Fortitude

If nothing else, the Mets, in a year where basically everything that's gone wrong, continue to fight, and sometimes they actually provide a bit of a glimpse of greatness. This happened on Saturday, one of those weird late afternoon starts that they seem to play almost exclusively now. Zack Wheeler didn't have it, he was betrayed by his defense, the bullpen faltered late, the Mets found themselves behind, but somehow they got off the mat, and thanks to 7th inning Home Runs by T.J. Rivera and the day's bobblehead honoree Asdrubal Cabrera, came back to beat the Phillies in a hideous affair, 7-6.

Certainly, this wasn't quite what Doubleday had in mind back when he invented the game (nor what Doubleday had in mind when he purchased the Mets in 1980). Wheeler started for the Mets and was good early against a once-again moribund Phillies lineup, but he hit a wall in the 4th. Against stiffer competition this might not have gone so well. Against the Phillies, he only allowed two and wasn't helped by a pair of errors (and yes, one was his own), but after slogging along and throwing an inordinate number of pitches, he couldn't finish the inning and the Mets found themselves in the bullpen far earlier than is palatable.

The Mets, however, came back against Jeremy Hellickson, one of those guys who's constantly getting traded or rumored to be getting traded. Jay Bruce drove home a run on a groundout and Lucas Duda followed by hitting a Home Run into the Apple to put the Mets back ahead. Erik Goeddel, who's resurfaced here despite still not being particularly good and now sporting a ridiculous coif, spit the lead back up, and so the game was tied 3-3. Fernando Salas followed, pitched a good 6th inning, and then Terry Collins pushed his luck and tried to squeeze another inning out of him, so of course he allowed a 3-run Home Run to Tommy Joseph.

Hellickson, meanwhile, was pitching like the anti-Wheeler and had thrown about 75 pitches through 6 innings, and with the lead, there seemed no reason to remove him. So, of course, he allowed a Home Run to Rivera to start the last of the 7th. And that ended Hellicksonnn's day, in favor of Pat Neshek and his bizarre 1890s windup. Neshek pitched a solid inning on Friday but was less effective on Saturday, giving up a double to Travis d'Arnaud and a pinch-hit single to Wilmer Flores, which then set the stage for Cabrera to repeat his Home Run Heroics from last September.

Then, of course, it rained. It looked like it was going to rain basically the entire game, but they stopped the game in the top of the 8th inning, and in spite of Collins being rather incensed by the whole thing, it was probably a good idea since it was pouring where I was and generally what happens where I am usually ends up at Citi Field 10 minutes later. So that halted things for a spell but eventually the game resumed, Addison Reed came in, finished the 8th, finished the 9th and finished the game, a good 4 and a half hours after it started, as Saturday afternoon became Saturday night.

So, now, the Mets have done what they needed to do here and can sweep the Phillies tomorrow if all goes well. Then again, "all goes well" has been a dicey proposition for the Mets this season. But, still, they fight.

The Wrong Decision

I had tickets to Friday night's game at Citi Field. It was on my plan. I'd made plans to go with my other half, which would be her first game of the season. But several mitigating circumstances intervened. The first was the horrendous and torrential rain that fell in New York basically all day on Friday. Generally, even when it rains like this, the Mets will keep the game scheduled until the last minute for a variety of reasons, among them the potential for the mythical "window," and the desire to get the gates open and get some people in the stadium to buy food and whatnot—a favorite trick of Ratso Wilpon's.

The other circumstance was, well, I'm getting older and after what had turned into a particularly strenuous week at work, I was tired. I was tired and I wouldn't have minded at all if they cancelled the game and allowed me to go home and take a nap. But that rainout alert never came, in spite of multiple alerts from the Emergency Alert system and reports of flash floods all over the city. 5:00 passed, and in fact 6:00 approached and my other half begged out, meaning that if I were going to go, I was on my own. Had we thought about it ahead of time, I might have swapped the tickets out altogether. 6:00 passed and I was delayed at work outright, so if I were going to go, I'd be late. But I left and got on my way, feeling very indecisive.

I got as far as the 7 train platform at Grand Central, a point at which I could take one train and go to the game, or get on the other train and go home. I weighed the options. The potential for rain still existed. But I did want to go to a game. But Rafael Montero was starting for the Mets, which generally has been a losing proposition. But what if this was the night he got it together? But I'm tired. But it's Friday. Eventually, I decided to just go home and swap the tickets out for another date. It was already the 2nd inning by time I got home, which probably would have been about the same time I would have arrived at Citi Field.

Immediately, I got in bed and took a nap. By time I woke up, it was somewhere in the 6th inning and I wasn't particularly surprised to hear that Montero was awful and the Mets were losing 7-3. I felt better because I wasn't there to see it, to say nothing of having to suffer the indignity of sitting through a beating at the hands of the Mickey Mouse Marlins.

But then the Mets came back in the 7th, another rally where they just kept hitting singles and doubles, and working counts, and forcing walks. Wilmer Flores was heavily involved, as was Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Conforto. It was 7-5 when T.J. Rivera, who'd earlier homered, hit a 2-run double to tie the game off of Brad Ziegler, who seemed to not know what had hit him. A pitching change, 2 outs and an intentional walk later, it appeared the game would remain tied, but Kyle Barraclough, after intentionally walking Granderson, couldn't find the plate against Flores and unintentionally walked him to force in the lead run and put the Mets ahead 8-7. A couple of quiet innings from Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia later, the Mets had pulled off a real nut-kicker of a win against the Marlins, coming back from a 6-run deficit to win, 8-7.

