Amazing?!

The Mets won last night in a game that really had all the trappings of a classic Mets loss. Think about it for a second. The Mets played a game in which Daisuke Matsuzaka weaseled his way in and out of continuous trouble through 7 innings against a Braves lineup that tends to look their best against the Mets (but in reality is kind of middling) only to have the entire game implode in the span of about 10 minutes in a disastrous top of the 8th inning where the Braves basically made the Mets look like Mets. A tenuous 2-0 lead that had been nursed into the late innings was gone, and now the Mets were staring yet another 1-run loss in the face.

But somehow, the Mets didn't lose the game. Instead of folding against Luis Avilan and the specter of Chokemaster Kimbrel in the 9th inning, the Mets, or more appropriately, Curtis Granderson stoned up and belted a tying Home Run that kind of came out of nowhere in the last of the 8th.

Still this seemed like more setup for disaster. Instead of simply blowing the lead, they were just going to tie the game only to extend things into extra innings so they could lose. The Mets had a golden opportunity to finish things off in the 9th after a controversial Instant Replay ruling resulted in Andrelton Simmons getting exposed for being too nonchalant and resulted in a) the Mets having 2 men on and none out in the 9th inning and b) Fredi Gonzalez doing his best Charlie Manuel "Indignant Fat Manager" argument routine until he was ejected. But instead of bunting in a situation that screamed for it, Terry Collins instead sent up Lucas Duda, which is tantamount to screaming that the bunt is off. Duda hit into a Fielder's choice, forcing the lead runner at 3rd and pretty much screwing up the entire inning so that the Mets didn't score and the game was headed into extra innings, where disaster generally seems imminent for the Mets.

But, again, there was no disaster, Carlos Torres came in and pitched just splendidly for two innings, while the Mets went down quietly against Shae Simmons (not Shea, more appropriate in these parts) in the 10th, but eventually rallied in the 11th, thanks to a Juan Lagares double and a 2-out RBI single from Ruben Tejada to win the game and send Tejada scampering across the Outfield while his towel-waving teammates chased him around. Yes, for all his foibles, Ruben Tejada now has authored the last two Mets walkoff wins with 2-out, Extra inning RBI hits. In both cases, Tejada ended up being the crowning hero in a game where the Mets were right on the verge of losing. In this particular instance, it's a big hit because the Mets were playing a team that swept them and really made them look silly last week, and now the Mets have the opportunity to punch back a little bit. I've said it before, but the Barves aren't exactly a team of world-beaters. The Mets just have had a bit of poor fortune to play some of their idiot games against them. But for a team that's in 1st place, they're eminently beatable. It's just a matter of time before they get exposed. That the Mets beat them Monday night isn't going to salvage the season for the Mets, but if nothing else, it shows that they have a pulse and aren't just going to continue to bow down to a bunch of paper tigers.

Joyless In Mudville

The Mets hit two two-run Home Runs last night, one by Curtis Granderson and the other by Daniel Murphy. Rare indeed that the Mets would hit two Home Runs in a game, let alone a pair that generated all of 4 runs. Unfortunately, that was all the offense they generated in a game where Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up 5 runs to the Atlanta Braves, and therefore the Mets once again were hung with a loss in a stadium where they generally never win anyway.

The game was basically another one of those "same old story" efforts, where the Mets fell behind and never really got up off the mat enough to answer the Barves. If it wasn't Freddie Freeman doing damage, it was Overratedton Simmons or Tommy LaPizza or Mike Minor or someone else similarly annoying, and basically Daisuke Matsuzaka was kind of pinged to death over his 5 innings, and by time Daniel Murphy decided to stone up and do something, the game was ostensibly out of reach; his Home Run cosmetically turned a 5-2 loss into a 5-4 loss.

It's getting to the point right now where there's not much more you can say about the team that hasn't been said already, and writing blogs like this seem more or less like I could copy and paste whatever I wrote the day before and post the same thing over and over again. The Mets don't seem to want to make much of an effort to write a different story, so why should I? Perhaps it's just my sense of civic responsibility. Plus my scathing social commentary on the Mets often seems far too sardonic.

Another game tonight. That's about all you can say. They're guaranteed to play about 75 more of them, right?

Other Things To Do

I tend not to make much mention around here about my life outside of the Mets, because a) It's not especially interesting to an audience like this and b) Who cares. But it's worth mentioning that in 10 days, the woman I often refer to as my other half will officially become Mrs. Mets2Moon, an occasion that is certainly cause for great personal joy. 

I bring this up for a variety of reasons, the largest of them being that much of our evenings of late have been spent making preparations for the event that's going to be pre-empting Cereal Bowl Day at Citi Field, and as such, I don't pay as much attention to games as I might were things a little less hectic at the moment. 

What I've missed, clearly, hasn't been much noteworthy. Tonight's game in Pittsburgh featured very little in the way of action on the part of the Mets, which has been an unfortunate common theme of late, except for a pair of anomalies earlier in the week where their batters decided it would be nice if they hit the ball. After scoring 21 runs in 2 games, the Mets scored 5 runs last night after the game was well out of reach, so let's just say they scored 0 tangible runs, and tonight, they scored 2 runs, and that at least kept the game within a 3-Run Home Run's reach of being tied. Last night, Lucas Duda hit a 3-run Home Run with the Mets behind 8-0. Had he saved such a thing for the late innings tonight, the game might have ended differently. Sadly, Duda appeared to have mixed up his Solo Home run situation with his 3-Run Home Run situation, and therefore the solo Home Run he hit—to the opposite field no less—in the 4th inning merely meant that they lost to the Pirates 5-2 instead of 5-1. 

