Can't See

You'll have to excuse my once again totally half-assing this past weekend's games. My other half and I were away for the weekend, off to Boston, where it's All Red Sox, All The Time and if you're not the Red Sox you may as well not exist. So I didn't see much—or really any for the most part—of the weekend series in Pittsburgh.

Friday night, we were in transit, driving up to Boston and so the game was a mystery. Only when we stopped for dinner somewhere in Connecticut did I check my phone and see that the Mets were ahead by a sizeable margin, thanks to Neil Walker, who returned home and I suppose it could be said he Daniel Murphied the Pirates, hitting two Home Runs in support of Jacob deGrom, who's looking much more like himself lately and—gasp—pitched into the 9th inning! Mets win 8-1, malaise-induced losing streak stopped.

Saturday, we were out and about in Boston and although I entertained trying to see a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, I couldn't sell my other half on this and so I decided to pass. I ended up missing a Complete game Shutout tossed by Brian Johnson—something any Mets starter would be hard-pressed to accomplish these days—but I figured I'd at least get to see the latter part of the Mets game from my hotel since it was on FOX. Yes, for once, I was looking forward to a game on FOX. So I get back to the room, put on the TV, search for FOX...and find the Astros and Orioles. That's not the Mets and the game was a total bore, although the Astros seem to have a bunch of wonderfully enjoyable players, among them George Springer. who had a nice game. But no Mets. So I don't know what happened to the Mets up until the 9th inning, when Addison Reed blew a slim lead, the game went into extra innings, Rookie Tyler Pill was inserted in the 10th and immediately pitched like a Rookie making his Major League Debut on the road in an extra inning game, and the Mets lost 5-4.

Sunday was more of the same, although this time I knew I was guaranteed to see at least some brief snippet of the Mets game as they were scheduled for The Biggest Game In The Galaxy on ESPN and therefore wouldn't be subjected to a regional blackout. Further, we'd been taken to dinner by some local friends at a roadhouse with TVs. The TVs being the only redeeming feature of the joint because at least I could peer over and see what was going on. Matt Harvey seemed to look a little bit like his old self, and by time we left, the Mets had gone ahead 2-1 thanks to an Asdrubal Cabrera 2-run double. It was 5-1 when I resumed watching and only up from there. Harvey looked better than he'd looked all season through 6 innings, Lucas Duda hit a Home Run and the Mets did not make asses of themselves in front of a national audience, winning 7-2.

Still, the Mets went 3-3 in a week where they probably should have gone 6-0 and beat the tar out of some lousy teams. They continue to be unable to find a toehold or momentum off these wins and as such, the team appears about as boring as the teams they're playing. 21-27 on Memorial Day isn't what any of us were thinking.

The Lesser Guys

The last time the Mets were on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy, I felt like they won purely to spite ESPN. I don't feel quite the same way about what went on last night, I suppose because the Nationals are currently sitting in victory formation with an 8-game lead, and without a clear story or player on their side to leech on to. Perhaps, I suppose, they could have rammed their heads up Daniel Murphy's ass just to annoy us (and on some level I'm surprised they didn't). Without a real "interest" story, this stood to be even more of a boring, content-free game than usual. Joey McTalkinghead and Eric Byrnes Aaron Boone were useless and the token woman had even less to say than she usually does. I watched the game from start to finish, amazingly, and I'm not sure she spoke more than once every three innings.

Pennant Race Baseball at its finest.

So if you could follow the game beyond ESPN's camerawork, which seemed to go out of its way to make sure you couldn't see the game (to wit: somewhere in the 1st inning, I believe on Reynaldo Lopez's Wild Pitch, we were treated to a shot of the 1st base umpire, who was nowhere near the play, as opposed to any shot of the action on the field), you saw the Mets once again ride one of these lesser guys to a much-needed victory, as Seth Lugo spun 7 sterling innings, allowing 1 run, 6 hits and no walks to guide the Mets to a 5-1 victory and a series win over the Nationals.

For this we can partially thank Dusty Baker, yes, as he moved Scherzer off this game, but really, the credit needs to go to Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. After the Mets lost the game Noah Syndergaard pitched, and the Mets were back on their heels and falling into the same pattern of ineptitude that's befallen the Pirates and Marlins, they needed some big time starts and these guys delivered. It's kind of uncanny that these lesser prospects have come up and performed as well as they have, but considering that the top tier prospects, Harvey, Syndergaard, Wheeler and Matz all burst onto the scene with such hype and furor, well, it's easy to forget about these mid-level guys that find themselves once they hit the Majors. There's no better example than Jacob deGrom, who really had no hype coming to the Majors and then got here and hasn't looked back. Now, we have Gsellman and Lugo coming up with no hype whatsoever and performing well. Maybe it's just that they're all pushed by the success the big guys have had, relatively speaking, or maybe they're all just slept on. Whatever it is, they're keeping the Mets afloat.