Well, shit. I guess I should have gone after all. Even though it clearly had begun raining again by the end of the game and some time later in the evening, probably about when I would have arrived home, it really started pouring. I did feel badly about not going since they won. That, I suppose, isn't surprising. Had the game held and the Mets gone down in flames, I probably would have been thrilled that I wasn't there to subject myself to it. It's rare that this happens (I am reminded of a Daisuke Matsuzaka game a few years ago I skipped and ended up missing a 3 hour, 50 minute game that the Mets lost terribly) but sometimes you make the wrong choice. That's a bad job by me.

No Cigar

This game will forever go into the books as a 10-8 Mets loss, simply because they couldn't overcome the 10 runs that Sean Gilmartin and Rafael Montero spotted the Phillies early in the evening. And I know that at this time of the year losses really can't be viewed as positive anything.

But the Mets did show me something in their spirited comeback on Saturday night, which is that all of these young fellows that have gone back and forth from the Major Leagues and Las Vegas, they can play. This sort of output in a mostly hopeless situation kind of underscores the depth the Mets have built for themselves through the organization, and when you have guys like T.J. Rivera, Brandon Nimmo, Gavin Cecchini and Ty Kelly really raring to get into games and break their asses, it's a positive. Teams need players like this on their roster. None of them are stars, none of them are going to light the world on fire, but they're going to go balls to the wall in every opportunity they get just to show you that they can do it at this level. And these guys, particularly Rivera and Nimmo, have been in the middle of a lot of rallies this month, and Cecchini and Kelly had their noses in plenty last night.

In the continuation of my "Summer of Long Island," I was out all day and so I didn't see any of the game, I only heard about it in bits and pieces. When I got word that Sean Gilmartin hadn't made it out of the 1st inning and allowed 5 runs, I sort of moved my thoughts to other things. This one was clearly done before it started and so whatever else was going on around the Majors was just antimatter. I'd found myself in a diner on Old Country Road at some point in the evening, when the game appeared totally out of reach, and a large group of people--multiple families, it seemed--came in. Most of them were dressed in Mets gear, which led me to believe that they'd been at the game, although based on where we were and the time of night, if they were at the game, they must have thrown in the towel after 2 innings, so perhaps we were just solidly placed in the Middle of Mets country (although for whatever reason the TV in this diner did not have the Mets game on). But at any rate, over the course of the evening, they were loudly discussing the Wildcard race and the Mets chances in a Mansplaining sort of fashion, but in no way did I want to involve myself in going over to the table and correcting them. I try to make it a point not to get involved in other people's affairs like that. They were also talking about the Home Finale coming up on Sunday and discussing how Philadelphia's scheduled starter "Was no good" and they "should beat him." I'll agree with the "should beat him" part. But I don't know enough of Jake Thompson to say that.

I know about as much of Alec Asher as I do of Thompson (SEGUE MASTER), and Asher shut the Mets down but good for 4 innings, and then allowed 4 runs in the 5th inning, but part of that was the result of a pair of errors and so none of the runs were unearned. And by this point, the Mets had emptied their bench so whatever rally they could put togther had that cosmetic feel to it, just to let everyone know they were still there and doing the best they could.

Then, of course, in the 6th, Philly went to their awful bullpen and the Mets kept ploughing away, scoring on Cecchini's first Major League hit among other things, but at this point I was still in "At least they're making it interesting" mode. By this time, we were driving again, and as it usually does when we're on the way back from Long Island, our route took us directly past Citi Field, where I noticed that the video board facing Northern Blvd didn't actually have the score on it, which I thought made no sense, but then I looked and on the top of the stadium, behind the Left Field seats, there is a board that has the score on it, and even lets you know that you can tune to WOR 710 to listen to the game. This didn't happen for reasons I've already covered, but at least I got the score.

At that point it was still 10-6, but the Mets continued to creep back against the Pu-pu platter that is Philly's bullpen. Cecchini drove home a second run in the 8th and the Mets had the tying run at the plate, but Rivera popped out and so did Nimmo. In the 9th, the Mets made one more run at it against Michael Mariot. Jay Bruce pinch hit with one out and hit a Home Run, which felt like his first hit in a Month, to make it 10-8. And by this point I'd gotten home and turned the game on, just in time to see Mariot walk Eric Campbell and Michael Conforto to bring up Lucas Duda, certainly a good candidate to fire the winning blow. But he popped out and flung his bat away in such a display out of character. Travis d'Arnaud followed and, well, he could pop one out too, but he didn't either, instead grounding back to Mariot and the Phillies hung on to win.

You try not to get too worked up about these losses, which are bound to happen when you go from the specter of Matz and Syndergaard starting games to Ynoa and Gilmartin. This patchwork rotation stuff can only carry you so far and tonight it bit the Mets in the ass. Fortunately, the Mets might be able to get through the rest of this thing with only 4 starters thanks to a well-placed off day so maybe we don't have to do this again. Either way, the Giants won, the Wildcard race is tied again, and now the Mets have one more Home Game left, and I'll be there, and I have no idea if it's going to be the last time I'll be at Citi Field for 2016. So it stands to be a really weird day all around.