Daisuke Matsuzaka, who continues to make starts at the Major League level, had another start this evening and pitched a majority of the game for the Mets, but at some point where I wasn't paying much attention he gave up several runs, most of them at the hand of the Pirates' hotshot Rookie Gregory Polanco, whom I at some point confused with Gregor Blanco and after a few minutes of being incensed that Matsuzaka was getting burned by a slop-hitting journeyman, I realized that he was getting burned by the flavor of the Month. That's not to say that it makes this loss feel less bad. The Mets are always getting burned by someone of late, it seems. Every day it's someone else. That's why it's easy to stop paying attention and work on other things.

On The Outside

The weekend matchups between the Mets and the Padres didn't exactly result in interesting, memorable ballgames. That's, of course, my cheap, copout way of saying I didn't watch either of the games, but who's counting?

Saturday, I was in the vicinity of Citi Field, one of those incredibly rare moments when I was in Queens, on the 7 train, getting off at Willets Point...but not going to Citi Field. Prior engagements brought me out to Corona Park and the remnants of World's Fair's past right around game time, so I was caught in the throngs of people going in to the stadium...but I was walking in the opposite direction. A strange feeling indeed, but given the way the game turned out, I probably was doing the right thing by walking away. Losing 5-0 to the punchless Padres isn't exactly confidence-inspiring. Then again, nothing the Mets have done these past few weeks has been confidence-inspiring. Zack Wheeler had the typical Zack Wheeler game. Didn't pitch badly, but also didn't pitch good enough to win the game, while the Mets did nothing against Ratso Happ or whoever the guy pitching for San Diego was. He now goes down among such luminaries as Troy Mattes or Jason Jennings as guys who made auspicious Major League debuts (or early career performances) by throwing shutout ball against the Mets.

For some reason, Saturday's loss elicited a multitude of negative responses from my Met fan brethren across the internet, and I can't figure out why this, out of all the losses they've suffered this year, last year, or any of the several years before this when they lost a game and looked like a bunch of assholes doing so, this particular game was the tipping point. I mean, I don't think I know many people that were at the game, and certainly even the lure of 50 Cent probably wasn't enough to bring many of my friends to Citi Field anyway. But somehow, this game was the one that threw everyone over the edge, screaming about losing to the Padres and how could they stoop so low. I'd like to see this sort of outcry when the Mets lose to the Marlins. But maybe it's asking too much. How worked up can you get over a Mets loss these days?

Sunday, the Mets did not lose, I was not in Queens, and I did not see the game. I heard that Curtis Granderson, out for a few days with a calf injury, returned, got inserted in the leadoff spot, and hit the second pitch of the game from Ian Kennedy for a Home Run. Later, Bobby Abreu continued to defy age and logic by getting run-producing hits. Daisuke Matsuzaka left with John Maine syndrome, leaving the bullpen to cobble together the remainder of the game. A dicey proposition, but somehow, they got through it, the tandem of Carlos Torres, Vic Black and Jenrry Mejia outdueling Kennedy and Kevin Quackenbush in a 3-1 victory that sounds about as exciting as the score.

So, the Mets won 2 of 3 from the Padres, so everyone can come in off the ledge now. Or not, because the Mets have the high pleasure of going out to St. Louis to play the Beknighted Cardinals and we all know that generally doesn't go well for the Mets.

Teagardening At Night

...And at my 10th game of the season, Taylor Teagarden happened....

It was one of those nights where I was at Citi Field simply because the schedule said I was supposed to be there. I had the tickets, I couldn't get anyone to go with me, and I certainly couldn't have been blamed for not going, after a long, tiring day of work, on a sticky, humid night where it might end up raining, after the Mets were limping home fresh off a 6-game losing streak where each game was worse than the one before it. The weather and the pitching matchup of Daisuke Matsuzaka and Marco Estrada seemed to dictate one of those sweaty, uncomfortable games that ended at 10:45 with the score 3-1 Brewers and the Mets leaving 17 men on base and striking out 14 times.

But, as I have gone on record as saying, an evening by myself at Citi Field can often be like a sanctuary of sorts, a little alone time to clear my head and watch our grand old game, or something reasonably resembling it. So, I went. Of course I did. Would you have expected any less of me?

My faith, on this particular evening, was rewarded on a multitude of fronts. Playing the streaking NL Central leading Brewers, Matsuzaka was not only quick, but effective over 6 innings, allowing but one run and generally keeping things tidy. He survived a mild mess in the 4th, courtesy of a Lyle Overbay RBI double, but that was followed by a nifty play by Ruben Tejada, who fielded a grounder by Jean Segura and alertly threw to 3rd base to get the lead runner and short circuit any further action in the inning. Later, Matsuzaka shook off a Carlos Gomez line drive that hit him somewhere along his backside, and after hopping around for a few seconds ended up staying in the game and finishing off the inning.

Matsuzaka was backed by a pair of Home Runs, the first of which came from Daniel Murphy, the cover subject of the latest edition of Mets Magazine and the subject of one of the more bewildering features therein. Rather than the usual fold-out poster that comes in the program, there was now a Daniel Murphy coloring page, which was why when I purchased my program, I was handed a little box of double-pointed, multi-colored jumbo crayons. This is what the Mets have stooped to? Crayon drawings in the program? I suppose the marketing department will try anything at this point, but if they want to please the fans, instead of coloring Daniel Murphy, they should hope that Daniel Murphy does a little more of what he did in the 3rd inning, and hit a 2-run Home Run, a line drive that just did land in the netting atop the Mo's Zone that staked the Mets to a 2-0 lead.

