Who is Jake?

Friday brought the Mets into Washington for the first of a 4-game series and, well, if there was ever a time when it seemed like the Mets would go into Washington and get absolutely murdered, this would be it.

But that didn't happen. The Mets are totally neutered at this point, but Washington, who I have always felt to be kind of a paper tiger, doesn't look so great either. Take Bryce Hairdo out of that lineup and it seems a little more pedestrian. But I digress. I hate the Nationals so why the hell would I have anything nice to say about them ever?

With the backdrop of this partially amusing, partially embarrassing, mostly silly Player's Weekend thing going on, the Mets played the Nationals and actually won on Friday night, mostly because Jacob deGrom pitched like Jacob deGrom, even if he couldn't be bothered to come up with a more inventive nickname to put on his jersey than "Jake." "Jake" did what he needed to do, pitching into the 8th inning, striking out 10 batters, crossing 200 strikeouts for the season and allowing 1 run and 5 hits.

On the other side, A.J. Cole started for Washington and looked every bit like he was ready to hit the showers. He was walking guys and giving up hits, but the Mets kept letting him off the hook. They scored a run in the first and probably would have had more had Dominic Smith's single not hit the umpire and, subsequently, led to Yoenis Cespedes coming up lame once again with another hamstring injury. "La Potencia," of course, was done for the night right then and there and the way things are going I'd be surprised if we see him at all the rest of the season. And maybe the Mets should just wrap his legs in bubble wrap and tell him to keep off them for a month or so until everything heals up and he doesn't do this again next season. Because that's a problem.

So the Mets had 1 run when it felt like they should have had 4 or 5 off of Cole, but then they did plate two runs in the 8th, thanks to Rey Rey (playing Left in place of Cespedes) and Dominic Smith, and another in the 9th to ice away this Pyrrhic 4-2 victory. This season, even the good ends up being kind of ugly.

Comic Book Farce

In this late part of the Summer, my co-workers (all two of them) have been in the office sporadically for one reason or another. I of course had taken my vacation earlier in the Summer, and as a result I've had several days where I've been in the office by myself. I have passed these days by harkening back to my old days and putting on the radio for a little while. It had been some time since I'd heard Mike Francesa, but Thursday was the first time that the Mets had a game on a day where I was in the office by myself. I didn't have a physical radio, but I did have a computer and an MLB.com subscription, so I was able to listen along with Howie and Josh while I worked.

I was, much like I did in the old days, listening with half an ear until about the 4th or 5th inning when I heard Michael Conforto batting and Howie say something like "And Conforto goes down!" and then, of course, my first thought was "Now What!?" Of course it wasn't good, and it looks as though Conforto has separated his shoulder and I'd assume this is the last we've seen of him for 2017. I assume. I'd like to hope otherwise. But doesn't it figure that the guy who's been one of the few legitimate bright spots for the Mets would g

In this late part of the Summer, my co-workers (all two of them) have been in the office sporadically for one reason or another. I of course had taken my vacation earlier in the Summer, and as a result I've had several days where I've been in the office by myself. I have passed these days by harkening back to my old days and putting on the radio for a little while. It had been some time since I'd heard Mike Francesa, but Thursday was the first time that the Mets had a game on a day where I was in the office by myself. I didn't have a physical radio, but I did have a computer and an MLB.com subscription, so I was able to listen along with Howie and Josh while I worked.

I was, much like I did in the old days, listening with half an ear until about the 4th or 5th inning when I heard Michael Conforto batting and Howie say something like "And Conforto goes down!" and then, of course, my first thought was "Now What!?" Of course it wasn't good, and it looks as though Conforto has separated his shoulder and I'd assume this is the last we've seen of him for 2017. I assume. I'd like to hope otherwise. But doesn't it figure that the guy who's been one of the few legitimate bright spots for the Mets would go down doing something as benign as SWINGING A BAT? It's just indicative of the farce this season has become. It's no longer 2001 or 2013 where everyone is sluggish and the team never got going. This is turning into 2009 where its not enough that everyone gets hurt, but people are now getting hurt in ridiculous ways. I at least give the Mets management some degree of credit for throwing in the towel and trying to build forward instead of trying to kid us into thinking this season was salvageable, which it's not. But what is next year going to be? That's what I find worrisome because 2009 happened and you figured. oh, it'll be OK, the injured guys will come back and 2010 will be better! and instead 2010 stunk just as bad.

Sigh. After all that, who really gave a shit about the game? The Mets lost anyway.

o down doing something as benign as SWINGING A BAT? It's just indicative of the farce this season has become. It's no longer 2001 or 2013 where everyone is sluggish and the team never got going. This is turning into 2009 where its not enough that everyone gets hurt, but people are now getting hurt in ridiculous ways. I at least give the Mets management some degree of credit for throwing in the towel and trying to build forward instead of trying to kid us into thinking this season was salvageable, which it's not. But what is next year going to be? That's what I find worrisome because 2009 happened and you figured. oh, it'll be OK, the injured guys will come back and 2010 will be better! and instead 2010 stunk just as bad.

