Sunday, like most of the two games on Saturday, was a day where I didn't get to see much of the Mets game, unless you count the few innings I saw from a distance while eating lunch someplace. The Mets were ahead 2-1 in the 4th-5th inning while I was around a TV and as such I'd missed all the game's meaningful action. What I did see was the Mets win behind a pitcher making his season debut for the second game in a row.
I can't say I had or continue to have the highest of hopes for Seth Lugo, but if nothing else, he acquitted himself well enough down the stretch last season and pitched with enough confidence to inspire some sort of positive feelings this season. And, well, not having him as he worked back from an elbow injury that might have been severe enough to necessitate the Big Boy Surgery was problematic, not so much because Lugo is a world-beater, but because he's substantially a better option than whatever else was available. What will happen from here I'm not certain but Lugo and his exceptionally spinny curveball shined for 7 innings and 90 pitches in Atlanta, on a day when one would have expected a fly-ball pitcher to have some trouble. But Lugo allowed 6 hits and 1 run along with 2 walks and 6 strikeouts and that was enough to get him a win because the Mets scraped out 2 runs against Jaime Garcia.
I'll echo what I said yesterday about these reinforcements being very helpful, particularly considering the fact that the Mets won 3 of 4 over the weekend when it sure as shit looked like they were ripe to get swept. So they're starting to tilt things in their favor, but of course the acid test will come this week when they come home to play America's Sweethearts, the Chicago Cubs in what should be a nauseatingly good time at Citi Field. I'll be around, so I hope to have the opportunity to see those cocky pricks knocked down a peg (and yes, that's more commentary of the obnoxious Cubs fans sure to show up than the team themselves).
The Mets, on Saturday, did not follow priorhistoryon Saturday by continuing to lose games in Atlanta in June, in spite of Saturday's Day-Night Doubleheader (my favorite!) at least partly being played on one of those painfully sunny Atlanta days where the temperature looks to be no less than 115˚.
But the Mets did not lose the sunshine game. In fact, they didn't lose either game. They won both games and kind of looked like a cohesive team in doing so. It was a little more like another day-night Doubleheader they played in Atlanta (which oddly was the last time they swept a doubleheader of any kind) a few years ago that proved a harbinger of things to come—or perhaps of a time the Mets are trying to recapture.
I was out most of the afternoon, which shouldn't be of much surprise to anyone who's read this blog with any regularity, and as such I didn't see much, if any of the early game. But I did follow along on my phone as I was able, such as the case may be, and so I saw the Mets hanging on to a tenuous 1-0 lead throughout most of the afternoon. The Mets scored an early run off of Sean Newcomb, a lefty making his Major League debut—one of those things that has a tendency to bedevil the Mets—but he was matched for the most part by Robert Gsellman, who kept the Braves off the board altogether. I checked back later to see the score was 2-1 in the 8th; to that point both Mets runs had involved Wilmer Flores, who was busy quietly putting his stamp on a pretty memorable afternoon all things considered. Fortuitously, I found myself in a store with some televisions on around the 9th inning, when the Mets had the bases loaded and Yoenis Cespedes at the plate, so I saw what transpired there as Cespedes hit a Grand Slam to give the Mets a 6-1 cushion and, you know, provide the team with that little something extra that had been missing these past six weeks.
I was still out when the nightcap started at the rather odd time of 6pm, which I guess was done to accommodate a postgame concert, although they have a habit of throwing in some bizarre start times in Atlanta (I seem to remember there being a game scheduled for 5pm on Sunday of all hours some time ago), so I didn't see the early innings of the game, which essentially involved Steven Matz welcoming himself back into the fold by providing that little something extra that had been missing from the starting rotation all season and, you know, pitching economically without giving up any runs. Unfortunately, Matz was matched by Matt Wisler, who hasn't pitched especially well in general, except when he faces the Mets, and he subsequently turns into John Smoltz. So it was scoreless into the middle innings, but the Mets rallied in the 5th and Jay Bruce hit a 3-run Home Run to break the ice and more or less ice the game. Matz threw shutout ball through 7 and reminded everyone that when he's healthy, he's really good (now if only he could stay healthy). The Mets then tacked on more runs, most of them involving Wilmer Flores, who banged out 4 hits in the 2nd game to finish the day 6-for-9, and the Mets coasted home with an 8-1 victory to give the Mets a sweep of the Doubleheader at a point when things seemed to be at their most grim.
These reinforcements are nice and kind of underscore why people were so optimistic about the Mets at the outset of the season, or, more appropriately, why the spate of injuries is so infuriating. If the Mets could stay healthy...If, if, if, to the point where it's all kind of hollow. The reality is that it happened and the Mets have dug themselves a pretty major hole. I'm not certain if it's altogether too late for them to claw themselves out of it. however, stranger things have happened...
Going through this season to this point, I guess, what, 60 games in, has been kind of a chore. That's what happens when you come in pretty well convinced that this team is going to break through and find the greatness that they've been chasing for 31 years now...and then the bell rings and the whole thing just falls flat. The Mets ran out to 7-3 and since then the whole story has been win 1, lose 2, win 1, lose 3, win 2, lose 3 more. But Friday night's game in Atlanta was one of those games that, in my younger, angrier days might have just thrown me over the edge.
You can basically blow through the 1st 8 1/2 innings in a few sentences. Matt Harvey was OK. Not great, just OK, and managed to make it through his start not allowing any runs. Unfortunately, because he threw so many pitches—I mean, what else is new—that start only lasted 5 innings. Curtis Granderson hit a Home Run and the Mets led 1-0, and that lasted all the way to the next inning, when Paul Sewald came in, gave up a couple of hits and got Dansby Swanson'ed when Swanson doubled home two runs to give the Braves the lead. The Mets tied it on an out-of-nowhere Home Run from Travis d'Arnaud and thus it was tied into the bottom of the 9th.
