Faces Familiar and Forgotten

With just a week's worth of season left for the Mets, I'm now starting to get kind of wistful. I have tickets to Thursday night's Mets/Brewers game. I got them as part of my plan. I'd figured I would use them, until I a) began to question the utility of going to a meaningless game on what's probably going to be a cold night when it's dubious I can get someone to go with me and b) realized the 49ers were playing the Thursday night game. So, I made an attempt to sell the tickets on StubHub and, not surprisingly, nobody's bought them. But only today, I began to reconsider not going. I mean, I'll be there on Sunday, so it's not as though I'm passing on my last game of the season, but, hey, why not get the extra game in when I've got the tickets? Plus the Mets already have my money, and I'll laughably be counted as the paid attendance whether I show up or not. I've posed this question on Facebook to a mixed response. I suppose it remains to be seen. It is supposed to be nice on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, the Mets still have these final 3 road games of the year in Cincinnati, one of those NL Central towns where the Mets only go once a year and, like Chicago or Pittsburghe, if you blink, you'll miss it, and at this time of year, a majority of Mets fans are blinking. But I watched this game from start to bitter end tonight, and what I came away with was a pretty clear picture of who should be here and who shouldn't going forward. I'll spare an exegesis of the game, since what basically happened was the Mets wasted opportunities, tied the game instead of going ahead, and kept the game tied long enough to lose in 10 innings. That said, let's go down the list:

TRAVIS d'ARNAUD: Should be here. Looked outstanding behind the plate tonight. Threw out 1 runner trying to steal, and probably should have gotten Choo twice, once early in the game, when he threw a bullet to 2nd only to have Daniel Murphy not tag the runner and later in the 9th inning when he had Choo picked off 2nd, but got rooked by a non-interference call when Brandon Phillips stepped in front of him. He probably wouldn't have thrown out Billy Hamilton in the 8th, but it would have been nice to see him get an opportunity except that Frank Francisco botched the pitchout. Also blocked several balls in the dirt, particularly saving Aardsma's ass in the 9th.

LUCAS DUDA: Should not be here, surprise surprise. If you really need the evidence, here it is: Runner on 1st, 2 out in the 1st, Duda grounds out to 2nd. Bases loaded, 1 out in the 3rd. A long hit could swing the game in the Mets' favor. Duda takes a mighty hack...and lofts a fly ball to Center that's fortunately deep enough to score Aaron Harang. 2 out, none on in the 6th, Home Run to right center. 2 on, 1 out in the 8th inning, Ground ball double play. I rest my case.

ERIC YOUNG, JR: Should be here, but not as a starter. I like his attitude and his style of play, but he is better suited in the role once filled by a guy we all know and love named Endy Chavez. Has Chavez's flair for defense. Lacks Chavez's heady instinct on the bases, as evidenced by his completely unnecessary attempt to steal 3rd base with 2 outs in the 3rd. That he looked to be safe and was called out probably served him right.

DAVID AARDSMA: Should be here, I guess. Middle relievers, in my opinion, are a dime a dozen, and Aardsma's certainly had his ups and downs, but he showed me a lot tonight by not giving an inch to the Reds when his ass was really in the fire in the 9th. He inherited an instant mess when he picked up for Byrdak after Choo's double, and of course I already mentioned that Choo probably should have been picked off second. But Aardsma stoned up after that, getting Phillips to ground out weakly, Ludwick to pop out meekly, and Frazier to fly out, sandwiching the predictable intentional walks of Votto and Bruce in between (Nobody's that stupid). It's unfortunate that this didn't spur the Mets on to a victory, but it put a little juice in the proceedings.

GREG BURKE: Should not be here. Should never have been here in the first place. Any reliever who's been back and forth from AAA 5 times in one season probably isn't sold out to be part of a team going forward. I'm not quite sure why he was in the game at all, although I suppose in a game where the Mets used 8 pitchers, his number had to come up eventually.

I'll stop here, since that's the extent of the key players in this game, plus come next week, I will once again post my annual Mets report card, which stands to be a real doozy since the Mets have run 53 players out there so far this season and a lot of them weren't very good. Should be the snarkmongers delight.

Unnecessary Moves

I didn't see any part of last night's game for a variety of reasons, but I did try to keep track of the game when I could, and what I basically was able to grok was that there were essentially two games in one going on.

First, Matt Harvey went out and pitched a Matt Harvey game. He had a perfect game into the 5th inning, he struck out 11 batters, he actually got a little bit of run support, and by time he departed after his 7 innings of work, he appeared to be very much in line for his 8th win of the year, and his 3rd win in 3 consecutive starts, as the Mets had a 4-1 lead. I could expound more on Harvey, but, really, it's been done all year, and besides, I have a word count limit on the weekend.

The second game was the remainder of the game, which was patently awful. Terry Collins basically left the game in the oven about 2 hours too long and then tried to serve it up to everyone. David Aardsma came in for the 8th inning, which was fine, Aardsma has pitched well, and he gave up a leadoff single, and then very quickly got the next two outs without much issue. So, Terry Collins pulled him from the game to play lefty/lefty, bringing in Josh Edgin to face Denard Span.

This is basically where everything went wrong. Edgin gave up a hit, Brandon Lyon came in and gave up a walk and a 3-run double, and the Nationals had built up enough of a groundswell that they scored two more off of Bobby Parnell in the 9th to win a game that they really had no business winning.