Combination Of All Things

The adage goes, I believe, that each time you go to a Major League Baseball game, you have a chance to see something you've never seen before. Last night at Citi Field was my 20th game of the 2016 season and my 399th in total. I've seen lots of things happen at a Baseball game.

• The Mets get a 9th inning Home Run to tie the game and an Extra Inning Home Run to win? I've seen that before.
• The Mets win a game on a Home Run that takes them from trailing to winning? Seen that before too.
• The Mets use 27 players in a game...Well, that I haven't seen. That was a club record and I've got the scorecard to prove it. 
• The Mets come from behind 3 times in a game to win? Yeah, that I've seen too.

But I don't think I've ever been to a game that packed all of these things into one crazy night, with the backdrop being the Mets in the thick of a Pennant Race and coming off a 3-game losing streak. In spite of all sorts of things going wrong, the Mets managed to get up off the mat and tie the game in the 9th inning on a lightning-like Home Run from Jose Reyes. In the 11th inning, the Mets fell behind again, and with the clock pushing midnight, Asdrubal Cabrera tolled the bell for a 3-run Home Run to give the Mets a 9-8 victory that has to rank up there with some of the most rousing games I've ever been to.

This long night of Baseball began innocently enough, with Seth Lugo on the mound for the Mets and Adam Morgan for the Phillies. The imminent drama that would unfold over the course of the evening barely seemed plausible given a matchup like this. The Mets jumped ahead in the 2nd on a Curtis Granderson 2-run Home Run, and with Lugo mostly humming along, everything seemed fine. The Phillies scored a run in the 4th after Cesar Hernandez hit what was kind of a fluky triple to lead off the inning, and Roman Quinn followed with an RBI groundout.

Then, of course, the Phillies ambushed Lugo in the 5th. They'd been hitting fly balls off of Lugo most of the night, and of course the perfect storm for bad tends to be the combination of a fly ball pitcher on the Mets and Ryan Howard. And of course, Howard led off the 5th and blasted a Home Run out into the night of the Center Field seats. This, of course, is mere rite of passage for Lugo, since Howard has hit what, 79 career Home Runs against the Mets? However, when Cameron Rupp followed with a Home Run of his own to put the Phillies ahead, that wasn't a rite of passage, that was a sign that Lugo was probably done for the night and thus the parade of relievers would begin.

The Mets managed to rally back in the last of the 5th. Ty Kelly hit for Lugo and walked, moved up on what was charitably scored an infield hit by Cabrera and a Morgan Wild Pitch, and then scored when Yoenis Cespedes stuck his bat out and flicked a single to right. In the 7th, Cespedes put the Mets on his back again, finishing off a two-out rally against Michael Mariot by nailing a double to score Reyes.

The Mets have been using their bullpen liberally and often lately, which has been a side effect of a decimated starting rotation combined with taking advantage of every possible expanded roster spot. As such, it took Sean Gilmartin and Erik Goeddel to complete the 6th and Fernando Salas to pitch the 7th, and once Addison Reed hit the mound in the 8th, it seemed like things would be stable. Of course, how wrong I was. Reed allowed about 20 feet worth of singles sandwiched around a sac bunt and the Phillies had runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out and Maikel Franco at the plate. I mused that what Reed needed was a Mike Pelfrey Special—the bowling ball that's chopped right at the Shortstop for an easy DP. What Reed got instead was something completely different—the ball flying over the fence and into the Phillies bullpen for a 3-run Home Run that put the Phillies ahead 6-4 and sent a multitude of fans streaming for the exits.

A rather fair-weather fellow with a man-bun sitting directly in front of me stood up, slapped his cap down and started screaming, "HERE IT IS, THE GREAT COLLAPSE OF 2016!" This, of course, was not helpful at all and turned into one of those moments where, were I more of a hothead, I might have kicked him in his bun or smacked the shit out of him. I know that there's this general trepidation because the Mets are in a pennant race with 10 games to go, and I know that there's a whole quadrant of Mets fans that think Terry Collins just fell out of the stupid tree. But how is it a collapse when the Mets just came back from 5.5 games out altogether, ran past 4 teams and somehow sit tied for the 1st Wildcard just 27 games later? And never mind that, how about the fact that the Mets have done this while 3/5 of their starting rotation is hurt (and if you want to throw Wheeler in the equation, that's 4/6), 2 guys that were in the Opening Day lineup still standing, and the team is basically stuck throwing out lineups that include Alejandro De Aza, Rene Rivera and on this night Eric Campbell, and they're relying on unknowns like Brandon Nimmo and T.J. Rivera for meaningful contributions? The fact that the Mets are in this position at all is a minor miracle. This is a team that's refused to throw in the towel all season. But this jackass is screaming collapse. Really, I think he should have just admitted he actually was a fan of the other New York team rather than continuing his charade, but as the 8th moved to the 9th and he continued his nonsensical rants, I realized I was doing myself no favors sticking around where I was, and I did something rather out of character for me—I left my seat and walked down to the Field Level, where I ended up just standing around the concourse, figuring that if this was going to end, at least I'd get out of there quick and get away from Yelly McDoofus.