Sigh. After all that, who really gave a shit about the game? The Mets lost anyway.

Groan

Well, I mean, what would a Mets road trip be without another player going down with an injury that probably could have been avoided with proper conditioning?

The Mets lost to the Mickey Mouse Marlins in the Loria Mystery Machine on Tuesday, 6-3, which is bad enough, but of course they also lost Robert Gsellman to a hamstring injury in the process. This occurred at the end of the 4th inning, at a point in the game where the Mets had gone ahead on a Curtis Granderson Home Run to lead off the game, fallen behind when Gsellman allowed 3 in the bottom of the 1st, and were in the process of trying to claw back into the game. Gsellman hit a slow roller and busted it to try and beat it out, as that would have allowed the tying run to score. But, of course, he was out, the run didn't score, he came up lame and was out of the game, and that kind of screwed the Mets from there. Instead of trying to get Gsellman through 6 innings, they were in the bullpen in the 4th, working forward, and although they did tie the game later, the bullpen eventually did the Mets in again as Neil Ramirez, Jerry Blevins and company decided to abandon all fundamentals in the last of the 7th inning.

The constant string of avoidable injuries was bad enough (the Mets play in Florida in the Summer enough to know to fucking hydrate before a game), but of course their play in the last of the 7th was something to rival the Brooklyn Cyclones or some similar Low-A ball team. Ramirez was summoned to start the inning, which already was a bad sign since nobody trusts Ramirez in anything even resembling a high-leverage situation. Again, Injured pitcher screwing things up. He walked the first batter and right there I knew that the Marlins were going to score multiple runs. I didn't need to see Lucas Duda ole what was probably a double play ball, or Wilmer Flores run away from a ground ball that he would have probably been hard-pressed to field anyway. The damage was already done.

So, the Mets undo all the weekend's good will, lose another Pitcher and look like assholes. Another fine day. You wonder why I'm groaning.

Not So Fast

By all rights, the Mets should not have won on Wednesday night. Consider everything that happened in the early part of the game:

Matt Harvey came out and allowed a Home Run on the first pitch he threw to Anthony Rizzo. One batter later, he allowed another Home Run to Ian Happ. Later, he allowed a third Home Run, this one of the moonshot variety to Kyle Schwarber. All the while, his velocity dropped down to some disturbingly low levels, and after 4 innings and 4 runs, he was done, complaining of a "dead arm."

In the 3rd inning, Neil Walker attempted to lay down a bunt for a hit, came up lame and went down hard, leaving the game with what looked to be at worst a bad hamstring pull.

Michael Conforto missed his 3rd straight game with back stiffness and Yoenis Cespedes was given an off day and, given his bizarre preparatory routine, was unavailable to pinch hit in the 4th inning, resulting in the Mets needing to send up...Steven Matz.

So at this point in the game, everything has gone wrong, Cubs fans are once again hooting and hollering and throwing pizza pies in each other's faces, and the Mets are hanging their heads down 4-1.

But something funny happened. The Mets fought back.

Matz, who we already know swings like he means it, hit with one out and the bases loaded against Mike Montgomery and, well, it wasn't a thing of beauty, but his chopper to 3rd was well-enough placed that he beat the throw and drove in the run. Juan Lagares followed with a sac fly and 4-1 became 4-3, and in the 6th, it became 4-4 when Lagares hit an RBI triple off of Pedro Strop.

Thus the game was turned over to the bullpens, and with the meat of the Cubs lineup hitting, Jerry Blevins was summoned, and, you know, all he did was whiff Rizzo to finish the 7th, whiff Baseballs Jesus in the 8th, and finish out his 1 1/3 innings by making Willson Contreras look like an arrogant jackass by tossing his bat away on strike two and then freezing him for strike 3.

It remained tied in the last of the 8th, and the Cubs went to Carl Edwards Jr., one of those weird single-digit-wearing pitchers. Curtis Granderson led off and you kind of had a feeling something was going to happen, you know, late and close, packed house, and as no sooner did Gary Cohen mention that he was at 299 career Home Runs then Granderson uncorked himself and drove a pitch into the Right Field seats to put the Mets ahead. But that was just the start of things. Josee Reyes hit and Yoenis Cespedes hit (and was promptly run for by Robert Gsellman), and Reyes stole a base, and at some point Hector Rondon appeared and Lucas Duda blasted a pitch into a spot similar to where Granderson's hit landed for a 3-run Home Run and, dare I say, he skipped across Home Plate. The Mets still weren't done but the consequential part of the inning had occurred, and the Mets had gone from seemingly dead in the water to ahead 9-4, which Addison Reed locked down after an unnecessarily hairy 9th inning.

So, now, maybe there's something going here, as the Mets have rallied back to win 5 of 6, and take a series from the "unbeatable Cubs juggernaut," and send them out of town and send their obnoxious fans back to their cave. The key, then, would be if they can keep this going through the weekend against Washington. This has all the makings of a series that could either give the Mets more momentum or just kill the entire season. I'm not sure there's much in between. 3 of 4 is a tall order but if you want to make a statement, that's what needs to happen here.