But the show was stolen later in the evening by Taylor Teagarden, the castoff that mysteriously surfaced with the Mets over the weekend after d'Arnaud's demotion. The move to bring up Teagarden wasn't exactly confidence-inspiring on any front; Teagarden's career arc is that of a failed prospect (whom I oh-so-wisely picked to win the AL Rookie of the Year in 2009) with a career batting average to rival Mario Mendoza's. Teagarden's first two at bats of his Met career produced two strikeouts, which essentially meant he fit right in with the team concept. But the stakes were higher when he stepped up to the plate in the 6th inning, following a troika of walks to Wright, Granderson and Duda, sandwiched around the predictable Chris Young strikeout. Nobody was exactly expecting greatness here, but sometimes, you shit a diamond and that's exactly what happened when Teagarden belted a sinking line drive towards the Right Field corner that had just enough mustard on it to bounce off the top of the fence and into the seats for perhaps the unlikeliest of Grand Slams I've ever witnessed. All of a sudden, a never-was became a folk hero in Queens, and a tenuous 2-1 lead that probably wouldn't have held up became a surprisingly comfortable 6-1 lead that felt like an avalanche of runs considering how the offense has scuffled. The 5 run lead was enough to withstand a minor hiccup from Jeurys Familia in the 8th, and he, along with Vic Black and Jenrry Mejia carried the game home, a feel-good 6-2 victory that was over in all of 2 hours and 45 minutes.

A game like tonight's is sort of a reminder of why I always go to the game when the schedule tells me to. Greg at Faith and Fear would say something like "you're already a part of the paid attendance," and he's right. If I'm going to be counted, I should be there in person, even if I might not necessarily feel like going. Besides that, you might end up seeing something you never thought you'd see, like Taylor Teagarden hitting a Grand Slam.

Sleepy Time

I can't vouch for what the weather was like on Wednesday night in Chicago. If it felt as oppressively humid as it did in New York (where my living room felt like something out of the movie "Smoke"), then the 3 hour, 40 minute mess of a game that the Miserable Cubs and the Lifeless Mets waged probably would have made a little more sense. In yet another rhythmless game that saw the Mets get runners on base repeatedly and fail to drive them in, and in a game where they got yet another Home Run out of Ruben Tejada of all people, the Mets in general decided to stick their thumbs in their asses and let the Cubs rally back and take a lead in the 5th inning. By this time, it seems that the general length of the game had made them tired, so Terry Collins' team strategy for the last 4 innings of the game was apparently for the entire team to take a nap. So, they did, and the result was their second consecutive 1-run loss to one of the worst teams in Baseball. God Bless.

The warning signs for a long game were evident before the first pitch, since the pitching matchup pitted Daisuke Matsuzaka, who's known for slowing down to a crawl if that's the kind of vibe he's feeling, against the Cubs' Edwin Jackson, who once famously threw a 147-pitch No Hitter and can often be likened to watching paint dry on the mound. Jackson threw about 66 pitches in the first two innings while his teammates kicked the ball around and allowed a few Mets to score, which was nice, except that the game was already over an hour old. Starlin Castro, the Cubs Jose Offerman-like Shortstop, made one of his trademark egregious errors and Jackson just as egregiously allowed a 2-run double to Lucas Duda and the Mets were on their way. Tejada homered in the 4th and things seemed fine.

Then Matsuzaka came unglued in the 5th, which became one of those innings where you want to just turn off the TV and run and hide. We've been through it far too many times with far too many pitchers, one of those innings where the opponent gets a bunch of walks, and some scratch hits, and then there's a 2-run single and a few pitching changes, and all of a sudden there's guys like Dana Eveland pitching for the Mets, and there's another pitching change and Jeurys Familia is wild-pitching home the lead run for the Cubs...

...And you know the rest. The Mets never recover. A succession of 6 Cubs Relievers, many of whom you never heard of or never wanted to hear of managed to allow the Mets 2 hits for the rest of the game, giving more credence to my theory that they were just too tired to finish the game after that mess of an inning. There's no other reason I can think of that they couldn't manage to cobble together at least one run in that period of time. So, now they've lost this series and can only hope to salvage the final game tonight, if they feel like waking up. 

Flip Twice

The single-admission Doubleheader, for as pure and innocent as it may be, is still a long day of Baseball, and yesterday's at Citi Field was definitely a long day of Baseball, even if it wasn't exactly a stimulating pair of games. The Mets lost one low-scoring game by virtue of poor defense and the re-emergence of the Double Play Brigade, and won the nightcap by virtue, I suppose, of being less tired than the Diamondbacks, after essentially playing 3 games in a 1-day span.

The Opening game on Sunday came on the heels of an eminently forgettable game on Saturday (that I didn't even see) and Friday night's rainout that necessitated the Doubleheader, and featured the Mets having one of those games in which the only thing they managed to do well was hit into Double Plays. The Mets hit into 5 Double Plays in the first game, which is really impressive because in the bigger picture, the Mets had a double play in more than half the innings in which they came to bat. This did not serve to benefit Rafael Montero at all, because after giving up a 1st inning Home Run to Chris Owings, Montero was brilliant for the remainder of his 7 innings. It's only fortunate, I suppose, that the Mets managed to scratch across a run for him in the second inning, so instead of leaving in line to lose, he left a tie game, but that was mere scant consolation. The Mets couldn't hit Bronson Arroyo, which isn't anything new, and old buddy Oliver Perez came out of the bullpen much to the chagrin of those in attendance and threw a scoreless inning of his own. Only in the 9th did the Diamondbacks break through by virtue of, you guessed it, one of Daniel Murphy's periodic spastic fits, where he yakked on a throw from David Wright on what would have been an inning-ending Fielder's Choice and allowed the lead run to score. The Mets offered little in response and ended up with a 2-1 loss that drove most of the audience to the exits.

Fortunately, the Mets won the second game 4-2 and avoided being swept by the lowly Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, I had to go out and missed the game, but I hear Bobby Abreu and Ruben Tejada did good things and Daisuke Matsuzaka continued to pitch well in a spot-starting role. The length of this recap befitting the second game of this particular Doubleheader, because it just felt like the kind of game that nobody was around to watch. Sort of like the second game on this particular day, a generation ago it seems.