Hansel Robles cleaned up Reed's mess in the 8th and he and Josh Edgin got the Phillies in the 9th, while the Mets managed nothing off of Joely Rodriguez in the last of the 8th, and while he apparently was ready to come out for the last of the 9th, Pete Mackanin decided to get cute and once Travis d'Arnaud was announced to hit for De Aza, he pulled Rodriguez in favor of his closer, Jeanmar Gomez, which you had to figure was coming because why the hell would Joely Rodriguez be closing games? And at this point, Terry Collins decided to just throw his entire roster at the wall. He called back d'Arnaud and sent up Brandon Nimmo, who got a hit in a similar spot on Wednesday, and of course Nimmo did what he does best and hit a line drive single. Jay Bruce followed and was met with bewildered looks, calls of "Where's Duda?!" and, oddly, cheers, because hey, if Bruce could get a hold of one and tie the game, maybe all would be forgiven. But that didn't happen. Although Bruce hung in for a while he still struck out, which was only helpful in the sense that he didn't hit into a Double Play, which was quite fortunate because Reyes followed by drilling a 2-1 pitch into the Mets bullpen to tie the game and spark a frenzy of crazy people jumping all over the concourse.

So much for quietly slinking off into the night. Rather than a silent finish, the real action was just getting started. Mackanin, now having burned his closer, removed Gomez from the game in favor of Hector Neris, who walked Cespedes but allowed nothing more of consequence. So, it was off to Extra Innings, and after not catching an Extra Inning game for the first 5 months of the season, I was now in for my second in less than a month, and this one was coming on the heels of an already long game, as the clock was pushing 10:40 and although it was Thursday, it was still a school night. At this point, I decided I was good for one more inning, and then I had to get out of there, loath as I was to do so.

Jeurys Familia came in for the 10th and worked a quick, uneventful inning, and Severino Gonzalez did the same, in spite of the fact that Lucas Duda came up as a pinch hitter for Rivera and came within about 6 inches of hitting a Game Winning Home Run. In fact, as it was more or less directly in front of me, I couldn't quite see just where the ball landed and for a second I, and the people standing near me, thought it was gone. But Duda pulled up around 1st and wheeled back to the plate...where he then struck out.

Familia came back for the 11th and I held my ground...The 10th was quick. One more inning, I tell myself. Next thing I know, it'll be 1am and the 15th inning if I'm not careful. Freddy Galvis led off by lining a double in the alley in Left, which wasn't helpful at all. Familia then rebounded by striking out Aaron Altherr and getting Tommy Joseph to ground out. With two outs, he then walked Hernandez intentionally, which was the right move with A.J. Ellis and his .190 batting average on deck. If Ellis beats you, he beats you. Unfortunately, that's what Ellis did, floating a little dying quail of a single in front of Nimmo to score Galvis and put the Phillies back ahead. Collins then did nobody any favors by continuing to run more guys in from the bullpen in an attempt to get the 3rd out. Jerry Blevins came in and hit Odubel Herrera. Collins then removed Blevins for Jim Henderson. Henderson walked Maikel Franco after an excruciating 10-pitch At Bat that was like watching paint dry. Now the score was 8-6 and at this point I was ready to leave right then and there. The Mets had pulled a July move and resurrected themselves from the dead only to shit the game right back out again. Only then did Henderson manage to get the last out of the inning as more people vacated and I stood around stewing.

The Phillies brought in a fellow named Edubray Ramos for the last of the 11th in order to pick up the Save for them. This was the Phillies' 9th pitcher of the night, which is a lot, until you remember that through 11 innings the Mets had managed to run through 10 pitchers, which is the sort of thing you can only accomplish in a game like this, at this time of year when you carry 20 pitchers on your roster, and this combined with the 16 position players they'd used tied a club record. I didn't realize this at the time. I was too busy thinking about a) who was left on the bench to hit in the Pitcher's spot which was due up second and b) If the Mets tie this game again, who's left to pitch? After Nimmo grounded out, I got one of my answers when Michael Conforto emerged from the dugout, remained patient and walked on 4 pitches. Reyes followed, and I started thinking that Reyes might turn back into the Homer Happy ninny he used to be after his 9th inning heroics, but instead he did what his M.O. normally is and singled the other way. And this brought up Cabrera, and at this point all I was hoping was that he didn't hit into a DP just so Cespedes would have a chance. And, of course, Cabrera rendered this hope and my second question irrelevant by nailing the second pitch he saw over the fence for the Game Winning 3-run Home Run. He knew it right away, I think everyone else did too. It was just one of those hits that had that arc, sort of like Reyes' did. These fly balls look a lot different when you're sitting downstairs and I'm used to the view from the Promenade.

Whew. This was exhilarating, but also exhausting. As I said, I know I've seen a lot of crazy, wild things happen at Baseball games, but never one that seemed to cram so much action, absurdity and intrigue into one 4 hour, 23 minute melange of madness. Hell, I watched the last 3 innings standing, that's how messed up things got. But this game was truly emblematic of the fact that the Mets refuse to simply lie down, no matter how much they have to absorb as far as injuries and inconsistency. As weird as it seems, the Mets are now essentially run by these three gentlemen at the top of the lineup, Reyes, Cabrera and Cespedes, and they're winning these games just because they're getting things done. Go back and look at that scorecard again. The Mets had 9 runs and 11 hits for the game, and these three guys accounted for 4 runs, 8 hits and 7 RBI. Think about it: That's 3 out of the 27 players the Mets used in this game accounting for that much offense. But these guys are paving the way. They refuse to throw in the towel and dragged the whole team back into this game and didn't stop until it was won. I don't know how far it will take them over the next 10 days, or if they play beyond that, but they've kept the Mets alive and at this point I don't think there's more we can ask of them.