Total System Failure

It's just as well that the Mets dropped into full-on asshole mode yesterday as the Nationals blew their doors off by the score of 23-5. They'd already made asses of themselves by the 2nd inning when Noah Syndergaard left the game grimacing and grasping his armpit. You know, after he brazenly pronounced himself as "fine" and refused an MRI to see what exactly was bothering him after he was scratched twice last week.

I could go further into just how mind-numbing the stupidity is that permeates through this organization sometimes but really, why waste my time? The #LOLMets-ers and the "BACKMAN, BABY!" jackasses, the closeted Yankee castrati folks do a good enough job for me. I've gone over plenty of times just how tiresome these people have become, and how the Mets have been enough of a laughingstock over the years that maybe it's just time to leave it alone, but then something like this happens and I remember that in so many of these instances the Mets seem to invite this treatment on themselves. Their best pitcher wants to pitch, who can blame him? But he needs to remember that he's neither a doctor, nor is he invincible and maybe he ought to listen to the team trainers if they think he should have an MRI. Even if it means listening to Cortisone Shot Ramirez. Because rather than just nipping this in the bud, Syndergaard decided to be a hero, went out and immediately got lit up for 5 runs in the 1st inning after basically allowing 5 runs all season to that point, or something like that. So that right there ought to have told you something was up. Syndergaard just doesn't get torched like that out of the gate. I didn't even watch and I probably could have told you that he was screwing around with his mechanics to overcompensate for his ailing giblets. And then in the 2nd inning it all came crashing down as he threw one pitch too many and started grimacing and grabbing his armpit, and of course that sent every Mets fan off the ledge. Fortunately (SILVER LINING ALERT) this wasn't the absolute worst case scenario since the Big Boy Surgery is everyone's ultimate fear for him, but when you go out there and mess up your mechanics to mask an injury, this is what happens. You get hurt and now the Mets have to deal with the consequences since he's probably going to be out for a couple of months. To say nothing of the fact that he's getting destroyed in the court of public opinion in a manner to rival Matt Harvey.

After that the wheels basically came off, and again I think the Mets needed to have this happen because sometimes you just need to get completely and totally humiliated in order to wake up and acknowledge your problems. The Nationals have broken from the gate like a house afire and this just another feather in their cap, but teams with championship aspirations aren't supposed to get their asses handed to them like this and in reality, that it happened is just scenery. What's most crucial is how they respond to this. If getting lit on fire and losing your best pitcher and your best hitter in the span of 4 days sends the team into a tailspin, well, then they deserve to be laughed at. We all to. This is supposed to be a Championship-caliber team and if they crumble after 4 weeks of the season then I guess we all fell for the bill of goods again and this is just another season where we end up with our dicks in our hands. I'm kind of sick of it. Learn from this and work forward. It's happened before with this group, believe it or not.

Now What?!

The Mets played their first mid-week afternoon game of the season on Thursday and it's a good thing that it was played then, because most of the work-going public (read: ME) didn't have to be subjected to the flaming turd they served up.

It was bad enough to have tickets to Wednesday's game and then have Noah Syndergaard scratched from the start. The same thing then happened this afternoon, which was accompanied with the much more troublesome news that he had "arm irritation" which I would have to imagine gave 99% of Mets fans a heart attack because that's what happens whenever the words "Noah Syndergaard" "Arm" and "Irritation" are used in the same sentence. Syndergaard himself poo-pooed the news, calling it something minor and apparently he seemed a bit rankled to have been scratched, but his health being as essential as it is to the success of the team it probably makes more sense to give him a break. Supposedly he'll pitch on Sunday. I guess as with most things I'll believe it when I see it.

The start, then, went to Matt Harvey, who's still regaining the lost luster and although he managed to escape some trouble in the early innings, he ran out of steam in the 5th and the Braves just started teeing off on him. Granted, the Braves touched him for a pair of runs and it felt as though the Mets had to muster up a herculean effort to simply tie the score, but Harvey just came undone. Kurt Suzuki hit a 3-run Home Run, other Braves did other things and 2-2 became 6-2 rather quickly.

Meanwhile, R.A. Dickey, our old friend, returned to Citi Field for the first time since he was dealt so many years ago and did his thing as he usually does. The knuckleball doesn't seem to float quite as devastatingly as it did back in 2012 but nonetheless he did what he needed to do, holding the Mets to 3 runs in his 6 innings of work. I can't say for certain since I didn't see any of the game but I would have to assume he was greeted warmly.

Then there was the Yoenis Cespedes injury, which seemed to be brewing for about a week, ever since he left a game against Philadelphia with a balky hamstring. Whether he was rushed or not is immaterial. Whether or not this is a Cortisone Shot Ramirez rabbit hole is as well. When these things happen it's hard for them to let go and maybe 10 days of rest might have helped, maybe not, but he obviously felt good enough to come back last night but of course the whole thing went on him this afternoon, so now I'd have to imagine he's definitely going on the DL for the next 10 days or however long it takes for this thing to heal up. As if the Mets needed more injuries right now.