Fernando Salas was in after having pitched a reasonably quiet 8th, and with 1 out, here was Swanson again, and at this point the game basically turned into a microcosm of the entire Mets season. You know, Swanson hasn't had a great season but that should hold little bearing on anything because he tattooed the Mets up real good late last year and I expect we'll see more of that. So Swanson hits one up the middle, and really this should be a single probably 100 times out of 100. And there's Curtis Granderson, moving after the ball with no particular sense of urgency, like he's going for another helping at the clubhouse buffet. So Swanson takes off for second and makes it, and not only does he make it, he makes it easily. So already, I'm incensed. Never mind the "maybe a Shortstop with better range makes the play" argument, because I'm not worried about that. Curtis Granderson played that ball like an asshole, and Swanson promptly made him look like an asshole. One pitch later, the game was over when Rio Ruiz singled through the hole where Cabrera probably would have been if Swanson had properly been on 1st, and Swanson scored and the Braves had a veritable Marlins party on the Infield. Probably because they all knew that they just stole this game from under the noses of a team that's totally fucking asleep right now. You could have seen Ruiz's single coming a mile away. Doesn't matter if Conforto didn't have a handle on the ball. He wasn't throwing out Swanson anyway.
I don't often outwardly think that the Mets deserve to lose games, but the Mets deserved to lose that game. They played like a bunch of assholes and they should feel like assholes. Sometimes, humiliation can be a good thing and if the first two months of this season wasn't bad enough, maybe a game like this will wake them up. The Mets, even in their neutered state, should be feeding the Braves their lunch. Instead, they're standing around with their thumbs up their asses while opposing players circle the bases at will. This isn't a Manager thing and it's not as though Granderson's the only culprit here because you see it in bits and pieces constantly. It seems like an annual thing, actually, that the Mets go into Atlanta in June and it seems like that Atlanta air just sucks the life out of them, and they look slow and tired and that sun is beating down on them and they get swept. A sweep wouldn't surprise me at this point.
The Mets scored 16 runs last night in order to bail out Jacob deGrom, who struggled to make his way through 5 innings against the Atlanta Braves. If that isn't indication that this season has gone completely haywire, well, I'm not sure what you need to see.
This new stadium in Atlanta, SunTrust ChopHouse or whatever they choose to call it, doesn't look terribly dis-similar to Citi Field if you were just watching a game on TV. It's got that "Brickyard" wall behind home plate, typical of these new parks, with some whimsical touches out beyond the outfield wall, some quirks like a low Outfield fence and what have you. But the similarities seem to end there. Where Citi Field looks large and plays large, SunTrust is clearly the exact opposite. In April, fly balls in Citi Field that look good off the bat end up getting swallowed in by the Outfield, and even moving the fences in twice hasn't changed things. In SunTrust, baseballs seem to fly out with regularity, and even line drives seem to fly. What's going to happen in the Summer? This will be the latest Steroid Field, right up there with Citizens Bank Park, Great American Ballpark and that other stadium I can't remember with the 200' Right Field line.
But so the Mets did manage to score 16 runs Wednesday, striking early and often against our old friend Bartolo Colon, who had a hard time getting through 4 innings. We know that Bartolo is susceptible to these "Fat and sweaty" games every so often and the Mets happen to be the beneficiary of one of these games. They weren't hitting the ball out of the ballpark but, of course, there are many ways to score runs and the Mets seem to have remembered this, banging out 20 hits in order to plate all those runs. And everyone seemed to chip in, Jose Reyes continued to slowly emerge from his April cave and drove in 5 runs, Rene Rivera drove in 3, Michael Conforto was in the middle of things and even Jacob deGrom had 2 hits. Which was fortunate because he wasn't especially sharp on the mound.
deGrom has now had 2 outings in his last 3 where he's kind of fizzled out and given up too many walks, or lost his point or whatever, which is kind of worrisome looking at the big picture and the fact that this Mets rotation isn't at all resembling what they were supposed to be right now. And, yes, that means that people are writing snarky articles and making snide comments because they have nothing better to do than crack on the Mets. But, as seasons go, players and staffs run hot and cold and I'd expect deGrom will even himself out. Just like I wouldn't expect the Mets offense to run up 16 runs on a regular basis. Really, it's the resiliency more than anything else that soothes the worry. The Mets have shown previously that they can be down but not out. A couple of wins in Washington, a couple of wins in Atlanta with a chance for more, and go from there.
OK, OK. On the second night Atlanta turned back into Atlanta and nothing went right for the Mets.
After being spotted a 2-0 lead thanks to a Jay Bruce Home Run, Matt Harvey handed the lead back to the Braves almost immediately, and then just kind of slogged through the remainder of his outing as the Braves ostensibly waterboarded him to death with a series of singles and doubles, inching ahead and eventually out of reach and only a Pig-Lipstick Grand Slam from Bruce in the 9th made the final score a more respectable-looking 9-7 as opposed to the 9-3 mess this game really should be remembered as.
This was one of those games that I kind of kept tuning in and out of. I was late tuning in altogether, in spite of the fact that most Atlanta games start at 7:35 instead of the more customary 7:10, so if nothing else it was only the 2nd inning when I put the game on, but irregardless it was pushing 8:30, which wasn't a good sign. At that point it was already 2-2 and Atlanta went ahead 3-2 when Ender Inciarte injected himself into the proceedings and made a pain in the ass of himself, which is generally what he does against the Mets. Asdrubal Cabrera re-tied the game in the 3rd with a Home Run that was really tagged, but then in the 4th Harvey kind of melted down and the Braves just kept getting hits and scoring runs and by time the dust cleared it was well after 9pm, the Mets were behind 6-3 and everything was terrible. I couldn't even enjoy getting to see our dear old friend R.A. Dickey float that Knuckleball around like he used to.
Then, I turned the game off altogether, or, more appropriately, I was eating dinner with my other half and she asked that we watch something else. So I missed Josh Smoker/Fernando Salas turn the game into a tire fire in the 7th, but I guess that's just as well. But I was back in time to see Bruce hit a truly irrelevant Grand Slam in the 9th to serve no other purpose than pad his stats, force a pitching change and prolong the game for another 5 minutes.
I mean, yes, I know. The Mets weren't going to go Forever-and-0 at SunTrust Yards and that first loss was probably going to come at some point this week because the Mets just aren't doing that well. And I'm sure there will be days that this place will just rankle me to no end. But it's too early to tell whether it's as rancid as its predecessor, or some other similarly troublesome ballparks where nothing good ever happens to the Mets (see: Petco Park). Time will, I suppose, tell.
