-2 game a 6-4 game. This, again, shouldn't have mattered; with 1 out to go, Reed probably could have ground out one more batter. But in this era of by-the-book relief pitching, Terry Collins HAD to go to Jeurys Familia for that 1-out Save, in spite of the fact that Familia had a) already worked in every game of the Florida series, including a hairy 5-out Save on Wednesday, and b) was sick. This was pretty stupid and it almost bit Collins in the ass when he gave up a hit to Yan Gomes (Yan Can Hit!) before falling into a vortex of old friends. With Marlon Byrd at the plate, Familia wild pitched Gomes to 2nd before allowing an RBI single to Byrd. Byrd was then pinch-run for by Collin Cowgill. Juan Uribe (who by the way had a 3-hit revenge game) followed and drew a 4-pitch walk. I half-expected someone like Scott Hairston or  Anthony Recker to emerge next as a pinch hitter (and only later did I discover Recker apparently is an Indian now), but instead it was Jose Ramirez, and Familia did manage to get Ramirez to fly out and end the game, which unnecessarily ended with a 6-5 score and a bit of a buzzkill for the good feelings that were flying around most of the night.

Ultimately, a win is a win and since it was the offense that supplied it on this night that's an even better thing to see. Conforto seems to like that #3 spot in the lineup, or at least I like seeing him there and maybe this will stick for a while. Cespedes looks like he's about to go on one of his raging hot streaks, which is even better to see. Mostly, it's just good to see the Mets actually playing like they mean it, which we knew would happen eventually.

Lineup Shakeup

The lineups that Terry Collins has been throwing out there in the early going this season seem to be something out of the book of Bobby Valentine. Every day there's something different. This can get somewhat annoying to the players, I might think, because it prevents them from getting into a real rhythm, but I don't mind it so long as it's just his way of discovering the means to an end. Except when he bats the Pitcher 8th. Collins had to do some crafty shuffling with David Wright now on the DL and Eric Campbell up in his stead. Campbell, though not completely useless, isn't Wright and isn't a #2 hitter. The first experiment in the #2 spot was Travis d'Arnaud.

d'Arnaud, who was already raking out of the gate, responded to the move with 2 hits and his first Home Run of the season. He can stay there.

Behind him, and off to an equally hot start was Lucas Duda. I've already been through the "after so many years of trashing him..." speech, so I don't need to go into how he's proven his worth. But what he needed to do was get off to a good start this season so it didn't seem like last year was a fluke. After whacking 2 hits, including his 1st Home Run of the year, a moonshot that would have been in the seats of the original Citi Field, I think it's safe to say that Duda's not just off to a good start among his teammates, but he's off to the races as one of the hottest hitters in Baseball. True, he'll likely cool at some point, but right now at .353 and even hitting lefties, he's proven that last season wasn't an aberration.

Elsewhere in the lineup, players like Juan Lagares were contributing to back Jon Niese, who pitched just fine for 6.1 innings and even chipped in with an RBI hit of his own, as the Mets scored often and finished off a sweep of the moribund Phillies with a 6-1 victory.

The game was the first Citi Field affair of the season that I wasn't present for (in spite of the way it sometimes appears, I don't actually go to every game), and thus the first time I was home to see a game on SNY with the dulcet tones of Gary, Keith and Ron providing the soundtrack to my Wednesday evening. Of course, I was late to the proceedings, a detour to go grocery shopping meant I didn't get home until the 2nd inning, at which point the Mets were trailing, but at some point they tied the game, then went ahead, and slowly but surely put the Phillies to rest; their first series sweep of Philadelphia at Citi Field since the shutout series way back in 2010.

But the Phillies are basically patsies this season, and the Mets should be handling them. A better test of where things sit might be this weekend, when the Mickey Mouse Marlins, who've put together a cute little team that's gotten people a little too excited, come to town. This should be a good snapshot of where things stand.

Can We Stay Here?

Maybe the Mets should just stay in Arizona.