The end result was a forgettable afternoon to cap off a forgettable series and a forgettable homestand that saw the Mets go 1-7, lose the last 6 and drop them into the cellar of the NL East, behind even these miserable Braves and the Fake ass Marlins at 8-13 with a trip to Washington looming and no conceivable help in sight. I mean, I hate to panic in April but the Mets are one lousy road trip away from this season spiraling out into 2011 and all the talk and good vibes dissolving into more jeers and laughter from the hoi polloi. The only thing I can tell myself at this point is the old adage that teams often aren't as bad as they look when they're losing. Of course, the flip side is that they aren't as good as they look when they're winning. At some point this ought to even out. I can't be certain as to whether or not it will be too late but this version of the Mets has been known to not have a "too late."

No More

As a blogger, I've tried my best to keep on top of every game and keep this thing up to date or at least relatively speaking. Sometimes it's more difficult than others. And, quite honestly, it's difficult to come up with something interesting to say about a game day after day because most games tend to be more mundane than anything else. And then you have what happened last weekend, which was basically the perfect storm of bad, and who the hell wants to go into it when the entire weekend can be summed up in a few sentences.

It's not so much that the Mets stink. I don't believe that's the case. Consider that the strength of the team is supposed to be the starting pitching. Against Washington, the Mets pitched Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Zack Wheeler. On Friday, Harvey pitched 7 innings, gave up 3 runs on 4 hits, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts. Saturday, Jacob deGrom pitched 5.2 innings, gave up 3 runs on 8 hits, 6 walks, 10 strikeouts. Sunday, Zack Wheeler pitched 7 innings, gave up 4 runs on 4 hits, 2 walks 6 strikeouts. These individual games certainly don't represent any of these pitchers at their respective best, but you could find many, many pitchers that would do a lot worse. Irregardless, the Mets lost all three games. The issue isn't so much that good pitchers had off games. Even if they'd pitched great, it's dicey that the Mets would have won because they're not hitting at all right now and it's killing the whole deal.

The Mets having offensive issues is nothing new in these parts. It seems like we talk about it every season and of course the fact that 6 guys went down with injuries in the span of 3 days doesn't help. It speaks to the continued ineptitude of Cortisone Shot Ramirez and his brigade of mental midgets for the repeated lack of conditioning and injuries that are probably avoidable. Yoenis Cespedes goes down with a cramp and misses an entire weekend. Travis d'Arnaud has been clogging up the bench for 5 days and forced the Mets to call up Kevin Plawecki, who appears at this point to be a lost cause. Meanwhile, because the Mets continue to insistently carry 8 relievers, and continue to refuse to put guys on the DL (or call up guys that they have to save for "emergencies"), they end up in these bizarre situations where Wheeler or deGrom are sent up to pinch hit or Robert Gsellman is pinch running and I know that these guys are good athletes and all, but what the hell kind of strategy is this? If you really need a guy who can come off the bench and pop one out, I don't know that Zack Wheeler is the first guy I'd look to. I do, however, know that our old friend Kelly Johnson is sitting around waiting for someone to call and this time he wouldn't cost another low-level pitching prospect.

Bottom line here is that things are pretty terrible right now. After a hot start, the Mets stopped hitting, the guys that were hitting got hurt and so right now the lineup is Michael Conforto, who's basically forcing Collins to play him because he's hitting everything in sight, and a bunch of .230 hitters. The only solace I can take out of this is that the past two seasons, the Mets went through entire months of this shit and things turned out OK. It just took a while and cost a lot of fans their sanity (and led to the "castrati" having a field day in the process). And, well, this will probably happen again. It seems late now if only because the Mets sit 3 games under .500 and 5 1/2 games behind Washington but it's not like the old days where Washington would come in here and belt 27 Home Runs in a 4-game series. The Mets didn't help themselves at all this series but they also didn't get outright stomped. Unfortunately, they also didn't win any games and so I have to reach for dopey second-rate excuses like that to try and explain what the hell is going on here.

It took me 4 days to come up with nothing?

Marlins Get You Again

I guess the Mets were owed this one after the way they spent 8 innings cheating painful Marlin death on Thursday night. In spite of entering another war of bullpen attrition with the Marlins that seemed headed down a parallel track on Friday night, the Mets faltered before things got out of control as J.T. Realmuto doubled home the winning run in the last of the 9th to give the Marlins a 3-2 win.

It being a Friday and I being a year older, I was somewhat out of it for the early part of the game and as such I missed Noah Syndergaard's 6 innings of work, in which from what I can gather he had some bad luck leading to a 1st inning unearned run, an irritating rally, and then an irritating recurring injury as he either had another blister problem or a fingernail problem that caused him to leave the game altogether. As injury problems go, I suppose this is fairly benign stuff but that it keeps happening is more annoying than anything else. On the other hand, that's one inning fewer that he'll be able to throw as we get later in the season. It'll fix itself at some point, I would guess.