Meanwhile, the Mets still had to hit to get the job done, and they did enough of that against Lopez and the Washington Bullpen Parade, as Curtis Granderson continued his recent resurgence with a Sacrifice Fly and a 2-run Home Run to put the Mets ahead, and later Jay Bruce contributed a 2-run Home Run of his own and so maybe things are starting to fall for him as well. That would be nice.

Then, of course, I remembered why ESPN probably wasn't picking on the Mets tonight. They screwed the Mets just simply by televising this game period. They moved this game to Sunday Night, the night before the Mets have to pack up, go on the road and play this afternoon at 1pm in Cincinnati. So, you know, they can be nice and rested for that. They're probably in midair right now, I would imagine and one can only guess who will be starting today, but I have a feeling it won't be pretty...

Suck It, ESPN

The Mets have a long and storied history of being treated as a punchline whenever they appear on a Nationally Televised game. Generally, they seem to be all too happy to oblige the ridicule, as they often do stupid things, or lose in stupid fashion, and thus are branded as a general laughingstock. As such, when they do appear on these National TV games, they're generally scoffed at as the undercard to their opponent, and when the fluff-filled broadcast goes on the air, the game mostly becomes sideshow to whatever idiotic ADD-induced features the network feels they can shove in our faces. Because, you know, who cares about the game?

ESPN used to be good at covering Baseball. I know that everyone hated cranky old Joe Morgan and crotchety Jon Miller but they were legitimate, good announcers that made me feel like I was actually watching a game. Now, I have no idea who the hell is announcing the game for ESPN, but they have Aaron Boone in the booth for comedy relief and then they stuck a woman in the booth. Now, I have no problem with a woman announcer. But much like I have a strong disdain for stupid male announcers, well, you get the picture. I get the impression that she's there as a pawn in some dumb PR game.

But then again, maybe this is their trick. They want me to get so irritated by their half-assed coverage that I spend more time talking about that than I do about the game itself. If that's the case, well-played, ESPN. You've sucked me in again. Also, fuck you. That's not what I'm here for.

There was a game underneath all the crap and it was actually pretty good. See, FOX and ESPN love to kick the Mets around, I know, and most Baseball fans love to kick the Mets around too. It's my impression that everyone wants the Mets to lose. Even Dodgers fans that hate the Giants want the Mets to lose to the Giants. Hell, I'm not convinced that there aren't some Mets fans that want the Mets to lose (You know, the BACKMAN BABY crowd). But sometimes, the Mets fight back and win these games, and I find it particularly gratifying. My sense is that the networks and Joey Bagodonuts in St. Louis, and Goombah Vinnie in South Jersey, and the 4 Marlins Fans in Miami have put up so much time and effort into hating the Mets, that a Mets victory just ruined their night. Or, at least, I hope that's the case (the flipside of this is that a Marlins victory can ruin my night, but ESPN hasn't deemed the Marlins relevant enough to put on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy, and rightfully so).

At least for part of the night, though, things were going everyone else's way. While Noah Syndergaard looked like April Noah Syndergaard and efficiently mowed down the Giants, his opponent, Jeff Samardzija, was even better, and had a no-hit bid going through the middle innings. You could feel the erections forming in the pants of the announcers as Samardzija kept the Mets out of the hit column through the 5th and 6th innings. Wouldn't that be the perfect storm? Put the Mets on Sunday Night at their low water mark of the season with the intent on humiliating them, and they oblige by getting no-hit?

But the Mets refused to cooperate as the game turned to the 7th. Curtis Granderson led off the 7th with an opposite-field double that Gregor Blanco probably took a bad route to, but sucks for him. Two pitches later, not only was the no-hitter gone, but the shutout was gone and the Mets, gasp, had the lead when Yoenis Cespedes tucked a bomb of a Home Run just inside the Left Field foul pole.

So, to the abject horror of ESPN, they actually had to stoop to the Mets, and stoop to Syndergaard, who continued to shove the bats up the asses of Giants batters through the 7th and 8th, in the process allowing 2 hits and striking out 6. So, instead of brushing the Mets under the rug, they had to show some respect for Syndergaard. He made them have to do it. Good for him.

And for good measure, Syndergaard showed the kind of temperance rare for a pitcher of his age and did not feel he needed to push himself and be a hero, ostensibly removing himself from the game after 8 innings and turning the ball over to Jeurys Familia, who allowed a measly single and nothing else in finishing off a crisp, gratifying 2-0 victory.

So, yes. After all that, the Mets come away from San Francisco with a split, they've inspired a shred of optimism among Mets fans as they go into St. Louis, and, perhaps most importantly, they kicked all the haters in the nuts, at least for one night. And isn't kicking the haters in the nuts one of the most important things you can do in Baseball?