Taste Of Your Own Medicine

I was late in putting on the Mets/Marlins game on Monday afternoon. I was, in fact, originally in possession of tickets to the game, but I'd long ago swapped them out for another date, because I figured I had other things to do on the 4th of July, but that's another story for another time. But at any rate, I put the game on and I was wondering why the Mets appeared to be playing the Washington Nationals, because the schedule said the Mickey Mouse Marlins were in town. Then, I realized that it was in fact the Marlins, they were just wearing the Nationals' uniforms. I guess because they decided they just didn't want to be themselves anymore. 

Then, of course, I looked at the score, which was at the time 6-2 Marlins, and I got very angry. After spending the weekend kicking the team with the best record in Baseball in the nuts, the Mets were now looking like idiots again at the hands of the Fucking Marlins. Matt Harvey once again shit the bed and everything was terrible. Throw the whole weekend out the window. I mean, come on. The Marlins, again?! This is a team with its head so far up its own ass that Celebrity Manager has his Catcher batting leadoff. The fact that this team is in contention at all is an embarrassment to the National League at large.

But, as can sometimes happen, the Mets get behind and somehow it's as though they have their opponent exactly where they want them. The Mets bullpen, Erik Goeddel, Logan Verrett, Hansel Robles and Jerry Blevins specifically, stopped the Marlins cold and kept the game where it was, and the Mets offense just chipped away, and chipped away, and chipped away some more. Travis d'Arnaud and Curtis Granderson had already hit Home Runs by time I checked in. The Mets plated two more runs in the 6th thanks to a d'Arnaud RBI single and a run-scoring DP. So now, the Mets had at least put the game in reach.

Ultimately, they managed to put the Marlins back in their place in the 7th and 8th innings. David Phelps (duh ex you-know-who), who was recently seen Marlining it up after a win over the Cubs a few weeks ago, came in the game and immediately walked Neil Walker and gave up a double to Yoenis Cespedes. So already he'd started his own BBQ. James Loney followed and spent his at-bat fouling off 27 2-strike pitches before grounding out to score Walker. Wilmer Flores followed and fouled off another dozen 2-strike pitches before hitting a Sac Fly to score Cespedes and tie the game.

In the 8th, Ichiro Suzuki, who's probably too good for this Marlin business, doubled to start the inning and Robles followed by walking J.P. Realmuto. This brought up Martin Prado. Prado, of course, is the perfect Marlin, because he's at best a career .240 hitter who hits about .620 against the Mets. But because he's too busy sniffing his own underwear, Celebrity Manager called for a bunt, and Prado laid one down almost directly in front of James Loney, who pulled the patented Keith Hernandez 3-5-4 Double Play and kill the entire rally. The Marlins had missed their opportunity to flex their Marlinness and in the last of the 8th, newly-acquired Fernando Rodney (who had to shave due to Celebrity Manager's facial hair policy and thus no longer looks like a vagrant) gave up a 2-out, 2-run double to Cespedes to give the Mets their first lead of the game. Jeurys Familia had a brief moment in the 9th inning when he walked the leadoff hitter, but he struck out Stanton and then got a Double Play from Chris Johnson to close out the game and give the Mets a rousing 8-6 win in an excruciatingly long 3 hour and 38 minute affair.

I was rather interested in seeing just how the Mets would come back after their weekend of feeding the Cubs their lunch, and at least for one day it seems like it's thrown the Mets back on the right track. They're not gaining any ground--Washington keeps winning their games because they're not playing real teams right now--but they're also not losing ground and the more they can do what they're supposed to do against the Marlins, the more it makes these clowns as irrelevant as they deserve to be. So, you know, based on the way they dressed today, maybe they really were telling us all that they're sick of their own existence.

Lucky 11th

Some Mets games I've been to have more twists and turns than I'm able to adequately describe. Monday Night's game at Citi Field most definitely can be classified as one of those games. On the heels of seeing the Mets get No-hit last week, this game got off to an eerily similar start. Things turned in the Mets favor in the middle innings when they finally got a hit and some runs, only to slip away at the hands of an overused Closer. Things appeared lost in the 11th inning, but the Mets managed to take advantage of some bizarrely specific circumstances to come back from the dead and win the damn thing, 4-3, stopping the Blue Jays' 11 game winning streak and keeping their perfect Home record against Toronto intact.

My 10th game of the season came a mere 6 days after the ignominy of last week, which I'd prefer to never mention again except that sometimes I have to. The Mets were playing the Blue Jays, a team I'd hadn't seen the Mets play since 2001—because they hadn't played the Mets in New York since 2001. The Blue Jays had also never won a game against the Mets in New York. But, 14 years later, who would pay attention to that? This meant the return of several things to New York, among them Jose Reyes, who received a warm welcome, in stark contrast to when he appeared with the Mickey Mouse Marlins 3 years ago, R.A. Dickey, who was lost in a sea of blue sweatshirts in the Toronto dugout, and the Canadian National Anthem, which I feel squashes the Star Spangled Banner like a grape, and has never been performed at Citi Field—because this was the first time a Canadian team had ever played at Citi Field. As such, they had to get a professional to sing O Canada, because nobody here probably knows it; certainly the school group that sang the Star Spangled Banner didn't.