The Mets similarly didn't do a ton against Edinson Volquez outside of a Lucas Duda Home Run in the 5th inning. So things sat at 2-2 as things moved to the late innings. But, as the case can be on the day after some absurdly long games, the Mets had a bullpen issue. Unavailable were Addison Reed, Hansel Robles and Josh Smoker. Gone altogether was T.J. Rivera in favor of Sean Gilmartin, only around as an emergency arm. And left were the remainder of a mostly gassed group. To their credit, Rafael Montero and Jerry Blevins kept things in control in the 7th, and Josh Edgin did so again in the 8th. But Edgin, who is still on the fringes of trustworthydom, was chanced for a 2nd inning and although he nearly managed to negotiate it, he was black-flagged at the last step when Realmuto's double fell in the gap and scored Miguel Rojas with the winning run and it was Marlin Pizza Party Time.

I know, I know. The Mets for the prior 5 games felt kind of invincible. But games like this are unfortunately inevitable over the course of the season, and especially against the Marlins, a team who, as we've gone over many times, is built generally for the sole purpose of pissing us off. So of course they did it again.

Processes

It's easy to be disappointed in the way Zack Wheeler's return to the Major Leagues kind of fizzled out in a stream of bloops and blasts. But, then again, after having to go through the Big Boy Surgery, and then having to go through multiple setbacks while trying to come back from the damn thing, and ending up missing two entire seasons, I don't think it quite fair to view one game in a vacuum. Sure. You want him to come back, throw 5 shutout innings, tip his cap and everything will be great but it doesn't always work that way. Wheeler hasn't always worked that way. This comeback is a process, and this has to be viewed as just a step in that process. Simply making it back to the Major Leagues and pitching in a game is the accomplishment. The 4 innings, 6 hits, 5 runs and 4 strikeouts are just a starting point.

Back before Wheeler got hurt, which seems like a lifetime ago considering it was the tail end of The Dark Ages Of The Mets, you saw a lot of the inconsistencies that Wheeler displayed this evening. His fastball was great, but he struggled at times with the location and consistency of his secondary pitches, he'd get too fine, and then batters would wait and sit on his fastball. And, well, this is pretty much the story of his comeback game. He was clearly amped up in the 1st inning and shot through the Marlins with ease, throwing mostly fastballs. But in the 2nd, he started working in breaking pitches and things weren't working quite as well, and he gave up a walk, and a bloop hit, and then Billy Marlins cranked a 2-run triple and things fell apart from there. In the 3rd, it was more of the same. A dunk hit preceded a long Home Run by Hamburgers Yelich, and Wheeler's night was officially a nightmare. Don't even get me started on it happening against the Marlins, who seem just as irritating as ever, especially if Keith Hernandez keeps fawning over their wonderful Outfielders. Ultimately, the game dissolved into one of those miserable April Night Games where it's freezing, the Mets are getting killed, and everybody just leaves after the 6th inning.

I know this because I've been to games like that. And don't think I wasn't tempted to go out there tonight to see Wheeler's return. But, perhaps wisdom and old age has begun to win out, as I knew early in the day that it was going to be cold and lousy out, and the last thing I wanted to do was to sit out at Citi Field and freeze my ass off, when it's Friday and I'm tired and cranky. In fact, that's what happened. I watched three innings of this game, got fed up, started having one of my Marlin-induced bouts of blind rage, then started to fall asleep, and ultimately shut the game off and took a nap. In the past, I feel like I would have rooked myself into going to more games in this Opening Week homestand, but perhaps I've finally wised up.

Bye

I talked on Sunday about how the Mets seem to have a thing, historically, when it comes to sweeping a team. It doesn't matter how dead their opponent is—and the Mickey Mouse Marlins seemed about as dead as you can get on Thursday night—they can't seem to finish the deal. And so, although they were in prime position to give the Marlins the thorough stomping they so richly deserve, simply based on the fact that they continue to exist, the Marlins instead came back, won 6-4, and left town like the greasy, sniveling little weasels they are, snickering as though they'd done something Marlinlike like shoved a banana in the tailpipe of one of Cespedes' cars.

More disconcerting for the Mets was the performance of Jacob deGrom, who once again struggled, in spite of 3 days' extra rest. deGrom looked mostly tired and out of sorts, and kind of fizzled out in the 5th inning, by which point he'd thrown too many pitches, allowed too many hits, put the Mets in a hole and then threw everyone off a ledge by walking off the mound and waving to speak to Ray Ramirez as he went to the clubhouse.

The prevailing thought everyone had at that point was that he was probably headed for another Big Boy Surgery, because I'm not sure why anyone in his right mind would willingly want to talk to Cortisone Shot Ramirez about anything medically related. The fact that deGrom, who spoke to the media through clenched teeth after the game, said he was fine really has no bearing on anything.