It was a quick turnaround, after flipping the mostly lifeless D'Backs and inflicting a rare beating on usual Met-Nemesis Bronson Arroyo on Tuesday night, the Mets came out on Wednesday afternoon and won again behind Dillon Gee to sweep Arizona, go over .500 for the first time this season and finish what looked like a hellacious road trip with a 6-3 record.

It helps that, as I mentioned yesterday, the Mets were going up against a pitching staff that basically had its guts cut out before the season started and a team that just generally looked more and more befuddled as each game drew on. After letting up a single run in the 8th inning on Monday night, Met pitchers allowed the D'Backs offense nothing until Jose Valverde served up a pair of Home Runs in the 9th inning this afternoon, a fine accomplishment in its own right, but one made somewhat easier by the fact that the Met offense scored plenty of runs for the pitchers to work with.

Tuesday night, with the entire roster clad in the symbolic 42 jersey in honor of Jackie Robinson (but, of course, with every bit of respect to Mr. Robinson, I still can't look past a Mets player wearing 42 and not think of Butch Huskey—which I suppose is OK considering Huskey wore 42 in deference to Robinson), the Mets cruised. Jenrry Mejia basically got to coast through his outing after the Mets ran out to a 9-0 lead after 4 innings. Things started with Eric Young, Jr. reaching base to start the game, which kicked off a sequence in which the Mets jumped on Arroyo with a ferocity, mostly swinging at first pitch fastballs and ringing hits all over the ballpark. This generally isn't how the Mets have fared against Arroyo, but on this night, the hits kept falling, 12 in all. Young had 3 of those hits, and 3 more were had by, of all people, Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Nieuwenhuis had basically become a forgotten man in the Mets system. He was shoved out of consideration by flashier or more consistent players and left to languish in the Minor Leagues after barely batting his weight last season (his only noteworthy moment for 2013 being when he caused the downfall of Western Civilization). But after the Outfield Massacre on Monday night, it was Nieuwenhuis, and not the ancient Bobby Abreu, who got the call, and given the opportunity, Nieuwenhuis took it and ran with it, driving home a run with a 1st inning hit and following up with a 4th inning Home Run that keyed a 6-run rally, sent Arroyo to the showers, Kirk Gibson to the latrine and the game mostly to bed. Mejia left after 5 innings with a blister issue (fairly benign as compared to Monday's drama) and Gonalez Germen played the Carlos Torres role from there, closing out the game with relative ease.

Wednesday, Dillon Gee did most of the heavy lifting, throwing shutout ball for 7 innings and departing well before he could get himself into any particular trouble. By that point, the Mets had scraped out three of their five runs for the game, the first coming courtesy Anthony Recker's second Home Run of the road trip in the 2nd inning. Recker, who continues to play better than a backup Catcher, joined Lucas Duda as the only Met players with more than 1 Home Run. This, combined with his 13th inning lightning over the weekend and the fact that most of his Home Runs have come in similar key circumstances have led to some talk that maybe he ought to get some more playing time, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Anthony Recker's a great backup catcher, but give him 400 At Bats and he'll look like Omar Quintanilla. Nonetheless, he got the Mets started and chipped in with another rally-extending hit later on in the afternoon, and the Mets put the game away in the 9th when the D'Backs decided they'd had enough of trying to field the ball. Jose Valverde came in after not appearing since his Saturday night debacle and did his best to make things unnecessarily hairy, but the best he could do in that endeavor was to turn a 5-0 game into a 5-2 game.

So, now the Mets return home and have the high pleasure of getting to play America's Sweethearts, the Braves and the Cardinals, before Miami comes in, and they haven't exactly been a picnic for the Mets either. Last season, the Mets had this bizarre thing about winning on the road and looking stupid at home. I really hope this season doesn't hold more of the same. Especially since I have tickets to 4 games on this 10-game homestand.

