Next Generation

The Mets of course made news with two moves on Monday, one of which was expected and the other of which had been long anticipated.

The first was the departure of Addison Reed to Boston for a trio of Pitching prospects whom none of us have ever really heard of so we just let them marinate in the Minors for now and hope for the best, because the hope is that they turn out to be more useful than many of the relievers the Mets have blindly been trotting out this season. As for Reed, we wish him well. He did some excellent work here; in spite of being somewhat iffy in his brief cameo in 2015, he put it all together and was outstanding in 2016 and for the most part again this season when he was shoved into the Closer's role.

The other news, of greater import, was the promotion of Amed Rosario to the Major Leagues after months of clamoring and clanging and wondering when it would actually happen. Well, now that time is here and we can see just what, exactly, Rosario is or will be. I expect he'll take a few days to get his sea legs under him; it helps that he'll be debuting in Colorado, but nonetheless that he was ready skill-wise was not in doubt. Let's see how ready he is mentally. The hope with these guys is, as always, that you have someone who will grab the position and stay there for the next 10-15 years. Sort of like the guy he's basically replacing, Jose Reyes. We'll hear that comparison made a few times, I'd think.

So...yeah. Reed out, Rosario in. Excitement abound for the last two months of a basically lost season. Let's go.

Rooster

Seattle is a place where the Mets seldom visit (and aside from that a place I've never visited, but that could be said of most Major League cities) and the Mariners are a team that the Mets seldom play. I know that these Interleague games work on a 3-year shift schedule but for whatever reason, it seems like the Mets and Mariners took a particularly long time to fall into that schedule. The Mets did play in Seattle in 2014, but prior to that they hadn't faced each other since 2008, which is the last time the Mets and Mariners played in New York, which means that the game was at Shea Stadium, which means that the Mariners have never played a game at Citi Field, one of only two Major League teams to not have done so (the other being the Cleveland Indians, who haven't played the Mets in New York since 2004). So if the Mets and Mariners seem like a rare matchup, it is.

The Mets can boast a native son of Seattle in Michael Conforto, who has come out of the land of Pearl Jam and Coffee and turned into a pretty good player, as he showed in his return home, in front of a passel of Confortos. In the 3rd inning, he hit a Home Run off of lefty Ariel Miranda which, at the time, put the Mets ahead 3-0. In the 8th inning, facing Mark Rzepczynski, another lefty, he hit another Home Run, this time dragging the Mets out of a deficit and tying the game at 5-5.

In between Conforto's two Home Runs was a Rafael Montero meltdown in which he took a 4-0 lead that had been handed to him thanks to, among other things, a 2-run Home Run from Jay Bruce, and summarily handed it back. First, he allowed a Home Run to Mike Zunino, the Seattle Catcher who's one of those "Trades High" guys because he has a ton of power and no particular plate discipline. So giving up a Home Run to Zunino was no great shakes. In the 5th, he had a Montero inning, where he started giving up hits, and throwing wild pitches, and walking guys and finally was pulled from the game after walking Nelson Cruz and loading the bases. But just so you remembered, Josh Edgin came in and allowed two of said runners to score by allowing a 2-run single to Kyle Seager (because of course it was one of the Seager boys who did it to the Mets).

Meanwhile, after a lousy first few innings, Miranda had settled down and quietly put the Mets to sleep. He departed after 6 with a lead, which Hansel Robles threatened to turn into a greater lead in the 7th. Then, of course, came the 8th, and Conforto's 2nd Home Run, and then a Met rally ensued when the Mariners brought in recently-acquired former Marlin David Phelps, whom the Mets usually knock around and they were kind enough to knock him around some more. Wilmer Flores managed to beat out a potential inning-ending double play and that opened the door for Neil Walker to double home the lead run, and Curtis Granderson to drive in the insurance run to put the Mets ahead 7-5.