The Mets played their first game in Suburban Atlanta's sparkling new SunTrust Park or SunTrust Field last night, a refreshing change after playing the past 20 years in a stadium that shall no longer be named, where they posted a record of 20-142 and suffered innumerable indignities. And after one batter in this new place, perhaps we saw signs that things would be different here. Michael Conforto led off the game with a Home Run, getting things off on the right foot, and spurred the Mets on to a 7-5 victory.
I like this new place already!
SunTrust Park or Field or Gulag or whatever they're calling it seems to be a fairly generic-looking "old new" ballpark, which is now what basically every stadium is nowadays. The other place wasn't especially memorable either, except for all the wrong reasons but that didn't even have a "retro" feel to it. I suspect, as time passes and these new stadiums eventually lose their shine, that the new retro will become the utilitarian, cookie-cutter stadiums of the 1960s, so maybe someday we'll get Shea Stadium and Fulton County Stadium back, but what the hell do I know.
The Mets scored early and often against Julio Teheran, which they could have done last week if they'd bothered to hit, since he was ripe for the taking, and on the other side, Robert Gsellman if nothing else didn't have the complete and total meltdown that he did last week and managed to get through 5 plus innings allowing 5 runs instead of giving them all up in the 1st inning, which was nice of him. In fact, it was actually good enough to net him a victory this time around.
Other good things happened too. Conforto supplemented his Home Run with a 2-run single in the 3rd inning. Jose Reyes, who has appeared to show some signs of consciousness lately, hit a Home Run late to give the Mets an insurance run. Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia finished out the game with some more cobweb-shaking performances or stabilizing performances as the case may be. Really, more than anything else, the Mets needed this victory just to heal everyone's psyche after the early-morning injury news regarding Noah Syndergaard. To say nothing of the fact that they needed to remind everyone that they were still a viable team after getting 23 runs hung on them on Sunday. What this will lead to, I'm not sure. It feels like a long road back to respectability at this point, but at least they didn't have to follow up Sunday's debacle with having to go to Atlanta Baseball Hell.
The Mets played their first mid-week afternoon game of the season on Thursday and it's a good thing that it was played then, because most of the work-going public (read: ME) didn't have to be subjected to the flaming turd they served up.
It was bad enough to have tickets to Wednesday's game and then have Noah Syndergaard scratched from the start. The same thing then happened this afternoon, which was accompanied with the much more troublesome news that he had "arm irritation" which I would have to imagine gave 99% of Mets fans a heart attack because that's what happens whenever the words "Noah Syndergaard" "Arm" and "Irritation" are used in the same sentence. Syndergaard himself poo-pooed the news, calling it something minor and apparently he seemed a bit rankled to have been scratched, but his health being as essential as it is to the success of the team it probably makes more sense to give him a break. Supposedly he'll pitch on Sunday. I guess as with most things I'll believe it when I see it.
The start, then, went to Matt Harvey, who's still regaining the lost luster and although he managed to escape some trouble in the early innings, he ran out of steam in the 5th and the Braves just started teeing off on him. Granted, the Braves touched him for a pair of runs and it felt as though the Mets had to muster up a herculean effort to simply tie the score, but Harvey just came undone. Kurt Suzuki hit a 3-run Home Run, other Braves did other things and 2-2 became 6-2 rather quickly.
Meanwhile, R.A. Dickey, our old friend, returned to Citi Field for the first time since he was dealt so many years ago and did his thing as he usually does. The knuckleball doesn't seem to float quite as devastatingly as it did back in 2012 but nonetheless he did what he needed to do, holding the Mets to 3 runs in his 6 innings of work. I can't say for certain since I didn't see any of the game but I would have to assume he was greeted warmly.
Then there was the Yoenis Cespedes injury, which seemed to be brewing for about a week, ever since he left a game against Philadelphia with a balky hamstring. Whether he was rushed or not is immaterial. Whether or not this is a Cortisone Shot Ramirez rabbit hole is as well. When these things happen it's hard for them to let go and maybe 10 days of rest might have helped, maybe not, but he obviously felt good enough to come back last night but of course the whole thing went on him this afternoon, so now I'd have to imagine he's definitely going on the DL for the next 10 days or however long it takes for this thing to heal up. As if the Mets needed more injuries right now.
The end result was a forgettable afternoon to cap off a forgettable series and a forgettable homestand that saw the Mets go 1-7, lose the last 6 and drop them into the cellar of the NL East, behind even these miserable Braves and the Fake ass Marlins at 8-13 with a trip to Washington looming and no conceivable help in sight. I mean, I hate to panic in April but the Mets are one lousy road trip away from this season spiraling out into 2011 and all the talk and good vibes dissolving into more jeers and laughter from the hoi polloi. The only thing I can tell myself at this point is the old adage that teams often aren't as bad as they look when they're losing. Of course, the flip side is that they aren't as good as they look when they're winning. At some point this ought to even out. I can't be certain as to whether or not it will be too late but this version of the Mets has been known to not have a "too late."
Wednesday night was my 3rd game of the season at Citi Field. It was actually supposed to be Tuesday night, but extenuating circumstances forced me to change my Tuesday tickets to Wednesday. Then, weather forced the cancellation of Tuesday's game altogether. Then, what I had assumed would be a most entertaining pitching matchup of R.A. Dickey and Noah Syndergaard dissolved into Julio Teheran vs Robert Gsellman...which meant that through three games this season, I've seen Julio Teheran pitch more than anyone else. It was still somewhat misting when I arrived at Citi Field although it seemed like the game was in no particular danger of being delayed altogether.
Then, of course Gsellman came out, started flittering sliders all over the place and gave up 5 runs before most of the paltry crowd that showed up had even made it to their seats. When that happens, and the Mets are in an instant hole like that, and I immediately wish I hadn't shown up that particular night, well, those final 8 innings just can't go by fast enough. It's one thing if the Mets are playing well and you think they might actually be able to pull themselves back from a 5-run deficit, but the Mets continue to not hit, and even the return of Yoenis Cespedes and Travis d'Arnaud didn't help. Teheran was more than ripe for the taking in this one, as the Mets had opportunities in the middle innings, but the stink was on this one already.