So, yeah. This was a double turd night for the Mets. deGrom is prognosis unknown at this point, the Mets lost a key game to the Fucking Marlins because Hamburgers Yelich hit puberty and the Mets didn't do much against Jose Urena (who's probably another Leo Nunez candidate), and Celebrity Manager sat in the dugout preening over his good fortune. Fortunately, this is it for the Marlins at Citi Field for 2016, so we no longer need to be subjected to their bullshit. However, the Mets have to have the last laugh here; on Monday, the Marlins were 1 game up on the Mets, now they're a game back and as Pittsburgh's crow flies, the 4-teams-for-one-spot race is beginning to gather more steam. But if nothing else, the Mets, in spite of everything that's gone wrong, are still relevant in this picture.

Third Game Snooze

There was a season, some time ago, where the Mets had this problem of being unable to finish out a sweep. No matter how many times they would win the first two games of a series, they would inevitably come out flat and complacent in the 3rd game, and then lose, and eventually those losses would bite them in the ass. I can't remember the year. Let's just say it was all of them.

The Mets did this again on Sunday against the Phillies, as they came out flat against Vince Velasquez. It didn't help that they once again decided to play a game shorthanded as both Yoenis Cespedes and Neil Walker were held out of the lineup. This was bad enough, but then Asdrubal Cabrera was lost in the 1st inning after colliding with Tommy Joseph on a bad throw at 1st Base. The Mets subsequently loaded the bases with 1 out and ended up scoring one run...and that was the sum total of their output for the day.

Robert Gsellman acquitted himself well enough in his first Major League start that kind of felt like his second, until you remember that he didn't actually start in St. Louis. Regardless, he did fine against the Phillies lineup, which remember isn't much of a lineup these days, but he also got plenty of help from the Phillies in the process. In the 3rd, Freddy Galvis doubled and moved to 3rd on a Velasquez sacrifice. He then proceeded to pull one of the worst baserunning moves conceivable. Cesar Hernandez attempted what I guess was a safety squeeze, but he bunted the ball basically right back to Gsellman, who looked Galvis back to 3rd and then threw to 1st for the out. THEN Galvis decided to break for home, where James Loney threw him out by a good 30 feet.

In the 4th, the Phillies looked similarly foolish when, with two outs and men on 1st and 2nd, Jimmy Paredes lifted a high fly ball to right that, for a second, looked horrifyingly close to being a 3-run Home Run. But it instead bounced off the wall, and scored the tying run with ease. Aaron Altherr should have been right on the heels of the lead runner, but for some reason he started coasting, then looked back to see where the ball was, rather than looking at his frantically-waving 3rd base coach Juan Samuel, and then was subsequently thrown out at home, while Samuel nodded disapprovingly and Keith Hernandez had a conniption fit.

Gsellman was then cruising along until the 7th, when his luck ran out and he gave up 3 straight hits to start the inning. It's debatable as to whether or not Gsellman should have even started the inning, but I had no problem sending him back out there. Then again, when he got in trouble, I probably would not have gone to Hansel Robles, who's been terrible of late, to get out of this particular jam. Maybe go to one of the other 8 relievers you're insistently carrying instead of a useful bat off the bench? Robles, of course, torched the whole game, allowing a 2-run double to A.J. Ellis, walking another guy, and then hitting Peter Bourjos to score another run before departing to a chorus of boos. Once again, he's proved that there's no in-between with him; he's either really good, or he's absolutely putrid and you can usually tell after 3-4 pitches which one you're going to get.

By this point, the game was beyond salvage and the Mets faded out with a 5-1 loss.

You hate games like this because it can be a bit of a momentum killer, and it didn't help that they started the game short two starters and finished short 3 starters. On the other hand, I can see the Mets wanting to show a little precaution because the next four games could conceivably make or break the season as the Mickey Mouse Marlins are coming to town. Yes, if you can stomach the thought, this fake-ass team is actually a game ahead of the Mets and, really, I'm totally dumbfounded as to why this is the case. To make matters worse, they're starting the series tonight with Jose Fernandez, while the Mets have had to dip down to Binghamton for Rafael Montero. Remember him? He actually pitched in two games this April. I'd forgotten that completely. But here now he's coming up in a really big spot in what Mets fans should really view as a week for pure, unadulterated sports hatred. You want to pay the Fucking Marlins back for all those years of being a pain in the ass and put them back in their rightful place as irrelevant? Now's the time to do it.

Make Yourself Useful

About 30 minutes in to tonight's Mets/Cardinals game, I was already formulating how I was going to once again rip into Jon Niese for another gutless performance, taking the mound injured, probably lying about it and pissing away a 3 run lead that was dropped in his lap in a crucial game that the Mets needed to win.

In reality, though, we really ought to thank Niese. Because he not only pitched poorly, but also got hurt (and again was probably hurt before he even hit the mound) in the 1st inning, he actually spared the Mets from an even greater disaster, and also allowed Fake deGrom Robert Gsellman to make his Major League Debut instead in what was tantamount to a start. Dropped into a virtually untenable situation, Gsellman buckled down in the sort of way we never see from Niese, stopped the Cardinals rally and kept them off the board for another 3 innings after that, allowing the Mets offense to rebuild a lead off of erratic Jaime Garcia and hold off the Cardinals late to win the opening game in St. Louis 7-4 and ruin the nights of the selfie-stick-waving Cardinal fans.