Paul Sewald got the Mets through the 8th, and Addison Reed worked the 9th to finish off this series-opening victory up in the Northwest. Meanwhile, if one could use this as a segue opportunity, as the game was going on, news of another Mets trade broke, which seemed kind of mystifying to me, but while the Mets are and should be in sell mode, they traded for Marlins closer A.J. Ramos. This, I would assume, is insurance for an impending Reed trade, and nothing further. While Ramos is a perfectly capable pitcher, well, he was on the Marlins and you all know how I feel about that. I've particularly singled out Ramos for Marlin-ish behavior (excessive celebration, irritating gyrations on the mound) and part of me isn't convinced that this is another Marlin Ruse that's going to bite the Mets in the ass at some point. But, on the other hand, he is a capable pitcher, and he's a Met now, so, welcome, A.J. Ramos. We hope to wash the stink of your prior franchise off of you as quickly as possible.

Sleepy Saturday

Saturday night's game was one of those games where if you blinked, you might have missed it. Or at least that's how it felt. First of all, the game was on FOX, which always goes well for the Mets. Fortunately, Joe Buck wasn't involved, so that was a slight moral victory, although the guy who was doing the game first of all neglected to ever announce who the hell he was, and second of all was one of those stereotypical "deep-voice" types that FOX tends to hire because I suppose it's swarthy and romantic and will keep the ladies interested.

But I digress. I'd been out and came home and fell asleep, or almost fell asleep and at some point I remembered there was a game on, so I put it on just in time to see Wilmer Flores hit a Home Run, which made it 4-2 Mets, but it was the 4th inning so I figured there was still lots to happen. And then I started making dinner, which precludes me from paying too much attention to things and relying what I hear. Usually, it's Gary Cohen, and, you know, you spend so many years listening to The Best, you get used to certain inflections. I wasn't getting that with Jimmy Deepvoice. So I took that to mean nothing interesting was going on. And, well, it wasn't.

In fact, the rest of the game basically flew by to the point that by time I did check in, Addison Reed was in the game and I automatically assumed it was the 9th inning. Except he got Adam Frazier to ground out for the 3rd out of the inning and then walked off with his cap flipped back, so the game wasn't over. At that point I refocused and realized that Terry Collins had finally had enough of this shit and decided to just let Addison Reed get the 2-inning Save. It of course figured that he gave up a leadoff single to Josh Harrison to start the 9th, but he did get the next three outs to finish the game and give the Mets a 4-2 win that they sorely needed. And that's, of course, indicative of this sad state of affairs because it's June, the Mets are miles under .500 and even farther from where they need to be in the standings, and these wins are "sorely needed."

Is it any wonder I'm barely paying attention?

Just Get The Hell Out Of Here

I was already apoplectic from too much Marlins after Saturday night's game, and I suppose the fact that the Mets had already played the equivalent of 4 games in Loria's Puke Green Hell Hole already this weekend didn't help. And just imagine if the Mets had lost on Thursday. But if all that wasn't bad enough, this nightmare of a weekend came to a fitting conclusion in the most typical Marlins game ever. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the Mets fell behind the Marlins early, were stifled by a journeyman pitcher, somehow scraped their way back to tie the game in the 9th inning, and then lose the damn thing anyway in the last of the 9th on a 30 foot squibber that nobody can field. Or, in Sunday's case, the most Marlin equivalent, which is that a no-name Rookie hits his 1st Major League Home Run to end the game. Yes, you can mark the name J.T. Riddle in the book of "Stupid Marlin Tricks," since he was the culprit to cap off a perfectly miserable weekend by taking Addison Reed deep in the bottom of the 9th to give the Marlins a 4-2 win and give them 3 of 4 over the Mets for the weekend and 5 of 7 for the season.

Much like the other 3 Mets losses in this series, the end result masked yet another fine outing by a Mets starting pitcher. Rejuvenated Matt Harvey continued his solid start by holding the Marlins to 2 runs over 6 innings, this in spite of allowing 7 hits and 2 walks, which is rather unHarveylike, but also speaks in testament to the fact that he's still getting back to himself, pitching more to contact and also pitching like a pitcher and using all his tools to get himself out of trouble. Lest you forget that he's always had this in him, but the propensity to blow everyone out of the box can sometimes get the better of you. I know that none of these games turned out the way we wanted them to, but take these pitching performances in a vacuum and if nothing else, they're performing the way they're supposed to thus far. These things should even out.