So, yeah. By 7:40 I was ready to leave. That's not a good feeling. And of course being that I obsessively score all my games I have to at least pay some kind of attention to what's going on, so I can't just meander around the stadium, even with access to all these clubs and whatnot. The point of all this is that the game becomes mostly scenery to an evening out and, yeah, I'm keeping score but I couldn't exactly tell you what happened from there. I know Gsellman didn't improve in spite of gritting his way through 5 innings and I know that Teheran wasn't particularly sharp, but the Mets continue to not hit and not hit in key spots so he was let off the hook every time. Then I went downstairs at some point just to give myself a quicker exit and slunk off into the night once the game ended.
As nights at Citi Field go, this will probably rank among the least memorable. This recent malaise has taken the sheen off the Mets' hot start and now they're on one of these death valley stretches that seem to hit them in the middle of the Summer. I can't tell if it's good or bad that it's happening here in April because on the one hand you'd rather get the stupid out of your system early, but on the other hand it's bad that this happens at all because the Mets are supposedly better than this.
I have at times felt like I'm the last Mets fan in Matt Harvey's corner. I know that we all want him to do well, and I also know that he's brought some of his issues on himself for one reason or another, but I've seen no reason why Harvey couldn't persevere, shake off his issues and regain some of the luster that he'd lost over the past year. He's already proven that he can come back from a major injury and be successful. In reality, and I've said this before, people seem to just have a problem with Matt Harvey being Matt Harvey. This Spring, while every time he took the mound seemed to be scrutinized, most people were up in arms over the fact that he was seen cavorting around Miami with a model, drinking and smoking and generally having a nice little date for himself. And because he's Matt Harvey, this gives everyone free license to point and yell about what a jerk he is, and how the Mets need to trade him because he's a distraction and a cancer.
Does not compute. We've all been on dates with models and drank and smoked, and nobody's following us around with cameras and posting photos on the internet, and people at our jobs aren't yelling about how we need to be traded. So I say baloney. I think people's dislike of Harvey is based mostly on jealousy. He projects an aura of arrogance but in reality is probably just as insecure as anyone else. The difference is he pitches for the Mets and most people do not.
So that all lines up for this evening's game at Citi Field, which was Harvey's first start since he got run off the mound last July and then went under the knife for the second time in 3 years. It was hard to know what to expect, since his Florida outings were kind of a mixed bag and he wasn't throwing with quite the same pop as he used to. And he was facing the Braves, who'd cuffed him around more than once last year. But out of the darkness, Harvey re-emerged as a pitcher, and rather than trying to blow everyone away instead used what he had, working with a fastball in the mid-90s instead of the high 90s, and dropping curves and sliders and changeups and generally inducing weak contact. He shot through the 1st inning on 6 pitches, entered the 7th having thrown only 67, and by time he departed after 6.2 innings, he'd allowed 3 hits, no walks and 4 strikeouts, while only being touched up for a pair of solo Home Runs from Matt Kemp. More importantly, by time the 7th inning started, and Harvey kicked things off by striking out Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman, you actually started to hear those "HAR-VEY! HAR-VEY!" chants once again.
Offensively, the Mets again started slow, facing Jaime Garcia, the ex-Cardinal who seems oddly out of place on this Braves team. It took until the 5th for the Mets to finally break through, when Neil Walker singled, and Jay Bruce walked, and then Travis d'Arnaud doubled both of them home, a good sign since d'Arnaud hit something like .035 with runners in scoring position last year. In the 6th, the Mets extended their lead when Wilmer Flores did what he usually does against left handed pitchers and hit a 2-run Home Run, and in the 7th, the Mets put the game away with two more runs. Fernando Salas and Addison Reed then salted away the final innings of this 6-2 victory.
The story, however, will be Harvey, who embarked on a bit of a redemption of sorts and proved that although he might not be the pitcher he was two years ago, and may never again be the pitcher he was four years ago, he's still a good pitcher and he still is capable of being someone we can count on to deliver a good performance.
I know that the Mets weren't actually going to go 162-0 for the 2017 season, but still, you watch games in the early going of the season, particularly when they win on Opening Day, and you sort of hope they can just postpone that inevitable first loss of the season. But, it's going to happen whether you like it or not, so you may as well just get it out of the way quick. So, after a rousing start on Monday, the Mets came back on Wednesday, got a solid start from Jacob deGrom, had a hard time with our old friend Bartolo Colon, went deep into Extra Innings, couldn't capitalize on some opportunities and ultimately lost in the 12th inning when Rafael Montero couldn't get out of his own jam.
These games are bound to happen and in fact, I think I've seen this game before. It's an April Wednesday night. It might not have been a cool day during the day but at Citi Field it probably feels about 40˚ at game time and only gets worse as the evening goes on. The #2 starters for each team throw zeroes at each other. Maybe each team scores a run. Both teams threaten in late innings but some steely bullpen work keeps the game tied. And then it goes into Extra Innings and the Mets just kind of run out of steam and the opponent scores multiple times and the Mets can't get off the mat. That was this game. Fortunately, I wasn't there. It sort of sounds like the kind of game I might be at but it wasn't on my plan and I've sort of learned my lesson about going to extra April Night Games.
Instead, I was home, trying out this newfangled internet radio that my other half bought me during the offseason (and required me purchasing an MLB At Bat subscription). I don't particularly mind this, given how used I am to listening to games on the radio, and also since I am in the habit of getting home and conking out for a spell. I'm not quite in midseason form just yet. It'll come. But so here I am with this "radio," and there's Howie and Josh and deGrom is on the mound looking like his old self, and Bartolo Colon is incongruously pitching for the Braves and everyone is going bonkers. Jay Bruce hit a Home Run in the 5th inning—and after 3 walks on Opening Day perhaps he's the one off to the hot start out of the gate—but otherwise there wasn't much in the way of action.