Then, there was a game to be played, and after striking out Reyes and getting Josh Donaldson to fly out, Noah Syndergaard faced Jose Bautista, and Bautista greeted Syndergaard by clobbering a pitch so far up the 2nd deck in Left Field that Michael Cuddyer didn't even give it a courtesy run. This seemed to unnerve Syndergaard, who then gave walked Edwin Encarnacion and allowed a bloop hit to Chris Colabello (and his .345 batting average) before finally getting Dioner Navarro to end the inning, after having thrown about 15 pitches more than he needed to. However, Syndergaard settled down, and more importantly settled in, and looked every bit like the dominant pitcher we were looking for. Against a lineup that's been bombarding pitchers for double-digit runs over the past few weeks, this was a particularly impressive effort. Though he only managed to make it through 6 innings, Syndergaard allowed only the 1 run, 2 hits and 1 walk in the 1st inning and supplemented that with 11 strikeouts.

Syndergaard's counterpart, Mark Buehrle, had no such pitch count issues, as he set down the Mets in order in the 1st, and then did so again in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, as I began to get more and more apoplectic. It wasn't lost on me that I'd just seen this happen, and that personal hitless inning streak was stretching much longer than I was comfortable with. After 12 innings, I'd had enough of that. After 13 innings, I was really starting to get frustrated. In the 5th, Lucas Duda hit a shot that sort of handcuffed Encarnacion (who clearly plays 1st Base like a DH) and went down the line. I had to wait a few seconds just to make sure it was actually scored a hit. Fortunately it was, so I could finally breathe easier.

Still, for the great work Syndergaard had done keeping the Blue Jays in check, the Mets hadn't cracked the scoreboard. But in the 6th, they broke through for a pair of runs, started when Kevin Plawecki used the often-reviled head-first slide into 1st base to beat an errant throw from Reyes, aided when Syndergaard stayed in the game to lay down a bunt, and finished off by back-to-back RBI Doubles from Juan Lagares and Ruben Tejada.

The Mets turned this lead over to the bullpen. First, Carlos Torres came in and got the lower half of the Toronto lineup in order. This was just fine. Jack Leathersich came in the game in the 8th and got one out, but then walked Justin Smoak, the failed Rangers/Mariners prospect who's mysteriously resurfaced with Toronto. Jose Reyes followed by grounding hard to 3rd, a ball that might have been hit hard enough to double up Reyes, but Tejada double clutched the ball and only got one of the two outs. In Tejada's defense, that was Jose Reyes running to 1st, so it's just as well he assured himself of one out. This, then, brought the meaty part of the Toronto lineup up, beginning with Josh Donaldson. There was no way in hell Leathersich was going to be left in. The only question was who would come in the game. After doing some heavy lifting on Sunday, the Mets bullpen was somewhat limited, to the point where Akeel Morris, a guy you've never heard of unless you watch Spring Training games or collect Bowman Baseball Cards, was summoned from A-ball to fill some holes.

Oddly, Jeurys Familia was summoned for a 4-out Save, one day after he converted a 4-out Save. This wasn't odd in the sense that Terry Collins wanted his best pitcher to go after Toronto's best hitters. But it was sort of irritating because Collins has been working Familia pretty hard all season, and 4-out Saves on Back-to-back days is a tall order, plus the fact that there was no other arm he could trust in that situation isn't really good. George agreed with the move, at least until I mentioned that Familia had picked up a 4-out Save the day before. Then, he thought the move completely asinine. Regardless, Familia came in, struck out Donaldson and got 25% of the way to a victory.

Unfortunately, that's as far as he got. Steve Delabar stopped the Mets in the 8th, so Familia returned still nursing a 1-run lead, which lasted the duration of one pitch in the top of the 9th. That pitch was sent screaming down the Left Field line by Jose Bautista, towards the corner. Were the Left Field foul pole 340' away from Home Plate, the ball might have hooked foul. Unfortunately, the line is only 335' and thus the ball landed a few feet fair for Bautista's second home run of the night, lead gone, 4-out save blown, good vibes gone. Things could potentially have gotten much worse, as Encarnacion followed with a jam shot double. Familia, who was clearly working on fumes at this point, got Colabello to pop out to Duda, but then walked Dioner Navarro. He wasn't putting batters away like he normally does, and Kevin Pillar battled him gamely, but fortunately bounced into a Fielder's Choice, and then Danny Valencia struck out and the Mets emerged from the inning tied.

Roberto Osuna set the Mets down in order in the last of the 9th, and so, after 8 innings of holding the hottest team in Baseball in check, the Mets now found themselves heading to extra innings. Fortunately, the game had been relatively quick to this point, not quite past the three hour mark. This was primarily because Mark Buehrle had spent the first 7 innings working at his usual metronomic pace, averaging :08 between pitches and keeping things moving along. Plus, there wasn't a lot of cocking around with pitching changes, and even a lengthy 3rd inning delay when Home Plate umpire Marty Foster was injured after getting clocked with a foul ball didn't slow things down much.

Hansel Robles, who really hadn't had a chance to calm down after his 9th inning misadventure on Saturday, entered the game and worked a clean inning, even getting through Russell Martin, who I still insist is a low-rent Paul LoDuca. Aaron Loup, a stringy lefthander, came in for Toronto in the last of the 10th, and in spite of facing a pair of righthanded hitters also allowed the Mets nothing.