They should even out because the Mets don't have to play the Fucking Marlins all the time. The Mets went from flying high at 7-3 and 5 wins in a row on Friday morning to 7-6 and everything is terrible and it's all because of the Marlins. The Mets have played 7 of their first 13 games against these clowns and that sack of shit Celebrity Manager and gone 2-5, and the 5 losses have been mostly of a totally mystifying variety. I mean, come on. Getting no-hit by Dan Straily? J.T. Riddle? I mean, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, seeing as how the Marlins entire history is pulling crap like this and I let it bother me far more than it should, but come on. Please give me one good reason why I should pay the Marlins one iota of respect. I refuse. Fuck those dudes. The Mets will get them back when it counts.

Just Like They Drew it Up

On Monday, the Mets followed the script of just enough offense to back their pitching. Tuesday, the script was to just beat the hell out of the opponent.

On Wednesday, the script was apparently no script whatsoever.

The late scratch of Granderson prior to the series finale in Philadelphia led to the somewhat incongruous sight of Michael Conforto starting in Center field and batting 1st. I'm not sure if anybody ever projected Conforto as a leadoff hitter, but it seemed to work. In the 1st inning, he singled and scored on a Yoenis Cespedes double. In the 3rd, he blasted a Home Run out to left field off of Vince Velasquez. Later, he walked and scored on a Cespedes sac fly. Through 5 innings, he'd scored 3 of the 5 Mets runs, the Mets were running off with a 5-0 lead, and things were just lovely.

One of the reasons they were so lovely was that Zack Wheeler, in his second start back from his extended absence, was brilliant, shutting down the Phillies and looking more like what we'd hoped. I again think it will be a mixture of his first two starts for some time, but the hope, of course, is that we see more of what we saw through the first 5 innings last night as opposed to the dreck we saw against Miami.

Then, of course, Wheeler hit the 6th and ran out of steam, allowing two hits and a walk and then departing with two outs. This is OK in and of itself, except that in the 6th inning, the Mets seem to be in a bit of a grey area in their bullpen. This may right itself once Familia returns, but currently what we get in these spots is Hansel Robles, who was appearing for the 3rd game in a row. Robles, in the early going, is a leading candidate for a Ballclub Flog,  as evidenced by the fact that he came in and Maikel Franco immediately blasted his first pitch over the Center Field fence for a Grand Slam that turned an easy 5-0 lead into a hairy 5-4 game, results in doubt. And this is simply Robles. It's just Robles. No consistency and constant agita, and I didn't even have to listen to Joe Benigno to know he used that word to describe Robles.

So, now it's a one-run game and now this game has all the makings of one of those head-scratchers that gets away, and for whatever reason Robles is still in the game. He walks another guy before finally getting out of the 6th...and yet mysteriously there he was back out there in the 7th. Fortunately, after getting his good buddy Cameron Rupp to ground out he was removed and order was restored. The good quotient of the bullpen then followed, as Jerry Blevins got through the 7th, Fernando Salas commandeered the 8th and Addison Reed finished things off in the 9th, all of them accomplishing what they needed to with little drama. Which is just as well because the Mets stopped hitting after the 5th.

But, this Mets team has teeth, whether you want to recognize that or not. They won't win all the time and there will certainly be times that they will play those mystifying kinds of games where nothing goes right. But more often than not they're going to play like this, and in a situation where they need to lock it down, they're going to lock it down. It might not be quite the way it was intended, but in this series sweep of Philadelphia, they've proven they have many different ways that they can beat their opponent.

Idiot Time Revisited

If you are able to find one good thing about Wednesday Night's Mets/Braves game, well, you probably couldn't find one, but just chew on this: At least the Mets don't have to play the Braves again this season.

Astonishingly, the Braves completed a 3-game sweep of the Mets, playing the role of villain or spoiler or turd sandwich to a tee as they came from out of nowhere to erase a 3-0 Mets lead, tie the game, take the lead and ultimately hang on to win when Ender Inciarte pulled a certain Game-winning Home Run from Yoenis Cespedes back from over the wall and with it put the finishing touches on a perfectly demoralizing 4-3 loss.

This is the kind of loss that they seem to have all too often when they're in the thick of a Pennant Race and have to scratch and claw their way to wins. I've been calling these last two weeks Idiot Time for the Mets for good reason, and it's because no matter what good they seem to be able to accomplish, it seems to abandon them at the worst possible moments and you end up with games like we saw last night, where the winning run gets yanked away from them in mind-boggling fashion by someone like Inciarte.