Then, deGrom departed in the 7th and things went haywire. Hansel Robles, who you'd think would be past this after two seasons, came in, immediately gave up a triple to Nick Markakis, walked another guy, gave up a game-tying double and was right on the precipice of disaster when Terry Collins mercifully removed him. And this is why nobody's every totally comfortable with Hansel Robles, because for every time he has a lockdown inning like he did on Monday, he's just as likely to come back the next night and leave a giant turd on the mound. Fortunately, Jerry Blevins came in and cleaned up the mess.
The game then turned over to the bullpens and not much of consequence happened after that. Fernando Salas, Addison Reed and Josh Edgin were all just fine, but the Mets couldn't capitalize on in the 8th and 10th when the game seemed to be right there for the taking. The 10th was particularly irritating, when after Bruce doubled and Lucas Duda was given a mulligan (still processing this new intentional walk rule), Travis d'Arnaud, who along with Robles seems to be an early candidate for The Ballclub's Flog of the Year, then struck out watching a pair of pitches that might as well have been sitting on a tee for him, and Ty Kelly, batting probably because Collins was playing matchups in a spot where T.J. Rivera probably should have hit, struck out as well.
So, it came down to Rafael Montero. After a few seasons that at best could be considered iffy, he had a strong spring and worked himself back into everyone's good graces. But he's still not showing what I'd consider decent command and he got himself into trouble in the 11th and again in the 12th. The difference was that in the 11th, he was able to get out of it. In the 12th, he got a necessary 2nd out with men on 1st and 2nd. Freddie Freeman was then rightfully punted to 1st Base so Montero could pitch to Matt Kemp. Given that Montero's stuff had been lively and Kemp was looking fastball on the first pitch, the smart thing to do would have been to either bury a changeup in the dirt or throw a slider 3 feet outside and let him wave at it. But nooooooo. Montero had to be a hero and fire a fastball on the inside corner, right where Kemp was looking to whack it into the Left Field corner for a 2-run double.
That was the end of the meaningful portion of the night. Jay Bruce hit with 2 out in the last of the 12th but Lucas Duda was subsequently pretzelized by Jim Johnson and thus, the Mets got their first loss of the season hung on them, and I suppose it's fitting it's to Atlanta. They were a pain in the ass last year and I suspect this will be the case again this year. Meanwhile, the same guys who looked so good down in Florida and got our hopes up all turned back into pumpkins the first opportunity they were given. So Robles, d'Arnaud and Montero need to get their asses in gear. I know it's two games in but teams with World Series aspirations can't have the same dumb guys doing the same dumb shit day after day.
Sigh. The lone upside I can see to all this was that I was not there to freeze my ass off for this one. I suspect I would have gotten fed up and left after the 11th but who knows. Sometimes, I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to this stuff.
Monday's season lid-lifter at Citi Field was about everything you could ask for as far as the results of the first game of the season. The weather, which had heretofore been kind of dicey and in April at Citi Field can be downright brutal, suddenly turned bright and sunny and warm at around 11am, right around the time I arrived at Citi Field. George was with me as per usual, marking what I believe is 11 of the last 13 Opening Day games we've been present for. Howie Rose was on the field by 12:40 to blow the Shofar and welcome us to the 2017 National League season in New York, fans warmly welcomed back our team, as well as some fondly-remembered players on the opposing side, and then it was business time. Noah Syndergaard hit the mound and pitched, well, basically the way you'd expect him to pitch, mixing things up, getting out of jams and keeping the Braves off the scoreboard until a blister forced him from the game after 6 innings. The Mets had a hard time with Julio Teheran—because they always have a hard time with Julio Teheran—until he departed in the 7th, where the Mets capitalized on a replay reversal and then bombed the Atlanta bullpen into submission and cruised home with a 6-0 victory to start their season.
It had been some time since I'd seen George; this offseason has been somewhat checkered for me and certainly from a mental standpoint, though I might not have been especially prepared for it, I was more than ready to get back to the sanctuary of Citi Field. But at any rate I spent most of the pregame discussing with him reasons why I believe now that the Mets are going to win the World Series this season, and really, what it boils down to more than anything is that it's simply their time in the arc of this era, if this era of the Mets is going to be what we want it to be. They had the near-miss, they had the regression and somehow turned it into another near-miss, so now, it's time to strike.
But that was preamble and there was still the matter of seats and ceremonies and concessions and hordes of people to work through. I'd mentioned I upgraded my seats; after four years of bouncing between sections 512 and 513, I've moved down to 418, because it's just time for a change. However, the Mets for whatever reason decided to get cute and put me in different seats for Opening Day. Different seats being Section 106, sure, it's the Field level, but it's jammed down in the Right Field Corner. Not exactly where I would have preferred to sit. For one, you can't see the field directly in front of you. Two, you can't see the scoreboard above Right Field, which is where important things like pitch count and scoring calls are generally displayed. Three, because it's the Field Level, and because of the assorted "entertainment" options down there, it seems to be more crowded than the Promenade, and for whatever reason it seems there are substantially fewer restrooms, which is problematic...
...and as you can see in this video, you're kind of displaced from the action. But on the upside I got a real good view of Syndergaard's pregame routine.
Also a lovely view of Bartolo Colon's backside as he was introduced to a roaring ovation.
And then it was time to introduce our guys...
...and get hyped...
...And, finally, get on with the show!
The game from that point was a little bit of a blur, for a few reasons. For one, I, and this should illustrate how ill-prepared I was for Opening Day, didn't eat anything before the game. I almost always get something to eat before the game but for whatever reason, I waited. At the end of the 1st inning, I got up to use the restroom, thinking it would be quick and painless. WRONG. I attempted to use the restroom by Section 103 only to find the line stretching across the concourse and in fact splitting into two lines because everyone stopped caring. So that was already a clusterfuck. Then, I decided to get something to eat while I was up, and found the most palatable line to be at the Sausage stand by Section 105. Only I got on line somewhere in the bottom of the 2nd inning and didn't return to my seat until the top of the 4th. That's a bad job by me. It's a bad job by everyone, really, because there were rumblings of credit card terminals down, but really, it was a bad job by me. That's the kind of rookie move I don't usually make.