So, the Mets can go from hosting one former club headache whom nobody liked much in Oliver Perez to hosting a former club headache whom everybody liked when Ike Davis and the Pirates come to town. I'd like to think the crowd will give Ike a much more cheerful welcome back than they did to Perez. Ike deserves at least that much.

This, by the way, is the 1,000th post here, innocuous as it may seem. Thanks to everyone for reading over the past 7 years, and here's looking forward to the next thousand!

Attack Mode

Strange as it may sound, perhaps playing the Yankees is the best thing for the Mets these days.

In another excruciatingly long game that fell mere minutes short of 4 hours, the Mets slogged their way through a muddled mess of walks, full counts, foul balls and the like. Aesthetically, this was probably the exact opposite of Monday night's game, which was a crisp, clean affair that featured the best of what both teams had to offer. Tonight was 4 hours of pure ugly. Regardless, the Mets came out on top, and really, that's all that matters in the end. With their 12-7 victory (at least I think that's what the final was, since I started nodding out towards the end of the game), the Mets swept the Bronx portion of the Subway Series for the 2nd year in a row, and additionally extended their winning streak in the Subway Series to 6 consecutive games. It's a nice feeling to have, after so many years of getting pushed around.

Whereas last night, the game was a back and forth affair that saw the Mets get up and fight back multiple times, tonight, the Mets stormed the gates from the beginning and really didn't look back. They attacked Vidal Nuno immediately, starting with Eric Young, Jr getting hit by a pitch, Daniel Murphy working a walk out of a 10-pitch At Bat, David Wright following with an RBI single and Curtis Granderson continuing to make himself at home in his former home by nailing a 3-run Home Run. Jumping out like that, one would have to think that this game would be smooth sailing.

Unfortunately, staked to a 4-run lead before he set foot on the mound, Zack Wheeler came out and had what was probably his worst outing of the season. Before the paint had dried on Granderson's Home Run, Wheeler had allowed a Home Run to Mr. Morality himself, cutting the lead down to 4-3. Wheeler's night would be punctuated by poor control, too many deep counts, too many walks, and generally looking out of sorts on the mound. A young pitcher like Wheeler will have days like this, but when his teammates actually went out and scored him a bunch of runs, it would have been nice if he'd been able to get himself through 5 innings. David Wright and Daniel Murphy drove home runs in the 4th, and in the 5th, Murphy for all intents and purposes put the nails in the coffin of this game by smoking a 3-run Home Run off the Right Field foul pole. With a now-7 run lead, Wheeler was sent back to the mound for the last of the 5th to see if he could get himself a win, if nothing else. He couldn't do that; after the Mets offense had piled up runs for him, he still couldn't throw a strike and ended up departing in favor of Daisuke Matsuzaka after only getting one out in the 5th, surrounded by more walks and an RBI hit from Alfonso Soriano.

Matsuzaka, who's no stranger to the Yankees or their ugly hats, not only rescued Wheeler but also accelerated a game that had crept past 3 hours with no end in sight. His 3.2 innings of work featured all of 2 walks, and 1 hit, a meaningless solo Home Run by Flavor of the Month Yangervis Solarte (Greatest Yankees rookie since Oscar Azocar, they said), and certainly earned the Win he got for his efforts. He kept the Yankees in check and more importantly saved the Mets bullpen by taking the game all the way to the 9th inning, where Jeurys Familia made things unnecessarily hairy before closing the game out.

Tonight's game might have lacked the starch that Monday's did, both from an ambient perspective (the crowd was much livelier on Monday--tonight they were mostly asleep and mostly gone by the 7th inning), but I doubt any Mets fan is going to complain about the results. Now, the teams move to Queens for the Citi Field leg of the Subway Series, replete with the Major League debut of Rafael Montero on tap for Wednesday night. We shall see what kind of intrigue develops.

Random Solutions

Admittedly, I had already made a crack yesterday about the Mets basically running out a "Closer du Jour," basically because the closer for the Mets is whoever in the bullpen happens to be the most reliable. Since Bobby Parnell is lost for the season with the Big Boy Surgery, everyone else in the bullpen has been on the hot seat to find some consistency. But finding the most consistent relief pitcher is a slippery slope. It's probably Kyle Farnsworth at the moment, after a few weeks of it being Jose Valverde. But Valverde melted down in Anaheim and hasn't quite come back from that trip, so the role was handed over to Farnsworth, whom you might have seen starting for the Chicago Cubs in an oft-aired Mets Classic game from 2000 (you know, the game in Japan where Benny Agbayani hit his legendary grand slam). But Farnsworth is older now and can't pitch as often as Terry Collins might like him to. So, other options are bandied about. Gonzalez Germen might be the most likely candidate to close, but then you have games like last Friday when he comes in a 1-0 game and leaves a 5-0 game. Yesterday, Collins decided to throw Daisuke Matsuzaka out there to finish things out, and why not? Matsuzaka responded by retiring the wonderful Cardinals in order to finish off a 4-1 win and a resounding 3-1 series victory.

Matsuzaka makes sense as closer for a few reasons. For one, he throws strikes, for the most part. In Sunday's game, he came in in the 11th inning and managed to strike out 5 in his 3 innings of work. He's slow on the mound, but he at least comes after the hitter instead of pussyfooting around. He's managed to make the adjustment from being a starter to being a reliever admirably well. So, why not? He's as good as anyone else out there to take the role. I know that it will probably take Farnsworth yakking up a couple of Save opportunities for Collins to pull the trigger, and perhaps he'll try someone else like Scott Rice or Carlos Torres first, but perhaps the best solution to this revolving door is right under his nose. 

Of course, once he's exhausted his options, then the Mets can try the innovative Cardinals method of closers and bring up guys like Rafael Montero or Jacob deGrom, starters who likely can't crack the rotation right now. Particularly when you have games like yesterday afternoon's, when Bartolo Colon goes out and throws 7 innings of 1-run baseball, to follow up the other solid outings the starting rotation has put up of late. It's not quite as surprising to see Colon do well, since his career has had a renaissance over the past few years. What I guess is so surprising to everyone is that he continues to perform well in spite of the fact that he looks completely ill-suited to be a Major League pitcher. But this seems to work for him.