I know that these Braves are tough and spunky but they're also acting like a bunch of Marlins and enjoying this a little too much, and it seems like Inciarte is the poster boy for all of this. When the Braves swept three from the Mets here back in June, who was that punk in the middle of some key rallies? Inciarte. When the Braves stole one from the Mets down in Atlanta last weekend, who was in the middle of it? Inciarte. Who was being a pain in the ass on Monday and Tuesday? Inciarte. Who ran through a stop sign to score the tying run on Wednesday? Inciarte. Who robbed the Home Run? FUCKING INCIARTE!!! And the whole time he's whooping and jocking and pumping his fists and basically acting like a Marlin! Or Shane Victorino. Or Both. Either way, I know we've been picking on Freeman or Garcia as the "New" Met Killers on the Braves, but if there was ever a guy who just needed to be knocked on his ass, it's Inciarte. Mark my words. Inciarte. Just watch the tape.

And this was one of those games that seemed to be going wonderfully. Bartolo Colon was his usual mesmerizing self through 6 innings. Asdrubal Cabrera and Rene Rivera hit Home Runs off of non-kin Ryan Weber. It was great. And then it turned to shit and of all people Anthony Recker was the one who kicked that into motion by coming from out of nowhere to hit a 2-run Home Run off Colon. That began the unraveling. The Braves started getting guys on base, and stealing bases, and Addison Reed got rushed into the game, and Jeurys Familia was rushed into the game for a 5 out Save, and he blew it. And then the Braves took the lead in the 9th on a series of dinky hits and bleeders. Who else. Inciarte. And the Mets tried to mount that final, spirited comeback, and of course, what happened? Inciarte.

The Mets, perhaps, peaked too early in this spirited drive they've had over the last month, because now it seems like they've run out of steam a little bit these past several games. They could mask it against Minnesota. Maybe they can start masking it again, but who can be sure? The Phillies are a tough team too. But the Braves seem to have been their scourge this season. The Mets finished 9-10 against the Braves this season, which probably sounds like a shock to everyone because they were 2-7 against them at Citi Field. I've been saying this for a while now and whatever will happen to the Mets will happen. But if this is going to be the difference between the Mets playing beyond October 2nd and going home, well, the Mets are going to spend all winter ruing their inability to handle the Braves in 2016.

Make Yourself Useful

About 30 minutes in to tonight's Mets/Cardinals game, I was already formulating how I was going to once again rip into Jon Niese for another gutless performance, taking the mound injured, probably lying about it and pissing away a 3 run lead that was dropped in his lap in a crucial game that the Mets needed to win.

In reality, though, we really ought to thank Niese. Because he not only pitched poorly, but also got hurt (and again was probably hurt before he even hit the mound) in the 1st inning, he actually spared the Mets from an even greater disaster, and also allowed Fake deGrom Robert Gsellman to make his Major League Debut instead in what was tantamount to a start. Dropped into a virtually untenable situation, Gsellman buckled down in the sort of way we never see from Niese, stopped the Cardinals rally and kept them off the board for another 3 innings after that, allowing the Mets offense to rebuild a lead off of erratic Jaime Garcia and hold off the Cardinals late to win the opening game in St. Louis 7-4 and ruin the nights of the selfie-stick-waving Cardinal fans.

The conventional talk will focus on the Mets offense, which had a great night, taking advantage of Garcia early and Sam Tuivalala late, and got Home Runs from Wilmer Flores and Justin Ruggiano, but it really was the Pitching that won this game for the Mets. Never mind what Gsellman did, which ought to draw enough ink in and of itself (although whether or not it will remains to be seen), but following Gsellman, Josh Smoker threw two innings, allowing only a Randal Graves Home Run, and after that, Jerry Blevins, Jim Henderson (in his return to action following a lengthy injury), Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia held the Cardinals scoreless. That's not to say it was easy, because the Cardinals kept getting men on base all night, and we were essentially waiting for the Cardinals to do something typically Cardinal and annoying and caused their fans to slap each other with their seat cushions, but that never happened. Whenever a Mets pitcher needed to get a key out in this game, it seems that they were able to, and the end result is that the Cardinals were the ones left holding their jocks, leaving 11 men on base and not getting any closer than 6-4.