Fortunately, in this digital age, I was able to look at my phone and catch up on my scorecard. Of course, I sat down just in time for Freddie Freeman to bang one off the Right Field fence and after Jay Bruce mangled the carom, what should have been a double was a triple and the Braves were primed to strike first. Except that Syndergaard is unmoved by these kind of things and responded by putting the Baseball version of a sleeperhold on the Braves, striking out Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis to end the threat. More trouble unfolded in the 6th when Dansby Swanson and Freeman singled and Atlanta had runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out, but, again, Syndergaard brushed this aside by striking out Kemp again and getting Markakis to fly out, ending the threat and, of course, thanks to the infamous blister, ending his afternoon.
Still, the Mets offense was stagnant against Teheran, which as I said wasn't terribly surprising since the Mets always have trouble with him. But he too departed after 6 and the Mets attacked the Braves patently awful bullpen right away. Ian Krol was first up and he allowed a hit to Rene Rivera. Wilmer Flores followed, pinch hitting for Hansel Robles, and after being greeted with his usual standing ovation, grounded into a Fielder's choice. He then stole 2nd Base, which I suppose was his way of taking advantage of the Braves kind of falling asleep on him. Jose Reyes walked and then Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a clean single to center for his 3rd hit of the day. Flores was sent home, which if you'll recall is the play that finished his season last year, and although it seemed close he was called out at the plate. However, were I sitting in my normal seats, high up and behind Home Plate, I would have seen that Flores snuck his foot in ahead of the tag. Replay, of course, reversed the call, Flores had the first run of the season for the Mets, and the gates opened up from there. There were pitching changes, walks, more pitching changes, more walks and finally the carcass of Eric O'Flaherty was on the mound and Lucas Duda clanged one off the Center Field fence for a 3-run double that made the score 6-0 and removed any particular drama from the afternoon. Fernando Salas for the 8th, a surprise cameo by Robert Gsellman in the 9th, easy enough and off we go!
Certainly, there will be plenty of bad/irritating/exasperating things to happen to the Mets over the course of the subsequent 161 games. That's Baseball. The goal, really, is to minimize the issues and keep putting forth games like this when you are clearly better than your opponent. One of the Mets larger issues in 2016, besides the fact that everyone was hurt and the replacements stopped hitting for 3 months, was their inability to handle inferior teams. I'm pulling numbers out of my ass but I believe they were something like 7-12 against Atlanta and an equivalent of bad against other non-division lousy teams, and those 7 wins were difficult wins. By and large the Mets should win more of these games this season. Yesterday was a good start.
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.
I guess it's not just me that has a thing with the Braves this season. Though my record in Mets/Braves games this season is done at 0-3, I feel like that's the record of most Mets fans against the Braves this year. The Braves have already lost 90 games this season, the Mets have 80 wins and sit at the top of the Wildcard race, and yet when these two teams have met, the Braves have had the upper hand basically every time out, and especially at Citi Field. The Mets won 2 of 3 against the Braves here in April, and they haven't beaten the Braves here since.
Tuesday night was a bit more of a jarring loss than Monday, which was a debacle from the get-go. The Mets had a lead early against Julio Teheran, who they never seem to hit, but the Braves tied it after the Mets abandoned fundamentals in the 6th inning, and then put the game effectively out of reach in the 7th when Adonis Garcia hit a 3-run Home Run off of Jerry Blevins, who for some bizarre reason was left in to face the righty who's killed the Mets on multiple occasions.
The Mets rallied gamely late, but could get no closer than 5-4, and sure, you can take the moral victory of this being the first time the Mets have scored more than 3 runs in a game in a week, but it didn't do them a damn bit of good. They had Yoenis Cespedes up with a chance to win the game in the last of the 9th, but he got frozen by a Jim Johnson curveball, struck out, and the Mets ended up once again falling to the Braves.
I know there's a whole shitstorm over Terry Collins hitting for Jay Bruce in the 8th inning but let's be serious here. That's scenery. It's backstory. It's not important. There's a lot of eerie symbolism at work here between a series of curious managerial moves, and stagnating in the crisis point of a pennant race, and running out of logical things to say.
Monday night was my 19th game of the season and the 4th time in which Noah Syndergaard would be pitching. I have to say I felt pretty confident that things would go well, given that Syndergaard's been in a great groove. And after one inning, in which Syndergaard struck out the first two batters and then retired the third on a weak ground ball, well, you draw your own conclusion.
Unfortunately, that was the high point of the night. Syndergaard's 10-pitch 1st inning was a mirage. In the 2nd inning, Syndergaard unraveled in a stream of walks and singles, throwing 30 pitches and allowing two runs. In the 3rd, Freddie Freeman took him deep to the opposite field. In the 4th, more of the same. And after 3.2 innings, close to 100 pitches, Syndergaard was mercifully removed on the short end of a 5-0 score.
Things barely improved from there, unless you can take the T.J. Rivera Home Run as some sort of positive on a night where the Mets looked like they were going to get shut out by Aaron Blair. I had to sit through this dreck for slightly over 3 hours and, well, I was treated to no better than a 7-3 loss.
This was one of them games, which you'll accept every once in a while, except that we're now officially in the final two weeks of the season, which is often dicey for the Mets when they're in the thick of contention, and because it's against the Braves, a team against whom there's been a few too many of them games against this season. I should know. This was the 3rd game this season I'd been to against the Braves, and the Mets have managedto lose all three. It's not only dropped the Mets closer to the Wildcard competition, but it's now officially solidified me with a losing record for 2016. I'd try to remedy this by forcing myself to another game this week, but I have a bad feeling about the sort of karma that kind of desperation generates.
The Mets officially never have to set foot in Turner Field ever again. That seems to be the more operative story of the day. The gravy on top of this momentous occasion is, of course, that they left the building victorious, as they stomped over Williams Perez and a bevy of other Pitchers en route to a 10-3 victory. Yoenis Cespedes broke the game open with a 3rd inning Grand Slam, James Loney hit a Home Run, Seth Lugo pitched 7 strong innings to win his 4th straight start, and for one rare occasion, the Mets had everything go their way in a key game at Turner Field.