It seems somewhat haphazard that these are the kind of players that have been doing it for the Mets in the early going this season. But sometimes, that's what a team needs in order to stay afloat.

One More Inning

Sunday Afternoon's game at Citi Field was my 4th game of the season in which the weather was intolerably cold, and my first with my other half, whom I have mentioned is somewhat less-enthused by a day at Citi Field than I am. Particularly on a day when the temperature up in the Promenade level felt a good 10 degrees colder than the 54˚ that was laughably displayed on the scoreboard throughout the proceedings. How cold was it? It was so cold that we willingly spent innings 6 through 9 sitting in the warmth of the Promenade club—obscured view of Home Plate be damned—and not once did I feel I was missing out by not sitting in my seat.

It figured, then, that on a day like this, the Mets and Braves would engage in a 14-inning battle of wills. We did not make it to the end of the game; had I been by myself or with someone a bit heartier, I might have been more likely to stick around. But my other half was cold, and for that matter, I was pretty cold too, and, perhaps fearful of a game like this breaking out, we took our leave after the 11th inning. I was somewhat torn, there was a general feeling of guilt associated with coming or staying, but after so many years of going to games, I've sort of drawn 11 innings as the point where an extra inning game goes from being quaint to a little excessive. And having actually sat through 14-inning games 4 times previously, I know that by time that 14th inning comes around, I've begun rooting for ANYONE to score, not just the Mets. For my other half, any sort of extra inning is met with an assortment of gripes, and usually a discussion about the longest games ever. Being reasonable, at the end of the 10th inning, I asked if she wanted to leave. She said it was up to me. I said I would use a facility and think about it. When I came back, to assorted glowering, I said to her, "One more inning."

The inning came and went, and nobody scored, and with a 12th inning going on, we took our leave. What we ended up missing was, as I followed the game on my phone, two and a half innings of nothing, followed by the Mets winning in the last of the 14th.

Getting to that point was, to be kind, sloppy. Of the 6 runs that were scored over the first 13 1/2 innings of the game, 4 of them were directly due to a variety of errors, 3 of which were committed by the Braves. Eric Young Jr reached 2nd in the 1st inning thanks to Ratso Upton gagging on a lazy fly ball to Left. Young eventually scored on an RBI Groundout by David Wright (who by game's end would have nailed out 4 hits—but not a key one). One inning later, Zack Wheeler hit with the bases loaded and swung at the first pitch, producing a hard grounder in the hole between 1st and 2nd. A run was sure to score, but Dan Uggla, always known for his sure hands, ended up inexplicably dropping the ball while in the process of throwing to 1st, and thus a second run was plated. The Mets had a nice opportunity to open up a lead at this point, but both Young and Curtis Granderson failed to do anything useful.

A Granderson error played key in the 5th inning, which ended up being the only inning in which the Braves scored at all. Ironjaw Heyward slashed a double down the Right Field line that would have put runners at second and third with one out. But Granderson decided, rather than throwing to a cutoff man, to throw the ball in the general direction of the Braves dugout, managing to land the ball perfectly down the dugout steps. This would be 2 points in Curling, but unfortunately they weren't playing curling, and so a run scored and the stage was set for Atlanta to plate two more and grab a temporary 3-2 lead. The Mets, however, took advantage of more vintage Uggla defense in the last of the 6th, when he booted a sure Double Play ball off the bat of Lucas Duda, which allowed Wright to score and tie the game 3-3.

The game then settled into a battle of bullpens, both of which either pitched exceptionally well or just took advantage of some complete offensive ineptitude. In the 7th, the Braves had a golden opportunity to strike, getting a pair of runners on with one out, but with "Baseball's Hottest Hitter" Freddie Freeman coming up, Scott Rice came in and got the sorely-needed Double Play on his first (and only pitch), keeping the game tied. Carlos Torres, Kyle Farnsworth and Daisuke Matsuzaka followed, and in the 6 innings they covered, allowed 1 hit, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts. Matsuzaka's effort was most impressive, covering 3 innings and 5 strikeouts worth of work and generally keeping things in check. Atlanta's bullpen had a similar amount of success, behind 5 relievers covering close to 7 innings and allowing the Mets all of 3 hits of no consequence and a hit batsman, Lucas Duda, that led to one of those bewildering moments that only seems to happen in a game like this, seeing the line "L. Duda stole second base" pop up on ESPN's Game feed in the 13th inning.

Then, there was the 14th, which happened while we were somewhere between Woodside and Court Square. Jose Valverde, deposed as Closer, entered the game in kind of an Oliver Perez "There's nobody else left out here" role. Expecting the worst, Valverde allowed a 1-out single to Gus Schlosser, the Barves' long reliever, but followed that up by getting Meathead Gattis to hit into a DP. In the bottom of the inning, the Mets managed to scrape across a run by doing the absolute minimum necessary. Kirk Nieuwenhuis led off with a walk. Ruben Tejada followed by sacrificing him to 2nd. Eric Young Jr. was then walked intentionally, to get to Curtis Granderson. Granderson, to this point in the game had gone 0-for-6, including a ground out with the bases loaded, a strikeout, a horrible error and boos that had begun to reach Jason Bay-level. But Schlosser basically dropped the game in Granderson's lap when he wild-pitched the runners up a base on the first pitch, and then Granderson hit a fly ball out to Ratso Upton in left that was just deep enough to get Nieuwenhuis home with the winning run. It seemed fitting that it would be Granderson getting the winning run home after the lousy day he'd had, but at the same time, it typified the lousy start he's had that he could only managed to get the run home when it was basically served to him on a silver platter. Sometimes these things can be tide-turning, but I guess that remains to be seen.