And, really, this is all because of Niese. I'd love to be able to rake him over the coals once again for basically pulling a Steve Trachsel and throwing the Mets further into the abyss and undoing all the good stuff they did over the weekend, but, you know, addition by subtraction. If Niese is hurt and has to miss some time, well, maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. And if Robert Gsellman really has the insides he displayed tonight, maybe we once again have something here. We could certainly use it.

Golden Guys

Apparently, all the Mets needed to fix their problems was to see the Cubs. It doesn't seem to matter how many games the Cubs have won, or how big a lead they have in their division, or what kind of wins record or runs record they're on pace to break, or how many No Hitters GOLDEN JAKE has thrown, the Mets seem to look awfully comfortable against these guys.

Winning the first two games of the series was pretty good, but it was sneered to us on FOX, who carried last night's game, the Mets did the damage against the good Cubs pitchers, but now they have to face GOLDEN JAKE, who in case you hadn't heard is the second coming of Nolan Ryan.

So, of course, in keeping with recent trends, the Mets jumped on Arrieta early. Brandon Nimmo walked to lead off, Neil Walker followed with a 2-run Home Run and the Mets were on their way. It seemed as though the Mets were ready to blow the doors off Arrieta as they kept laying off the junk he was throwing up there, worked a bunch of deep counts and ultimately made him throw 35 pitches, but they didn't score any further.

Bartolo Colon on the other hand just chugged along as he usually does. He only hiccuped in the 4th inning when Anthony Rizzo tied the game with a 2-run Home Run (and odd how this is the first time I've mentioned Rizzo all weekend--he's probably been carrying the team the most this season and the Mets had just stoned him to that point). No matter. The Mets went right back out against GOLDEN JAKE and got the runs back, thanks to a dying quail from Travis d'Arnaud that plated a pair of 2-out runs in the last of the 4th. This was one of those parachute hits, that managed to elude Javier Baez, the Shortstop who's playing 2nd Base in Joe Maddon's weird lineup (not to be confused with Ben Zobrist, the 2nd Baseman who's playing Right Field).

This got the Mets back ahead 4-2 over Arrieta and basically put a giant turd in his kale juice. I've already talked about how I've basically decided that Arrieta is just a total stick in the mud, whether it's because of the mutant beard he has, or the milquetoast interviews he always gives, or the Yoga, he just seems like he's no fun at all, and he basically proved my point last night, since after the Mets jumped on him in the first and he didn't get some close calls, he spent most of his 5.1 innings of work stomping around the mound with a giant puss on his face. Bartolo, by comparison, looked like Bartolo. He finished 6 innings and allowed 2 runs on 4 hits.

And, Erik Goeddel came in for the 7th and immediately gave up a 2-out Home Run to Zobrist and made everyone rather nervous. Jerry Blevins followed and walked Jason Heyward and got everyone more nervous. However, Addison Reed came in and restored order, first by striking out Baseball Jesus, and then by striking out everyone in the 8th, looking very much like the guy who'd been pitching so well over the first two months of the season. In the 9th, Jeurys Familia had a similarly easy time of things.

The best part of this, of course, was taking down GOLDEN JAKE in front of a National TV audience on FOX, with wonderful Joe Buck and chuckling jackass Ken Rosenthal in the building. Usually, this is a combination that leads to the Mets doing stupid things and getting sneered at some more. Instead, the Mets threw it back in their faces with aplomb. The Mets have now taken the first 3 games against the Cubs and looked especially sharp in doing so. The Cubs have sort of been this unsolvable nut for a majority of Major League teams over the first half of the season, but the Mets, in spite of every dopey issue they've had, have been able to crack the code. Now, amazingly, the Mets can sweep the Cubs right out of town altogether this afternoon.

Ugh

The Mets managed to once again shit the bed in a June game in Atlanta this evening. After leading most of they way, generating a meager amount of offense against Matt Wisler and after weathering a rather middling performance from Matt Harvey, the roof fell in on them in the last of the 8th inning as Addison Reed gave up a 2-run Home Run to Adonis Garcia, turning a 3-2 lead into an irritating and irritable 4-3 loss.