The conventional talk will focus on the Mets offense, which had a great night, taking advantage of Garcia early and Sam Tuivalala late, and got Home Runs from Wilmer Flores and Justin Ruggiano, but it really was the Pitching that won this game for the Mets. Never mind what Gsellman did, which ought to draw enough ink in and of itself (although whether or not it will remains to be seen), but following Gsellman, Josh Smoker threw two innings, allowing only a Randal Graves Home Run, and after that, Jerry Blevins, Jim Henderson (in his return to action following a lengthy injury), Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia held the Cardinals scoreless. That's not to say it was easy, because the Cardinals kept getting men on base all night, and we were essentially waiting for the Cardinals to do something typically Cardinal and annoying and caused their fans to slap each other with their seat cushions, but that never happened. Whenever a Mets pitcher needed to get a key out in this game, it seems that they were able to, and the end result is that the Cardinals were the ones left holding their jocks, leaving 11 men on base and not getting any closer than 6-4.

And, really, this is all because of Niese. I'd love to be able to rake him over the coals once again for basically pulling a Steve Trachsel and throwing the Mets further into the abyss and undoing all the good stuff they did over the weekend, but, you know, addition by subtraction. If Niese is hurt and has to miss some time, well, maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. And if Robert Gsellman really has the insides he displayed tonight, maybe we once again have something here. We could certainly use it.

Toe Tag

I didn't see any of Friday night's game, and this sort of thing seems to be happening more and more as the Mets spiral into irrelevance. The game was totally forgettable, to the point where all I know about the game was that Steven Matz couldn't start, Seth Lugo started instead, and although he pitched well, nobody else on the Mets did and the end result was a listless 8-1 loss that put the Mets deeper into the hole.

I received an e-mail during the afternoon from the fellow that is kind of the ringleader of the e-mail string I belong to, wondering why nobody had anything to say about the Mets since May. The truth is, there just hasn't been much to talk about. I've had a hard time figuring out things to write about the Mets for several weeks, to the point where I'm now consistently a day or two behind when it comes to writing about games (is that cheating? Does anyone really care?).

There are seasons not like this where the Mets have had no expectations and you have to watch a lot of really bad baseball over the course of the year. Pick a year from 2009 to 2014 and you'll get what I mean. But if there's a plan in place at work and there's signs of life, as there were in 2013 and 2014, there's at least something interesting to write about.

The problem with the Mets in 2016 is that the expectations were high at the start of the season, but the way the year has played out has just been so demoralizing and frustrating that there's not much to say. I mean, I know a lot of fans of other teams like to point and laugh and say that last year was a fluke, but the Mets are better than that. The fact that they've had the volume of injuries that they've had to deal with and still manage to hover around .500 does say something about the future of the team. The pitching, by and large, hasn't been the issue. The talent is still there. But it's hard for the pitchers to win games when they get no run support, and it's tough to score runs when your offense is either injured or regressed. Curtis Granderson is a shell of what he was last year, to the point where I wonder what he has left. Michael Conforto just fell into so many bad habits, and was probably mishandled, that what he needs more than anything else is for this year to end and to come back next year with a clean mind.

What the Mets need more than anything else for next season isn't a series of reactionary trades to rebuild a slumping offense. That would be tantamount to undoing everything that was done to get to this year. I think what they need more than anything else is a Sports Psychiatrist. I'm sure that would help Conforto and it would definitely help guys like Matt Harvey and Steven Matz, and probably other guys who get into bad habits and start pressing too much. The Mets never had a stretch where they could just relax and get on a roll like they did last year. But to call last year an outlier isn't giving this team enough credit for the talent they have. Then again, nobody wants to give the Mets any kind of credit anyway, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the #LOLMets-ers and the BACKMAN BABY morons are crawling back out of the woodwork now that times have gotten tough.

Good Grief

I know that the Mets got their asses handed to them by an awful team for three consecutive days. I also know that for as much as we want to sugarcoat things, the 2016 season is probably in the toilet. With the Mets now caught up in a giant mess of teams and games in the standings, there really isn't much positive to say about what to expect over the final 6 or so weeks of the season. Terry Collins can throw one of his apoplectic shit fits, fans can call for his head (and the "BACKMAN BABY!!!" morons have crawled out of their caves once again—I thought we were done with these closeted Yankee fans) and, well, the rest of us more sensible types can go back to that same level of low-lying depression that seemed to infect us between 2009 and 2014.

What I really get concerned about is what the reaction here ends up being going forward. As I mentioned, I keep likening the 2016 Mets to the 2001 Mets, and really, that's what this season has unraveled into. But the larger issue is that the 2001 Mets begat the 2002 Mets, which were assembled mostly by several reactionary and ill-advised trades and signings that looked good on paper but never gelled, ultimately imploding upon itself in an embarrassing season that set the Mets back 3 years. It was 2005 before they sniffed .500 again and another year before they were a contender with teeth.