Welcome Back

Tuesday Night saw the Mets provide me, and the rest of their fans a reason to not boo them. 4 hits from Jose Reyes, a Home Run and 5 RBIs from David Wright and 7 shutout innings from Mike Pelfrey added up to a resounding 6-0 victory over Washington that provided several encouraging signs.

Pelfrey was able to build on his successful outing against Philadelphia last week, in better weather, this time spreading his 100 pitches over a 7 inning effort that probably ranks among his best performances in the Majors. Yes, he was pitching against a mostly punchless Washington team. But considering that he had been on thin ice to begin with, and considering that the news on Pedro and his hamstring was pretty far from good, Pelfrey needed to step up and put together some consistent outings. Last night, he did just that, pitching the kind of game we've been expecting out of him for some time.

But perhaps more encouraging than that was the return of Duaner Sanchez, after the injuries, the inconsistency, the attitude problems, and the lengthy rehab. Adding Sanchez to a bullpen that has been lacking in reliable depth, and has been an increasing cause of concern to everyone is more than a good sign. In March, I anointed Sanchez the Most Key Met for this season. I fully expect him to play a major role from here on out, taking pressure and innings away from guys like Jorge Sosa and Aaron Heilman, who are already suffering from overuse. Whether or not he'll be as effective as he was in 2006 remains to be seen. But he did the job tonight, allowing a single, making Ronnie Belliard look silly in striking him out, and basically held the fort in the 9th inning to close out the game. Great to have him back.

42, Redux
After last season, when select players on each team wore #42 in honor of Jackie Robinson's first game in the Majors, most teams this season had their entire roster suit up in #42. Willie Randolph was the Mets lone #42 last season. This year, everyone wore #42. It is always a symbolic gesture for a great, groundbreaking ballplayer. However, it must have been hell for the official scorers, or anyone at the game watching. I only saw brief parts of the game, and every time I looked at the TV, I saw 42 at the plate and thought Butch Huskey was batting. Unless it was a lefty batter. Then I thought it was Mo Vaughn. Then, I remembered that nobody on the Mets is quite as large as Vaughn was.

42

Although much of the Major League slate for today was rained out, it was interesting to see which players would be doing their part to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. Some teams, most notably Robinson's own Dodgers, as well as the Astros, Cardinals, Brewers, Phillies and Pirates, wore, or planned to have everyone on the team dress in number 42 for the day.

Robinson's #42 had been retired in perpetuity in a ceremony at Shea Stadium in 1997. Any player who had already been wearing 42 could continue to wear it, but it could never be issued to a new player afterwards. Several players were grandfathered in to the number. The Yankees Mariano Rivera is the only active player remaining. The last player to be issued 42 was Marc Sagmoen, a little known outfielder for the Texas Rangers.

Willie Randolph was to be the only member of the Mets to wear 42 today. He'll instead wear it on Friday evening, when the Mets return home to play Atlanta. 42 has become a symbol of the spirit of Jackie Robinson across all sports, and before it was retired, many players wore the number in his honor, much in the same way that many Venezuelans wear 13 in honor of Dave Concepcion, and Puerto Ricans wear 21 to honor Roberto Clemente.

But although Concepcion and Clemente did leave their own indelible marks on the game, Robinson's legacy outshines both of them. Here's a partial list of the "All 42" team that did or planned to dress in 42 today: Gary Matthews, Jr., Milton Bradley, Rich Harden, Vernon Wells, Frank Thomas, Royce Clayton, Derrek Lee, Cliff Floyd, Jacque Jones, Carl Crawford, Orlando Hudson, Tony Clark, Barry Bonds, C.C. Sabathia, Grady Sizemore, Josh Barfield, Dontrelle Willis, Dmitri Young, Corey Patterson, Mike Cameron, Kenny Lofton, Reggie Sanders, La Troy Hawkins, Coco Crisp, David Ortiz, Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Craig Monroe, Torii Hunter, Rondell White, Ivan Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and, of course, Ken Griffey, Jr., who started this idea in the first place.