The Mets rarely seemed to have true laughers at Turner Field in the 20 years they played there. You could probably count them on one hand. Maybe two if you're feeling charitable. Considering that for a majority of those years the Braves were perennially a scourge to the Mets, I suppose it made sense that a blowout win didn't come to pass very often. Even over the past few seasons, with the Braves burning down their own house literally and figuratively, the Mets have had a hard time there (and whatever should come to pass over the seasons final 19 games, if things conclude on a sour note, you would have to think the Mets will have to rue their inability to put away the Braves more often earlier in the season).
Sunday, they did not, as Perez, who was recently returning from a lengthy DL stint, was hit early and often and pretty hard. The Mets scored in the 1st inning when Asdrubal Cabrera tripled through that blindingly bright Atlanta sun, and then scored on a Cespedes ground out. I already told you that Cespedes later hit a Grand Slam, but I'll just remind you again because I can. James Loney hit a solo Home Run in the 4th off of Joel De La Cruz, and in the 5th, the Mets had the Gas House Gorillas conga line going as they piled on more runs against hapless Jed Bradley. Kelly Johnson drove in a run, Loney drove one in, and even Seth Lugo joined the fun with a Sacrifice Fly. By this point it was 10-1, and I guess the Mets called off the dogs, as the Mets then emptied their bench, and even Gavin Cecchini got to see some action for the first time.
I know when a stadium closes you want to try to say something deep and meaningful about it, but think about how many dumb, shitty things happened to the Mets in that stupid ballpark over the last 20 years. Why would any Mets fan have anything nice to say about that place? I've heard from some friends that it's a perfectly nice place to watch a game, but who gives a shit? Some of the worst moments in Mets history have happened there and more often than not, they were basically a foil for the Braves, and they would just come in there and have their lunch fed to them by a series of unmentionables. Sure, they won some games there, but when Mets fans had to treat those wins like James W. Marshall at Coloma, 1848, that should tell you something. There are stadiums where the Mets generally have not done well. I don't think any place was quite as demoralizing as Turner Field. So, with that being said, Good Riddance, Turner Field. I'm glad to never have to see you again.
I guess the Mets' final trip to Turner Field wouldn't be complete without the Mets suffering an irritating Extra Inning loss in an eminently winnable game. It's the cosmic restoration of order to the absurd Baseball Universe, I suppose.
I was out of the house for a good chunk of the evening, and as such I missed the formative innings of the game. That means I missed the Barves kick the ball around in the 1st inning, the Mets taking a 2-0 lead, the Braves slowly coming back against Bartolo Colon, and then Yoenis Cespedes and Freddie Freeman trading Home Runs to re-tie the game.
By time I tuned in, it was the bottom of the 9th, and Hansel Robles had been summoned into the game, which seemed a dicey proposition. But he only faced one batter, Matt Kemp, who popped out. Jerry Blevins then entered and got the next two batters, and it was off to Extra Innings. In Atlanta. With whatever ill memories that entails.
Chris Withrow set down the Mets quietly in the top of the 10th. Erik Goeddel entered the game in the bottom of the 10th and, well, he dug his own hole. First, Dansby Swanson did his thing, singling and then moving up to 2nd on a Wild Pitch. A.J. Pierzynski followed with a single of his own, and although he seemed to think he'd won the game outright, Swanson, who lacks Pierzynski's saltiness, stopped at 3rd. Regardless, the Mets were, to put it kindly, in a disadvantageous position. Goeddel then struck out Tyler Flowers, and then departed in favor of Josh Smoker, who in his brief stay in the Majors has thrived in these pressure spots. He got Ender Inciarte to pop out and it seemed he might be game enough to get out of the jam, but the next batter, Adonis Garcia, singled, further cementing his place as Irritable Braves Player, scoring Swanson and giving the Braves a 4-3 win.
This, of course, coupled with the Cardinals win over the Brewers, put the Cardinals back in the pole position for the 2nd Wildcard and knocked the Mets back to the outside. It also begged a few questions regarding Terry Collins' managerial moves, such as why not use Jeurys Familia to start the 10th, or why not bring in a Righty to face Garcia if he was going to play matchups, but I think whether or not Collins did or did not make certain moves is sort of immaterial here. The Mets were, and will continue to lose some irritating games over the remainder of this season. It becomes magnified this time of year, obviously. After 6 straight wins, the Mets were due for one of these, and especially given the fact that they were in Turner Field, a stadium where dumb shit seems to continually plague them. So, let them get the dumb shit out of their system for one night, but do your best to come back tomorrow and win the series.
This weekend, of course, marks the final series the Mets will ever play in Turner Field, and I know there's some blithe sentimentality, and I'm being kind by calling it that, about these last three games. Most Mets fans have few to no good memories of the Mets playing in Turner Field; the meager games they did win there over the past 20 years seem paltry compared to the irritating, frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking or soul-crushing losses the Mets have suffered there. So, then, may I say that I'm happy to see Turner Field go and glad that the Mets will never have to play there again after this weekend.
All that being said, though the past can't be undone, the Mets could if nothing else do their part to shovel some dirt on the grave of this unrepentant Hell Hole by taking out the Barves a few more times and further entrench themselves in the middle of this Wildcard chase. Coming into Friday's game, the Mets had 22 games remaining and for the first time since who can remember they actually began the day in a pole position for the Playoffs if the season ended right now. But I just said there were 22 games left so whether or not they qualify on September 9th doesn't amount to a hill of beans. It's not quite Idiot Time just yet but if the Mets regressed into Idiot mode here against a team they've had a particularly annoying hard time with all season, well, wouldn't that be a fitting end to Turner Field.
Fortunately, the Mets didn't succumb to Turner Field, although for a while things didn't look especially good. We, as fans, have simply become conditioned to bad things happening in Atlanta (I demand actual proof that the Mets have won 65 games there—€”as far as I know, the Mets' record is 20-150, and one of those games was the McKay Christensen game so it really shouldn't count) and for most of this game it played that way. The Mets didn't hit Julio Teheran, who remains a Brave despite any common logic dictating that he should have been traded months ago. Robert Gsellman had his first legitimately "Blah" outing, giving up 4 runs and slogging through a miserable 3-run 5th inning where he was essentially Dansby Swanson-ed to death. Basically, this was another night in Atlanta. The Mets were dazed and on the wrong end of a 4-0 score, facing a pitcher they generally don't hit.