I'm sure I'm not the first, and I can't imagine I will be the last to ask why, exactly, Aardsma was taken out of the game at that point. There was really no particular reason to do it there. If Collins was so into playing matchups, then why not pull Aardsma when Chad Tracy pinch hit one batter earlier? The entire thing reeks of overmanaging, and when you start doing that, you usually end up outfoxing yourself. Last night, Collins outfoxed himself right out of a victory for Matt Harvey. I say this a lot, but at least I wasn't there to witness the clown car at Citi Field, but that's besides the point. After this latest road trip, and after the Mets have actually looked a little lively these past couple of weeks, how is it that they've come home and turned back into a bunch of pumpkins? What is it about playing at Citi Field that makes everyone not named Harvey or Wright implode? I can't figure it out. Maybe they should make everyone wear road jerseys or something.

Full Team Effort

I was making dinner in the 4th inning, so I didn't really see what exactly happened to Jonathon Niese until a replay was shown. All I know is that while tending to something on the stove, I heard Gary Cohen say something about "He's coming out of the game," and turned around to see Niese scowling and walking off the field.

Already down 3-2 at this point, and playing in Atlanta, where as I've said nothing good ever happens to the Mets, I figured this was probably the perfect point for the Mets to lay down and die. Needing the bullpen to cobble together the remainder of the game was, at best, a dicey proposition, and even if they managed to get through, was there any guarantee that the Mets would come back and generate enough runs to offset their deficit? David Wright, the lone Met who could be counted on, had already hit a pair of Home Runs, which was more than his quota for the day. Someone else had to step up.

I finished making my dinner and was sitting down to eat when one of my questions was answered, in the form of Andrew Brown, whom I derided yesterday as basically cannon fodder, but in this particular moment picked a good time to show his worth, socking a game-tying Home Run off Mike Minor, a parabolic shot that Ratso Upton looked like he had lined up until he ran out of room. Brown was up pinch hitting for David Aardsma, who, since mysteriously surfacing with the Mets a few weeks ago (and replacing Don Aase at the top of the Mets alphabetical roster), has pitched rather well, in spite of it often coming in a hopeless situation. Aardsma was the first man out of the bullpen Thursday, getting out of a minor jam after relieving Niese.

LaTroy Hawkins followed Brown and Aardsma and, after starting out the season looking like he'd be one of my daily flogs, has actually done a reasonably good job of shutting me up. I can't say he's been especially flashy, but for the most part he's been effective (although when he's ineffective, he's patently awful). His two innings of work, the 5th and 6th, featured two singles of little consequence, which was good for two reasons: a) It kept the game tied and b) it allowed me to enjoy my dinner.

Still, all these good pitching performances stood to go for naught if the Mets offense continued to not hit. Omar Quintanilla led off the 7th inning with a double, and he was followed by another Pinch Hitter, Josh Satin. Josh Satin has been another player I've deemed a useless spare part, and for the most part, that's kind of what he is, but, much like Andrew Brown, he had his shining moment in this game by slicing a line drive down the right field line that looked for all the world to be curling foul, but fell to the ground just soon enough to tap the foul line and bounce into the corner for the tie-breaking hit. So now, not only have the Mets been getting lights out work from the bullpen, but their offense managed to get them a lead. Satin then got thrown out at 3rd on a boneheaded baserunning play later in the inning, proving that even the least common denominator on a 25-man roster can sometimes shit a diamond.

Now working with a lead, Brandon Lyon took the mound and immediately walked Ratso Upton. Fortuitously, however, Fredo Upton immediately followed by hitting into a double play, allowing Lyon to get through the 7th with relative ease (and a minor note, I goofed the other night, mistakenly referring to the elder Upton brother as "Cheech," forgetting that he should properly be known as "Fredo"). Things got slightly hairy in the 8th, however, courtesy of a David Wright error. Lyon still appeared primed to get out of the inning, but for a broken bat bloop from Tyler Pastornicky (who appears to be one of those guys that is always going to annoy the hell out of you) that fell in with 2 outs, putting runners at the corners, Jason Heyward at the plate and Lyon in the dugout.

Josh Edgin was where I figured the Mets luck was going to run out. Edgin was miserable early in the season and no better since he's returned. But, given one shot, and after working the count full, he did manage to get Heyward to ground to Duda, who made the maddest of dashes to beat Heyward to 1st Base.

The Mets, of course, didn't tack on any runs, so Bobby Parnell was summoned to protect a 1-run lead against the vaunted middle of the Braves Lineup, Bitch McFreeman, Ratso Upton and Fredo Upton. But, after so many innings of being lulled to sleep by the variety of relievers the Mets had been running out to the mound all night, Parnell simply carved the lot of them up, capping off a mettle-testing 4-3 victory by posting the only 1-2-3 inning of the night.

So, after all that, the Mets actually won this ridiculously extended 5-game series in Atlanta 3 games to 2, becoming the first road team to win a series in Atlanta. Given the Mets history at Turner Field, and the way the first 4 innings of the game Thursday night unfolded, you probably would not have figured that likely, but it actually happened. And after everything that's gone on to this point this season, the Mets are, in fact, beginning to show some signs of life. Maybe.