The 14 innings, despite the fact that I wasn't there for the last three of them, ties my personal record for longest game by innings. As I mentioned, this was the 5th such time that I've been subjected to such a long game. Fortunately, of the 5, the Mets have won 4 of them. At 4 hours, 37 minutes, it was far from the longest game I've ever been to. That honor was met just last season, in a 13-inning game against Arizona that lasted 5 hours, 13 minutes, and believe me, when you're at games that extend that long, you feel every bit of it afterwards. Even if you leave before the game's actually over.

Dead Air

This afternoon's game was kind of bittersweet for me, although what went on during the game itself had very little to do with it. It's no secret that the Mets won't be on WFAN any more after this season. Although my initial reaction was of disdain and disgust for the Wilpons for allowing this to happen, I later found out that apparently WFAN lowballed the Mets during negotiations. But regardless of that, it's really the end of an era, since I basically grew up with the Mets on WFAN (and, yes, WHN before that), and WFAN and the weird, wild voices of New York have sort of become the background noise for my life. Sure, you get all sorts of perspectives and personalities, and I tend to agree with very few of them, but it's almost always entertaining. And, of course, this station that seems to be the quintessential New York station was the home of my team. And now, it's not going to be. And that's really weird.

So, at any rate, this was the Mets last Weekday Afternoon game of the year, and as such it was going to be the last time I'd be listening to the Mets on WFAN in my office. As I've mentioned, I usually stream WFAN, but thanks to Slick Bud, the Mets games are blacked out from streaming audio unless I open up my wallet. It's for this reason that I keep a portable radio on hand. Unhappily, after making it through the entire season without an issue, only today did the batteries in the radio die. That wasn't so bad, except that the radio is one of the 6 devices remaining on earth that uses "C" batteries. I know this because if you go anyplace to buy "C" batteries, they're usually buried at the bottom of a rack, covered in dust with an expiration date about 4 years shorter than any other type of battery. Compounding the problem even further was the fact that the battery cover on the radio was stuck. I couldn't open it with my hands, and found no success with a variety of other tools and objects. So, no matter how hard I tried, there would be no final WFAN with Howie and Josh this Wednesday afternoon.

Relegated to MLB Gamecast, the game really existed on a rumor level. I know it's hard for me to follow the game in my office on the radio. On Gamecast, forget it. It may as well have not gone on at all. I clicked it on, started working on something else and by time I looked at it again, it was the bottom of the 8th inning. What I missed, apparently, was Daisuke Matsuzaka dialing the clock back to 2008 or perhaps back to Japan, because he basically stepped on the Reds throats completely over his 7.2 innings of work. The Mets got a run on a little scratch of a single through a drawn-in infield by Eric Young, Jr and that was it for the scoring. The rest was all Daisuke, who, amazingly, started out looking like one of the worst embarrassments in Mets history and has improved, start by start, to the point where hey, maybe he is part of the discussion. How the hell that ever became possible, I don't know, but his last 4 starts, all of them Met wins, have certainly done wonders for his public opinion among Mets fans. And his swan song today (assuming this is his last start this season), against a Playoff-bound Reds team, was easily his best start yet.

Matsuzaka is certainly the story today, and if he's not back (and I'm still hard-pressed to think he will be), he's if nothing else proven he's still able to compete. Today, although he didn't get much help offensively, he made his 1 run stand up, partially due to his Catcher Juan Centeno, who became the first Catcher to successfully throw out the hotshot speedster Billy Hamilton after 13 straight successful steal attempts to start his career. The rest of the game, from what I could gather, was fairly uneventful. Pedro Feliciano and LaTroy Hawkins finished things out for Daisuke, and the Mets, long since left for dead, went into Cincinnati and kind of pissed on their parade a little bit, making them look bad last night and lifeless in Wednesday's 1-0 victory, beating them 2 games to 1 in the series, and giving the Pirates and Cardinals a decided leg up as they continue to fight for position. Then again, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh play this weekend, so maybe they'll just beat each other up before they meet in the Wildcard Play-In Game (more of a mouthful than it needs to be).

So, the Mets are done for this season on the road, where amazingly they ended up just barely over .500 at 41-40. Their problem, obviously, lies at home, where they come now for 4 final games to close out the season. The Milwaukee Brewers—Remember them?—are the final team to visit, and they arrive fresh off a near-riot in Atlanta caused by old friend Carlos Gomez. Unfortunately, Gomez was in the wrong in this particular incident, so it's hard to get on the Braves too much, but they seemed to be doing an awful lot of whining afterwards (and while we're on the subject of teams I don't like, Wednesday night officially confirmed what was brewing for weeks—New York will be Baseball-free come Sunday night, although don't be surprised if fans of the other team continue to insist that "Dey still gotta chance (garble snort drool)!"). But that's scarcely the concern of the Mets. Right now, the plan is to keep what could be a really nice, strong finish going through the weekend.

Professionalism

I was out a majority of the evening on Friday and didn't see any of the game. In fact, because I was seeing a show, I could only check the score at sporadic moments in the evening. But I was already in good spirits before the show began because I'd noticed that David Wright, in his first At Bat since coming back from the DL, had hit a 2-run Home Run off Cole Hamels that staked the Mets to an early lead.

By intermission, that lead had dwindled, but as the show and the game ended at relatively the same time, I was able to leave the Theater and get buzzed by my phone with the final score within a couple of minutes. The lead ultimately held up and the Mets came away with a 6-4 victory in Philadelphia, which is always nice no matter what the circumstances.

I can't really expound much on Matsuzaka, although from what I was able to grok, he pitched reasonably well and got betrayed by his defense a little in the 4th. That's the 3rd time in a row he's been OK, but just OK. I'm still not convinced he'll be anything more than a September fill-in, but hey, September fill-ins are still Mets, and I still want them to do well (I want all the Mets to do well, of course. Even Lucas Duda, except that he seems constantly unable to do so). So, really, the story of the game is Wright, who came back to finish the season when he certainly couldn't have been blamed for shutting it down and coming back fresh next season.