Really, what's most mystifying about all this is the fact that the Mets have lost 4 straight games to the Braves, a team that they should be pounding into submission. Last season, the Mets did a pretty good job of handling these lousy teams and that's one of the primary reasons things turned out the way they did in the end. This year, that hasn't been the case. They've had a hard time with the Braves lately, and there's really no good reason as to why this has happened. I'm stumped.

Nobody seems to have exemplified this specific issue more than Harvey, who just seems to have a thing with the Braves more than anyone else this season. At least it's not the fake-ass Marlins, but it's just as annoying. Harvey has faced the Braves 4 times already in the first half of the season and each time it seems like he's had to battle uphill the entire game. Whether it was giving up Home Runs to Mallex Smith, or giving up 4 straight 2-out doubles, or getting raked over the coals by ancient A.J. Pierzynski, he just has no answer for any of this.

Still, he departed this game with a lead, thanks to single runs in the 2nd, 3rd and 5th, and thanks to a pair of clutch defensive plays from Michael Conforto. Conforto's throw home to nail Emilio Bonifacio to end the 7th inning was a real thing of beauty, and even more beautiful when you consider that this is usually the sort of play that would land Travis d'Arnaud back on the DL...except that he for once emerged unscathed.

And you start to think that once again the Mets will weather their way through a 1-run late inning lead...and then Addison Reed went splat on an 0-2 slider to Adonis Garcia that clearly didn't slide and wound up in the left field seats. And with one inning left to de-stun themselves, well, you know how it went from there.

So...yeah. I don't think any team with any sort of grand aspirations should be losing 4 games in a row to a team pushing 50 losses less than halfway into the season. But somehow they have.

Remember The Feeling

Losing hurts worse than winning feels good.

-Lewis Grizzard

That pretty much summed up what I was feeling as the clock struck midnight both literally and figuratively on the 2015 Mets season. Though the Mets nearly closed out Game 5 of the World Series behind a Heroic effort by Matt Harvey, the Kansas City Royals once again proved to be far too relentless, too determined to let the Mets keep that door open. The Royals broke our hearts when they tied the game and ultimately won in an absolutely gut-wrenching 12th inning explosion, forcing Mets fans to flee and Royals fans to take over our building as they closed out their first World Series Championship in 30 years. 

I was, once again at Citi Field on Sunday night, fortunate enough to have been a ticket plan holder, prescient enough to go all in on a full package of Postseason tickets and wind up in possession of seats for all 3 World Series Home Games. Sure, I'd batted around the idea of selling some of these tickets and running to the bank, but my heart won out. How often do the Mets make the World Series period, let alone how often does a schmuck like me end up with tickets basically dropped in my lap? I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Sure, ultimately, it's just a game. But a game at this level of the Playoffs, on November 1st of all days is pretty intense without the teams even setting foot on the field. This would have been the final game of the year at Citi Field regardless. I and the other 45-some-odd-thousand people there were just hoping it wasn't the final game of the year period.

And it started off good, it really did. We all know what happened. Curtis Granderson homered in the 1st. Matt Harvey set out intent on pitching the game of games. Some games, Harvey pitches angry and you can tell from the moment he sets foot on the field. I don't know if pitching angry really does enough to justify how he was pitching. His intensity was palpable throughout the entire stadium. Or maybe everyone was just so anxious because the entire season was on the line. He knew that runs were going to be at a premium. He had to be as close to perfect as the circumstances would allow him to be. Yes, the Royals nicked him early, but they only nicked him, not cut him. Three early baserunners never made it past 2nd base. In the 4th, he struck out the side, something he didn't accomplish in his Game 1 start when he struck out two batters in total. After finishing off the inning by whiffing Mike Moustakas, Harvey pumped his fist and started screaming as he ran off the mound. The further he went, the more intense he got, feeding off the energy of the crowd. Three more strikeouts in the 5th. Worked around a 1-out single in the 6th. The Mets got him a second run off of Edinson Volquez in the bottom of that inning, in a rally where it seemed like they had to do an awful lot of work to just scrape out one run. A third run would have been enormous, but it never materialized.

All this mattered little to Harvey. In the 7th, he gave up a leadoff single, but then coolly set down the Royals, expending all of 9 pitches, and when Alex Rios grounded out to finish the inning, there was more yelling, more pumping of fists, more "LET'S GO!"s. By now, pitch count was immaterial. This was his last shot. He had all winter to rest, so just leave it on the field. Conventional wisdom, I suppose, would have said let him go until he ran into trouble in the 8th, and then bring in Jeurys Familia. But I wasn't thinking that. When he ran off the mound in the 7th, I turned to my friend and said, "He's finishing this shit."