By the 11th, George was beginning to wind down. I felt I still had a couple of innings left in me, but George, who has to work earlier than I do, said that this would be his last inning. The discussion then turned to the longest games I'd attended, in terms of innings. We'd attended a couple of 13-inning affairs over the years, but 14 innings remains my personal record, something I've been subjected to 5 times. I noted that by time the game gets that long, I start to root for someone to score period, not necessarily the Mets. This, of course, led to the inevitable mention of the fabled Bobby Valentine Moustache game, which took place against the Blue Jays and featured a walk-off hit by none other than Rey Ordonez.

The hope was that this particular game wouldn't follow suit, and when Robles walked Ezequiel Carrera and then gave up a hit & run single to Colabello, the Jays were in business. Robles then got ahead of Navarro 0-2, but Navarro hacked at the 2-strike pitch and hit a fly ball out to Granderson in right, and any fly ball to Granderson in right is likely deep enough to plate a run, and that's exactly what happened as the Jays grabbed a lead, and suddenly found themselves 3 outs from stealing a win and extending their winning streak to 12.

This put me and every other Mets fan in a rather foul mood as Brett Cecil, who somehow is the Jays closer, came in for the last of the 11th. I've always operated under the assumption that Brett Cecil was a former Yankees "prospect," and as such wasn't any good, but it seems that was never the case. He's always been a Blue Jay. So, he retired Lagares to start the inning, but then walked Tejada.

This, then, is when the circumstance and brilliance of Baseball took over.

Michael Cuddyer, who was certainly capable of popping one into the seats, came to bat. He didn't pop one anywhere, instead he hit a ground ball to 2nd base, horrifyingly destined to be a game-ending Double Play. Ryan Goins fielded the ball, and all he had to do was just slap a tag on Tejada, toss to Colabello and finish off the Mets. Tejada, however, broke to a stop rather than running into a tag. He then wisely backpedaled towards 1st, forcing Goins to chase him down in order to make the tag. Goins might have been wiser to try to get the force at 2nd, except that he'd committed to the play and instead chased, and eventually tagged Tejada, but by that point Cuddyer was well safe at 1st, and Tejada had managed to keep the Mets alive for one more batter. This was Lucas Duda, certainly one capable of blasting a pitch into the seats, even against a Lefty. The Jays went into their overshift, as teams usually do against Duda, pulling the infielders over to the right side, and shifting their outfielders over as well, and deep, to the point where Carrera was playing somewhere in front of the Apple, Pillar was in Arthur Ashe Stadium, and Bautista was playing somewhere in Forest Hills. Essentially, they were daring Duda to try and hit one the other way. Duda worked the count full, which meant Cuddyer would at least have a running start as Cecil delivered the pitch. Duda swung and did exactly what was necessary at that particular moment: he lofted a pop fly into shallow left field. With Carrera so deep and the infielders swung to the right, it was easy to see off the bat that nobody was going to catch the ball, and Cuddyer was steaming around the bases. Carrera picked up the ball and perhaps a good throw had a chance to get Cuddyer, but Donaldson for some reason cut the throw off and then fumbled the ball, allowing Cuddyer to slide home with the tying run uncontested. The Mets had staved off defeat, and now had an opportunity to win. Cecil was removed in favor of Liam Hendriks, who came in to face Wilmer Flores. Hendriks only needed one pitch, which Flores grounded straight up the middle for a hit. Pillar made a desperate throw towards home but it was nowhere near close enough to get Duda and the Mets escaped with the 4-3 win.

So, it took longer than expected, but the Mets stopped the hottest team in Baseball and kept their home record against the Toronto Blue Jays undefeated in one of the more rousing games the Mets have played at Citi Field in general, never mind rousing for this season. Duda and Flores will get the bulk of the credit, and they should, because Duda's hit was perfectly placed and Flores earned himself getting bum rushed by the entire team and getting the Juan Lagares Sunflower Seed shower, but this whole inning was made possible because of Ruben Tejada not running into the tag on Cuddyer's ground ball. His keeping the game alive made everything after that possible, but of course, that particular play is basically lost in the box score. The sort of little things that make a game like this memorable. Now, hopefully SNY will show replays of this game in their Mets Classics rotation instead of continually showing that game against the Cubs from 2007.

Gee, A Comeback!

The Mets charged out on Sunday afternoon and for at least 4 innings looked every bit like I was right and they were completely dead in the water after Saturday's game. However, in reality, it wasn't a blown game hangover so much as a Dillon Gee hangover. After Gee was raked over the coals for 8 runs in 3.2 forgettable innings, the Mets were both dazed and down 8-3. However, from that point forward, they woke up and hit back. 4 Mets relievers combined to allow the Braves no further runs, while the offense, which has a lot more teeth now that Travis d'Arnaud and Dilson Herrera are back, blew up for 4 Home Runs (two, not surprisingly, off the bats of the two guys I just mentioned), and kicked the Barves in the teeth for Saturday's result by winning the game, 10-8.