But has anything David Wright has ever done since he arrived on the Mets almost 10 years ago ever indicated that he would do something like that?

Of course not. Say what you will about David Wright, but he's never laid down. And you can only imagine that the last thing he wanted to remember from this season was that his ended with him getting injured and unable to come back. It's a testament to how much he cares about his place in the history of the Franchise and how much he respects the fans that root for him. So, in spite of the Mets playing out the string once again and in spite of the fact that he may not have been 100%, Wright came back, and hit one out in his first AB, and that spurred the Mets on to a win. A performance like this probably wouldn't have saved the Mets for the season, but having him in the lineup, and then thinking about what the Mets had been throwing out there over the last 6 weeks, well, you have to imagine that maybe there might have been a little more juice in the team if he'd been healthy. It might not have led to more wins, but it certainly would have meant a little more excitement.

Forgotten Games

The Mets played a pair of games in Cleveland over the weekend that will more than likely be mostly forgotten by most Mets fans, whether they witnessed them or not. I, for one, did not witness much of either game, and therefore there isn't much I can say about them.

I was out for a good chunk of the afternoon/evening on Saturday, and although I knew about the somewhat odd 6:05 start time, I didn't bother following along on my phone when the game eventually did start. This was just as well since the Indians bombarded Jonathon Niese for 5 runs in the 1st inning and pretty much went from there. The Mets reportedly played terribly and then when they made a spirited effort to get back into the game, Scott Atchison let Cleveland put it out of reach. I know about this part because I clicked the game on just as I got home, which was just in time to see Scott Atchison grousing around the pitcher's mound and the scorebug reading NYM 4, CLE 9, and hearing Gary Cohen using his despondent voice. That was the story and that was the final, and I feel I missed nothing.

Sunday, I got myself sucked into the Jets game for a majority of the afternoon as sort of a comical undercard to the 49ers game, which was scheduled for 4:25. I knew the Mets game was on, and I knew Daisuke Matsuzaka was pitching, and I sort of took for granted that disaster was imminent. Also, when I finally clicked over to the Mets, which was about 2:10pm, I half expected to see the scorebug read NYM 0, CLE 4 in the bottom of the 2nd, and I was surprised to not only see that the Mets were winning, but it was the 4th inning. However, the game clearly slowed down considerably from there, because by time I clicked back, it was about 3:30pm and the game was in the 7th, now tied 1-1. I clicked over again when the Jets game ended, and I saw that it was the bottom of the 8th, still 1-1, and Frank Francisco on the mound with and the bases loaded. I figured disaster was imminent, and shut it off. By this time, the 49ers game was about to start and so I figured I'd get a buzz on my phone when the game ended. But the buzz never came. Around 5pm, I flipped back over to SNY to see what was up. Now, I figured, the game must have gone into extra innings. But there were Gary Apple and Bob Ojeda sitting there talking about Frank Francisco's "Great job." It seems that not only did Francisco get out of the inning, but he also got the win thanks to Eric Young, Jr getting the game winning hit in the 9th. Go figure.

A 2-1 game that took 3 hours, 43 minutes to complete. I was watching the Jets somehow fall ass-backwards into a victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers while most of this game was going on. That was pretty bad, although I have to say that our good friend Kevin Burkhart did an outstanding job announcing the game on Fox. But for as painful as the Jets game might have been, it can't possibly have been as excruciating as a 3 hour, 43 minute game where only 3 runs crossed the plate.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Nap Time!

I sort of had a bad feeling about today's Met Massacre in Atlanta before the game even started. Sometimes you know when circumstances are about to conspire to sink your ballclub. The Mets had arrived in Atlanta at sometime around 4am Monday Morning, where they had little opportunity to get any sleep before arriving at our favorite place, Turner Field, for a 1pm game. That Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was slated to start, went ahead and did get some sleep was of little solace; his miserable pace appeared more likely to put his groggy teammates to sleep rather than provide a jolt.

This was bad enough, but the Mets also puked up a lead to the Nationals on Sunday night. Jonathon Niese, though not as sharp as he was against Philly, pitched well, but was forced from the game due to leg cramps in the 6th inning (and seeing him walk off with the trainer before anyone knew what the hell was going on probably sent more than a few Met fans down the dispensary). The bullpen, and on this night it was Scott Atchison, Scott Rice and Gonzalez Germen, then frittered away a 5-2 lead, as the Nationals kept pecking and scraping before finally getting the key hit from, who else, Jayson Werth. The end result was a 6-5 loss in a game the Mets probably should have won, and while taking 2 of 3 is nice, I would have preferred to sweep the Nationals and kick them in the nuts. Instead, the Nationals won, and all the talk was about the "gritty gutty Nationals" and how this could be the springboard they need to get back into the Wildcard race. And, of course, the Mets were left to carry around the stink from this loss straight from the ballpark to the airplane to Atlanta, where they had an approximately 13 1/2 hour turnaround before playing today.

Needless to say, the results this afternoon were not good.

This was pretty much a disaster from the outset. Matsuzaka, who I'm convinced has nothing left, was just as putrid as he was against Philadelphia, and the Braves jumped on him for long hit after long hit, running up 6 runs in 2 innings as he continued to work at a snail's pace. Paul Maholm for the Braves was no better pace-wise, but he at least got some outs. The end result was that by time Matsuzaka was mercifully lifted after the 3rd inning, the game was already nearing 90 minutes old, an appallingly long time for 3 innings worth of play.