Harvey cruised through the 8th again on only 9 pitches. Ben Zobrist finished by flying out and the crowd was roaring with approval. Then, of course, there was that half inning of trepidation, where we in the stands had no idea whether or not he'd finish what he started. We wanted him to, of course. I felt he should. Harvey obviously felt he should too, and of course when Dan Warthen came and told him he was out, he flatly said "No Way," and ran down the dugout to state his case to Terry Collins.

Obviously, Harvey was persuasive enough, and perhaps had Collins not relented Harvey likely would have taken his Manager's head off, but that set the stage for what would be a legendary finish to a legendary performance. It was sort of an odd scene. After the last of the 8th inning ended, none of the Mets came out on to the field. The song "Seven Nation Army" began playing over the PA. One by one, the Mets position players came out of the dugout from one end. As they entered, an absolutely deafening roar began to rise from the 3rd base side of the stadium as Harvey ran up the steps and charged on to the field, still screaming, still pumping his fists, and Citi Field shook like Shea. He had this. He Had This.

And then he didn't. Instead of crafting the kind of game reminiscent of Jack Morris in '91, or Curt Schilling in '93, or Josh Beckett in '03, Harvey's game melted away into an ending closer to Al Leiter in 2000. Though he was ahead in the count against Lorenzo Cain, he lost him to a walk. It seemed like that was all the Royals needed. Like clockwork. Stolen base, RBI double, lead cut to 2-1, Harvey out of the game and instead of the roaring hero's sendoff, it was more of a horrified murmur. Jeurys Familia came in the game and, of course, things went from bad to worse. The Royals continued to push buttons and cajole the Mets into careless mistakes. Familia got Moustakas to ground out, moving Hosmer to 3rd with 1 out. Salvador Perez followed and with the infield in, hit a ground ball to David Wright. Wright looked the runner back, but Hosmer broke for home as Wright threw to 1st. Lucas Duda secured one out, wheeled and threw towards the plate. A good throw and Eric Hosmer is out by 20 feet.

A good throw is what Lucas Duda didn't make. The ball sailed to the backstop, Hosmer scored, Royals players were skipping all over the place and the game was tied.

More appropriately, the game was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

It really was only a matter of time before the Royals figured out a way to force home the winning run. The Mets had been able to muster 3 hits to that point, and the way the Royals bullpen had been performing, anything beyond that didn't seem especially likely. Meanwhile, the Royals kept grinding. You could probably say this about any At Bat they had in the series. Mets pitchers would get ahead 0-2 or 1-2, and then the sequence of pitches would go something like this: Foul, Foul, Ball, Foul, Foul, Ball, Foul, Ball somewhere in play. Watching the Royals at bats in the top of each Extra Inning was a study in pure torture. Familia set them down in the 10th and Jon Niese, who did yeoman's work out of the bullpen this series, worked the 11th. By the 12th, sitting around, catatonically shaking my legs and chomping on my fingernails became too much. I had to get up and move around somewhere, and my friend did as well. At that late hour, with things playing out as they were, I was doing myself no favors staying where I was. So we got up and moved around, down towards 3rd base. And, of course, that's when the Royals struck.

When that first run scored, a few people started to get up and leave.

When the second run scored, more Mets fans headed for the exits.

When Lorenzo Cain cleared the bases, turning the inning from a debacle to a total bloodletting, the mass exodus occurred. Could you blame them? This seemed to be an almost predictable finish. Just to expedite our exit, which had become a painful process during this Postseason run, we moved down to the Field Level. Unfortunately, we found ourselves directly behind a mass of Royals fans, ready to kick off the celebration of a lifetime in our house. With two outs, I could see Royals players literally hanging over the dugout railing.

I couldn't take it any longer. I couldn't watch them celebrate on our field.

I had to leave.

Oh, I heard that final roar as I reached the plaza. It seemed as though many Mets fans had left before me, perhaps wisely. For as loud as the Royals fans were inside, that's how quiet it was outside.