Then, in the 6th they hit him. Or, at least, Yoenis Cespedes hit him in the literal sense, with a shot off his shoulder, and then Curtis Granderson hit him in the Baseball sense by hitting a 2-run Home Run to bring the Mets to within 4-2. In the last of the 6th, Jim Henderson appeared primed to hand those runs back, as he got Swanson'ed as well and departed in a 1st and 3rd, no out mess and was later seen screaming and slamming his glove around. Josh Smoker, who's been kind of the stealth bomber out of the Mets bullpen in recent weeks, then came in, and rather quickly undid the damage, getting A.J. Pierzynski to strike out and then Ender Inciarte to hit into a Double Play, and punctuated the inning with one of his pirouette fist pumps. However he chose to celebrate is immaterial to me, so long as he gets the job done, and lately he's been doing that regularly.
Of greater import of course was that Smoker kept the score 4-2 and in the 8th, the Mets finally had one of their rallies. Mauricio Cabrera, who reeks of "September Callup," came in, and immediately Keith and Gary started talking about how he regularly throws 100+, which is impressive, but in this day and age, just throwing 100+ does not a successful relief pitcher make. Because although Cabrera threw 100+ plenty of times to the Mets, he wasn't fooling anyone. First, he walked Alejandro De Aza. He got Jose Reyes to hit a ground ball, but instead of the Mets getting Swanson'ed, Dansby Swanson'ed himself, booting the ball for an error. Asdrubal Cabrera walked. So, basically, Cabrera had 100+'ed himself into a giant hole, bases loaded, no out and Cespedes coming up. And, well, at this point you were thinking that Cespedes was either going to hit one to the new Barves stadium in Cobb County, or hit into a Double Play. He came closer to the former, but his fly ball was caught. Irregardless, it was a productive enough fly to score De Aza and move Reyes to 3rd. Granderson followed by corkscrewing a blooper into shallow Left that Matt Kemp did not catch, allowing Reyes to score and Asdrubal to move to 3rd. And then Kelly Johnson delivered the coup de grace, the RBI double to give the Mets a 5-4 lead, because that's what Kelly Johnson has been doing ever since he came back to the Mets. By this point, Cabrera had now covered himself in 100+ of mud and he capped his night by hitting Michael Conforto with the bases loaded to force home another run.
6 wins!? There was a point in time, not long ago, where I thought the Mets might be hard-pressed to win 6 games for the remainder of the season. But, now, here they are, still tied for the 2nd Wildcard (or are they ahead of the Cardinals? I forget), half a game out of the 1st Wildcard, and now they've got all of us keyed up and in Pennant Race mode. Sure, it feels more fun this time around, perhaps because it didn't seem like there would be a Pennant Race this year. But I think I like the easy coast to the finish more. Just saying.
The 1985 New York Mets finished 98-64, which stands as the 4th best record in club history. They finished in 2nd place, 3 games back of the St. Louis Cardinals, and in those days, 2nd place meant that you got to go home and sit on your thumbs after the final day of the regular season.
One reason that they managed this was because their record for the season against the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that went 57-104, was 10-8, and it was a difficult 10-8 at that. A better performance against a 104-loss team would have likely meant a different outcome for the season. One year later, the Mets did a much better job in cleaning Pittsburgh's clock to the tune of a 17-1 record. Oh by the way, the Mets won the World Series that year.
Right now, the Mets record against the Atlanta Braves, who might be lucky to match the '85 Pirates 104 losses is 6-5. And those 6 wins haven't exactly been easy. In fact, the 6th win, which they managed to pull off tonight, was downright horrifying.
Oh, sure, things looked great after 4 1/2 innings, because the Mets trashed Aaron Blair and ran out to an 8-0 lead, the sort of performance the Mets really should have been putting forth against the Braves all season. They had guys on base, guys getting hits with men in scoring position, and a coup de grace 3-run Home Run from James Loney.
And then Steven Matz, who may or may not have an elbow issue that he may or may not be telling the truth about had a complete meltdown in the bottom of the 5th and 8-0 turned into 8-6 real quick. Whatever the issue is here with Matz, he clearly wasn't the same pitcher after sitting in the dugout rubbing his elbow or his forearm during an lengthy Mets inning in the top of the 5th, and the Braves jumped all over him, knocking him from the game a few outs shy of being able to qualify for a win. Whether this is the harbinger of more injury issues, I have no idea but after a stretch in which I was ready to anoint him as the NL Rookie of the Year, he's come back to earth significantly.
On the other hand, Hansel Robles has, at least for this week, been the Mets savior. Called upon to clean up the Matz Mess, Robles finished the 5th and for good measure pitched the 6th and 7th innings too, throwing all of 21 pitches after his 65-pitch effort on Tuesday night that saved that game. Again, like any reliever, Robles will run hot and cold but it looks like he's heating up again, and when he's going well, he looks really, really good.
So then after this, it looked like the Mets, who'd stopped hitting after they got to 8, were going to hang on, and when Collins went to Jeurys Familia with 2 out in the 8th, it seemed like they were bound and determined to hang on. Familia's no stranger to going more than an inning but it's still kind of a scary proposition. He didn't do anyone any favors by giving up a hit to Tyler Flowers and hitting Erick Aybar to start the 9th inning. With imminent disaster staring the Mets right in the face, Chase d'Arnaud came up, stood in front of his brother and bunted...badly. Wilmer Flores then tried to catch the popped-up bunt...badly. A surer-handed 3rd baseman might have caught the ball outright, but Flores dropped it. However, in dropping the ball, Flores unwittingly shit a diamond because he then essentially duped Flowers and Aybar from running at all, and further disaster turned into a Double Play. Because that's exactly how it was drawn up. d'Arnaud then stole 2nd off his brother, but Jace Peterson struck out to end the game, except that the ball got away from Travis d'Arnaud, far enough that it seemed like Peterson might actually beat it out. But Travis' desperation heave was somehow corralled by a diving Loney and after a brief replay the game was, in fact, over and the Mets had, in fact, won.
Whew. I know winning isn't easy but really, the Mets didn't need to make this game quite so difficult. On the other hand, I suppose I should just be happy that the Mets aren't getting swept again.