The Mets have had their share of 42s throughout their history as well. None of them ever come close to having the impact on Baseball that Jackie Robinson did, but many of them left an imprint on the Mets. Special thanks to the good people at MBTN.net (temporarily here for a site redesign) for making this search very easy.

Mo Vaughn was grandfathered into the clause while he played with the Boston Red Sox. He maintained the use of 42 while with the Anaheim Angels for two seasons, and the Mets broke out the number for him when he arrived in 2002. Although we all know that Mo's heart was always in the right place, and he came with the perfect outgoing attitude for survival in New York, he proved to be grossly and ridiculously out of shape, coming off a biceps injury that caused him to miss the entire 2001 season. Yes, he had his moments with the Mets, including a game winning HR against Wells and the Yankees, and his scoreboard-shattering HR off the Budweiser sign against Atlanta, but he could barely bend over to pick up a ground ball, and when he dove, it registered on the Richter scale. A chronically arthritic knee forced Mo into retirement in 2003, which proved to be more beneficial to the Mets, as it allowed younger, more able players to see time in the lineup. Among Mo's legacy with the Mets is this sandwich, the Mo-Licious, which was available at the Carnegie Deli. I don't think you can get it anymore. Who would want it? Who can eat that? Just looking at that picture hardens my arteries.


Butch Huskey, in addition to having signed El Guapo's glove a generation ago, was another Met 42. Butch was the original Met grandfathered into the 42 clause, having worn 42 at Shea on the night the number was retired. Huskey's legacy with the Mets is similar to Vaughn's. An engaging personality with tons of promise and power potential that went mostly unrealized, due to injuries and inconsistency. Huskey wasn't nearly as out of shape as Vaughn, and he didn't have a sandwich named after him, but he would give the Mets glimpses of greatness, only to end up stagnating. In 1996, Huskey went on a record setting power binge in Spring Training, whacking 9 HRs, and earning himself the cleanup spot in the batting order, Huskey hit .226 with 1 HR in April, and struggled to keep himself in the lineup the rest of that season. He started on the bench in 1997, but ended up in the lineup by May, and responded with a brilliant season, hitting 24 HRs, driving in 81, while hitting .287. But counted on to provide the spark with Hundley injured in 1998, again, Huskey faltered, only managing to hit .252 with 13 HRs before a hamstring injury in August ended his season, and his Mets career.

Roger McDowell also wore 42, during his time with the Mets. There was no Grandfather involved here, as it was more than 10 years prior to the retirement of 42. McDowell was, while wearing the Mets uniform, by far and away the most successful 42 in club history. McDowell was also one of the most noted characters in team history, and between his hotfoots, his array of masks, and his other assorted practical jokes, he became legendary with all Mets fans for his sense of humor. He performed just as well on the mound for several seasons, where his sinker and his constant bubble-gum blowing were always a welcome sight on some very successful Mets teams. McDowell left in 1989, in the ill advised Juan Samuel deal, but he is forever lionized in the hearts of Mets fans for his role on the '86 Championship team.

Ron Hodges wore 42 longer than any other Met ever did. And he didn't do much to make sure you remembered him. Not related to Gil, Ron Hodges spent the better part of 12 seasons as a career backup catcher, filling in as needed for Jerry Grote, John Stearns, Alex Trevino and Mike Fitzgerald, while never playing in more than 110 games in any given season between 1973 and 1984. Hodges would be the kind of gritty, gutty player you'd remember as being a key cog on a great team, except that none of the Mets teams that Hodges played for were particularly good, and Hodges himself wasn't very good either. But I'm told he was, and probably still is, a very nice man.


Rounding out the Mets 42s, Ron Taylor, a pitcher who was a key swing man out of the bullpen for the 1969 Mets, Larry Elliot, a ragtag Outfielder who never amounted to much, and Chuck Taylor, who was neither a mass murderer or a shoemaker.

None of these players hold a candle to Jackie Robinson. He didn't change the game by himself, but the game couldn't have changed without him.