The ride back from Citi Field on the 7 train can either be a long ride or a short one depending on the circumstances. This night was a particularly long ride. I spent most of the time reflecting on this 2015 Mets season, and really, it's hard to not consider the season among the most memorable in the history of the team. I mean, who the hell though that this was even a Playoff team, let alone a World Series team? I picked the Mets to go as far as the NLCS before the season, but I can be overly optimistic at times. Usually, when that happens, the Mets end up falling flat on their faces. And they did plenty of that this season, but man, when they got it together, they really got it together and for once, the Mets actually overachieved. This wasn't supposed to happen this year, but it did. Somehow, the Mets caught that lightning in a bottle and rode it all the way down to the World Series.

Yeah, things ended up badly, and the Mets ultimately turned to mush at some key moments, but the Royals really forced the Mets into making these mistakes. The Royals played every game as though it were their last. They took the horrible bitterness that came from losing the 7th game of the World Series last year and used that to fuel them through to a World Series Championship this year. And perhaps the Mets could learn from that. Remember this feeling. Remember how awful it was to watch those guys celebrating on our field. Remember how they ran all over us, stealing bases, working pitchers, picking up cheap hits and pressuring the Mets into mistakes. The Royals played like Champions and they earned their Championship. The Mets still have to do that yet.

Remember this feeling, because it's hard to get to this point. But getting back isn't quite in the forefront of my thoughts right now. It's sort of hard to articulate, perhaps because the sting of losing, and losing the last two games the way they did is still fresh. Time passes, though, and the losses fade, or at least I hope they will, and I'll begin to reflect on this 176-game wild ride the 2015 Mets took us on, and how I made it to 27 games this year—my highest total since 1999—and how I made it to 6 Postseason games, and how the Mets Actually Made It To The World Series This Year! I went to a Mets game in Freaking November!

It actually happened this year! Who the hell saw this coming? Sure, there's a lot of bitterness right now. But I'm awfully proud to be a Mets fan.

Ill-Timed Blues

Were the Mets in a more precarious position, and were the team that's in pursuit of them possessive of more intestinal fortitude, maybe I might get more worked up about this homestand that's now mercifully ended. After playing dominant baseball at Citi Field for the first half of the season, the Mets have slowed their roll at home, and this has culminated in what was by far and away their worst homestand of the season, where they won 3 of 9 games, and yes, three of them were the stupid Subway Series games, but the other 6 were against teams they really should have handled, and they didn't.

I still can't realistically slip into panic mode here, if only because while the Mets have had issues over the past week, Washington has shown no signs of breaking through the door the Mets have ever-so-slightly left open for them. While the Mets were slogging through their game against Atlanta, the Nationals were trying to ride Max Scherzer to the death against Baltimore and ultimately Scherzer bit the dust first, allowing a backbreaking Home Run to Manny Machado on his 122nd pitch of the night. Thus, for the second night in a row, while the Mets looked really lousy against a really lousy team, their poor play was of no consequence as they lost no ground, and knocked two more digits off their magic number.

That being said, it's still not so great to see the Mets playing so poorly at this time of year. Yes, teams will run hot and cold and quite honestly, the Mets were on an unsustainable hot streak. Much like at the beginning of the season, when they ran off 11 wins in a row and looked like the best team in Baseball, they eventually fell back to Earth and regressed to the mean. When they played half asleep for two months, they also weren't quite as bad as they looked. The truth lies somewhere in between. No team is immune; the Cardinals and Royals have looked pretty bad over the last week or two as well and they're both cruising into the Postseason.

Still, you'd rather see the Mets play better at home against a dead team, and it's kind of annoying when their best player, who granted has killed the Mets a thousand times (as opposed to the ten thousand times Larry stuck it to us), comes off the bench and basically singlehandedly beats the Mets. I've had no shortage of unkind things to say about Freddie Freeman (although for what it's worth everything I've read is that he's a lovely person) you can't say he's thrown in the towel. But what he did last night was truly absurd and really shouldn't have been allowed to happen. But it did.

So, the Mets now go on the road for their final road trip of the season, and actually this is probably a good thing for the Mets right now. For whatever reason they have this weird thing at home sometimes (and even with that thing this is their most successful season at Citi Field to date) and going on the road seems to help them clear their heads and band together. Who knows.