Things didn't improve much for the Mets from there. They tried to claw their way back into the game, but realistically, they didn't have much of a chance. They got some hits from Zach Lutz, who has resurfaced to be the boring right handed guy off the bench (Andrew Brown has proven himself too useful of late), and Daniel Murphy (whose hot streak probably has another 2 days left before he goes back to hitting .248), but when they needed a big hit that would really make this a respectable game, it didn't happen, and instead the Mets just loafed through the game looking like they needed a nap while Atlanta kept tacking on runs. Gonzalez Germen and David Aardsma took the brunt of this beating, although outside of the recently resurfaced Tim Byrdak and the recently acquired Vic Black, nobody pitched especially well today.

Towards the end of this debacle, another mess of a game that took over 3 and a half hours to wrap up, Gary and Ron kept talking about the silver linings from the game, and how it was great to see Tim Byrdak back, and to see Vic Black come in and get a key out, and Zach Lutz got a big hit, but how important were these things? The Mets lost by 8 runs and none of these three particular things would have prevented that from happening. In fact, I think it's safe to say that 2 of these 3 guys likely won't have a job with the Mets after this season (well, unless the Mets really want a second lefty specialist). But, then again, you take what little positive you can in games like this. I suppose there's not much else that they can be expected to do. Except, perhaps, go back to the hotel and get some sleep.

Not Fit For Public Consumption

I had tickets for last night's game, but for a variety of reasons, I couldn't attend. I attempted, rather halfheartedly, to sell the tickets, but I couldn't find a taker. After getting home to find the game in the 5th inning at close to 9pm, I can say without hesitation that I'm not only really glad I didn't go to the game, but I'm also glad I didn't foist the tickets onto some poor slob who would have gone out to Citi Field and been subjected to the utter quagmire that was this 3 hour, 32 minute slog of a baseball game.

It was bad enough that Daisuke Matsuzaka didn't have it. Worse, perhaps, was the fact that the Phillies weren't able to hit him solidly, thereby allowing him to survive into the 5th inning in spite of the fact that he'd a) thrown about 271 pitches and b) worked at a pace that was somewhere in the neighborhood of Shaun Marcum times the square root of Steve Trachsel to the Oliver Perezth power. This immediately equaled no good whatsoever, and yet only after he departed following a hit batsman with the bases loaded did the Phillies finally break open a game they should have broken open 3 innings ago. It is only a small miracle that the Phillies didn't win this game 15-2, and perhaps it's a testament to their own ineptitude that they didn't score so many runs. Matsuzaka has shown so little of value in his first two starts that I'm hard pressed to think that he'll be remembered as anything more than simply a warm body who can vaguely get the ball over the plate and eat up some innings in his time with the Mets. And I'm dubious as to just how many innings he can eat because the ones he's pitched, he's done more harm than good.

In a season where I've left games early multiple times, I shudder to think how I would have reacted to being at this game. It was one of those miserably humid nights where you wish it would rain, but it never does, and the heaviness of the air combined with the absolute crawl of this game could very well have combined to make me leave after the 5th inning, once our good buddy Cole Hamels slapped a 2-run single to effectively ice the game at 4-1.

Based on what I saw on TV, I see I wasn't the only one who seemed to find this night a near perfect storm for disaster. With the Mets in complete Buzzkill mode and having dealt away enough pieces to boast a lineup featuring 6 rookies, can you blame people for not wanting to show up? There looked to be about 800 fans at Citi Field at best, sporting absurd bow ties and not looking especially pleased to be there. I usually hate missing games I have tickets to, but after seeing the results, I have to say I don't feel bad about not being there tonight. I missed absolutely nothing and spared myself a lot of self-examination about why I keep going to all these games. Fortunately, I've avoided the existential crisis. At least for one night, that is. I still have tickets to 4 more games this season.

Not Much to Talk About

I didn't write anything yesterday about Wednesday's game because, for one, it ended terribly and two, I had it on the radio in the midst of what was a particularly busy day in the office, so anything I had to say would not have been particularly well-informed. This hasn't stopped me in the past, but hey, it's my blog and I do as I please.

It was another game where I lost track of time and didn't put the game on until the 2nd inning. Not that I'd missed much, but I did hear Josh Satin's Home Run, particularly because Josh Lewin's guttural screaming clued me in. The rest of the game was a blur; the kind of weekday afternoon game that kind of just happened and then I'd prick up my ears in time to hear Howie Rose say "Put it in the Books" or something desultory if the Mets lost. Then I was in another office in a meeting for a while, and when I came back, I heard Josh talking about guys getting ejected and the Braves leading 4-1 in the 10th inning. A colleague was sitting at another desk in my office. The following discussion ensued:

Me: 4-1?! What the fuck happened?

Colleague: What? I wasn't listening.

It was that kind of afternoon.

Just as well, I suppose, since it was certainly the kind of game not worth remembering.

Fortunately, the Mets made an addition on Thursday as bit of a smokescreen to make us all forget about Wednesday's mess. Daisuke Matsuzaka, who had been lost in the shuffle for a couple of years after his flashy career in Japan and misanthropic few years in Boston, was brought in, presumably just to eat some innings and prevent any more Carlos Torres starts. Matsuzaka will get thrown right into the fire and face the Detroit Tigers, who have been a bit like the AL's version of the Dodgers tonight, so we'll get a good idea of what, if anything, he's got left very quickly.

To call this a stopgap move is probably the understatement of the year. Matsuzaka hasn't pitched in the Major Leagues this season, and hasn't pitched effectively since 2008, which, by the way, was the last time he pitched a full season in the Majors (and only his second since jumping from Japan to America). A phenom in Japan as a teenager, Matsuzaka has probably reached the end of his useful rope, so I can't say I think he'll be around much more than the 6 weeks remaining in this season (the early results are not encouraging, he's given up 5 runs in 2 innings, including a rocket of a Home Run to Miguel Cabrera). But, playing out the string, with several of their young pitchers on innings limits and others likely not to reach the Major Leagues this season, he probably is the best option out there, particularly since it's costing the Mets very little and they have no particular obligation to him beyond this season.