The game had all the trappings of a Barnburner from the outset. Atlanta reached Dillon Gee for a run in the first, courtesy of a Freddie Freeman (who else) RBI single. The Mets scraped across a run of their own in the bottom of the 1st off of Mike Foltynewicz (whom I referred to as "Fidrych-like," when he appeared in last season's finale whilst pitching for the Astros, but seeing him up close I see I was mistaken, he's just a hairy guy), but then the roof caved in on Gee. Braves were reaching base, Braves were creating havoc, Gee gave up a 3-run Home Run to Jace Peterson with 2 out in the 2nd, and another 2-out RBI hit in the 3rd, and by the 4th everyone was teeing off on him, even Old Nick Markakis and Fat Juan Uribe, and he was mercifully pulled before the 4th was finished. I know that Gee is a competitor and he's been a solid, important part of the rotation for several seasons, but he needs a change of scenery now. It's not completely his fault, the Mets have kind of jerked him around this season between the Bullpen and the Rotation and not allowing him to settle into a role, but he also hasn't responded well to the adversity. He had a spot in the rotation early in the season and had he pitched better he might have hung on to it, but he got hurt and since he's returned he's been patently awful. The same thing happened to him last season, when he was usurped by deGrom. This year, he was pushed back by Syndergaard, and he responded to this by getting hit hard in San Diego and getting blasted today, and in his one relief outing last Tuesday, he basically set one up on a tee for Joe Panik to hit it into Sammy's Tire Shack across 126th Street. You don't need to be a body language expert to see he's not happy, and at this point the best thing for him would have to be a trade. I don't think there's any way about it.

So, with Gee done, it was now up to the Mets to try to battle back against Foltynewicz, who wasn't exactly mowing the Mets down either. In the 3rd, he'd allowed the Mets to extend a little rally long enough for Wilmer Flores to drive in two runs with a single, and in the 4th, he served up a pair of Home Runs, first to Darrell Ceciliani, who earned a pair of starts this weekend and really ran with the opportunity, coming up with multiple key hits, his 1st Major League Home Run, and some fine defensive plays, and second to Dilson Herrera, who showed his sneaky power by really blasting a no-doubt shot into the seats in Left.

This brought the Mets to within 8-5, as the Mets turned the game over to the bullpen. Sean Gilmartin, who's been mostly under the radar this season, was the first to appear. Gilmartin, of course, is the Rule 5 guy, so he's going to be here all season, and as such has been mostly spotted in low-pressure situations or mop-up duty. But here, he needed to eat a couple of innings and keep the Braves in check, and by golly that's what he did. His two innings of work were probably the two most crucial innings he'd been handed to this point this season, and he responded by allowing the Braves all of 1 walk and 3 strikeouts. Meanwhile, the Mets clawed back even further, knocking Foltynewicz out of the box after a Duda single in the 5th and finally making their way into the hideous part of the Barves bullpen. First, Brandon Cunniff entered the game and was rudely greeted by Travis d'Arnaud, who smoked a line drive Home Run down the Left Field line. d'Arnaud has done nothing but hit since coming off the DL on Wednesday night, so the power wasn't too much of a surprise here. This comes with time, but mostly it's good to see that d'Arnaud has come back with the same furor as he had before he got hurt.

One inning later, the Mets found themselves in the lead. Cunniff had departed in favor of Luis Avilan, but the Mets remained undeterred. Michael Cuddyer, given a routine day off, pinch hit for Gilmartin and singled. Granderson followed with a single of his own, setting the stage for Juan Lagares to hit a screamer down the line, towards the corner and over the wall for a 3-run Home Run, the Mets 4th in 3 innings, to drag the Mets all the way back and put them ahead for the first time. Amazingly, this team that's had trouble scoring 10 runs in a week had now managed to put up 10 runs in one game, and not only did they do that, they did it with the benefit of 4 Home Runs. Sometimes, they have these games, but it's good that they picked Sunday as a day to do it.

But now, with a lead, they had to get through the remainder of the game. Bobby Parnell entered for the 7th, and it's unfortunate to say, but Parnell looks like a shell of his former self right now. This seemed to be the case even before he had the Big Boy Surgery, but his mechanics are all out of whack. He looks much too loose with his delivery and the velocity he once had, when he regularly would throw around 100mph, is gone. Parnell with a repertoire of 91-92mph heat isn't quite so fearsome and I wouldn't expect him to close again. But unless he goes to Bartolo Colon school, he might not be long for the club in general. Still, he got through the 7th unscathed, thanks primarily to a Christian Bethancourt Double Play. Hansel Robles entered in the 8th and appeared to have recovered from his Saturday debacle, but still gave up a 2-out hit to Cameron Maybin.

At this point, nobody was in any mood to fuck around, and with Jeurys Familia back with the team, he was summoned for the 4-out Save, and he owes Dilson Herrera a dinner for getting that 1st out on Freeman, who hit a ground ball that was ticketed to Center Field until Herrera dove, gloved the ball, and then flipped the ball with said glove to Flores at 2nd base in time for the out. Familia worked through a less eventful 9th inning to pick up the Save and give the Mets probably their most rousing victory of the season, on the heels of one of their most deflating losses. What a difference a day makes.

Next in town are the Toronto Blue Jays, for two here and two in Toronto, which means the return of old friends R.A. Dickey (who won't pitch here) and Jose Reyes. It also means the return of the Canadian National Anthem, which will be performed at Citi Field for the first time this week (remember, the Blue Jays haven't played the Mets here since 2001). It also means the Mets will have the tall task of facing a team that's won 11 in a row and has been absolutely bludgeoning everyone in sight. Everyone on this team hits Home Runs with abandon, so a) It's good that the Mets offense woke up and b) Let's see if the Mets pitching can keep these guys in check.