And that's just a primary example of how hard it's been, historically, for the Mets to sustain their own success. This is a franchise that has gone to the Postseason in back-to-back seasons once in 55 years. Every time the Mets find some form of greatness, for some reason the following year the air comes out of the sails, whether it's due to injuries, inconsistency, complacency or a lack of desire to improve. I don't know if the Mets, as composed on Opening Day, would have fallen into this pit just as much, but what I can say is that I know they wouldn't have gotten swept, and really embarrassed at home by teams like Arizona, or the Colorados, and they probably wouldn't have gone back to being 4-15 against Washington.

But is that just me trying to draw an excuse for all of this? The 2016 Mets pinned their hopes on several question marks, among them David Wright's ability to play out a full season, Lucas Duda's ability to find more offensive consistency and the continued health and strong performance of the starting pitching. These are three failures that the Mets have only partially been able to recover from, and only because even while injured, both Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz can still pitch reasonably well. Everything else has just been a disaster, and it seems like it's come to a head here. It may be too late; the Mets seem to be well on their way to another 8-20 August death spiral, but what I'm worried about is that this is just the beginning of yet another descent into laughingstockdom.

Giant Puss

I was once again late in putting on the Mets game, which has been a recurring theme most of the season. Tonight, I was so late that by time I'd put the game on, most of the bullshit had already occurred, although I was treated to the cherry on top of this shit stew. Steven Matz had a Subway Series early, the Mets hit into double plays in every inning, Bitch Mark Teixeira petulantly tried to posture and instigate World War III after taking a pitch off his ankle and then tried to pull some Vulcan mind prank on Hansel Robles, and once that happened everything just melted down from there. The day was a total loss on all levels for the Mets as they not only lost 9-4, but lost more players to injuries in the process.

The day started with bad news, which is ominous enough to begin with. Lucas Duda, who at this point has been little more than a rumor, re-injured his back to the point where his season is essentially done. Not that this was much of a surprise, since he'd barely begun starting "Baseball activities." But if Baseball Activities were too much for him, well, why push it. Then, they had to play 9 innings of turd, and then came the news that Yoenis Cespedes was going on the Disabled List with this quad injury that won't go away and the Mets won't allow to heal. This is Cortisone Shot Ramirez's fault, I know it. I'm sure Cespedes has been in need of a DL stay ever since this happened, and maybe if the Mets had done this 3 weeks ago, they would have been able to sidestep this whole "Cespedes tweaked his quad and will miss a few days" masquerade. I'm not at all surprised that this is how it ended up. But of course with all the crotch grabbing they did, they've cost themselves time and time is something the Mets really are beginning to run short of. My patience is another thing they're running short of, but that's another story.

Then, there was a game, and the Mets jumped on Chad Green from the opening gun. Curtis Granderson led off with a Home Run, and the Mets had the bases loaded and no outs, and when they only scored 1 more run, you knew that this was a bad sign. Then, of course, Steven Matz gave the runs right back and then some, allowing 3 in the first, thanks to a long hit from Franch Headley, and then allowed a galling Home Run to Bitch Teixeira and gave him the opportunity to do his drummer boy home run trot.

Then came the whole shit fit he threw in the 5th, when Matz deigned to throw a pitch low and inside, and of course Tex hit the dirt and then did the tough guy "I'M GONNA FIGHT'CHA! I'M GONNA FIGHT'CHA!" thing where he takes a step but doesn't charge the mound, as Matz stared at him with a look on his face that said something like "Yo, seriously, b? That hit you on the shoelaces." Pretty sure that if Matz really wanted to hit him, he wouldn't have hit him in the feet. And if he hit him in the ribs, well, Tex usually deserves it. Both for behaving like a little bitch on this night, and for behaving like a little bitch for his entire career. Tex then was forced out at 2nd on the next play, and once again did the tough guy thing and tried to take out Neil Walker, but he missed.

Tex further made spectacle of himself by pulling some more Little League shit and yelling "PITCHER'S GOT A BIG BUTT" at Hansel Robles in the 7th inning, and although I don't like that Robles essentially came unglued because of it, part of me really wanted to see Robles turn around and just peg the ball at him, or maybe cap him in the teeth as he was removed from the game. I know Robles is just unpredictable enough to make it happen, and honestly, after the way things have unfolded to this point this season, the ensuing brawl might have been enough to wake the team up, and the suspension Robles would certainly incur would totally have been worth it just to see that smug sack of shit take one in the puss.

But, that didn't happen. The Mets took the "high road," and of course look what happened. They looked like jackasses against the Yankees once again, they lost another key player to injury, and everything is, once again, horrible. Fortunately, there's only one more Subway Series game to be played and then we can be done with this nonsense until next season. Can't. Wait.

Continued Carnage

It was already a lousy day for the Mets on the injury front with the news earlier in the day that Matt Harvey's season was over, but then I put on the Mets/Nationals game at around the 6th inning only to be greeted with more lovely news of Noah Syndergaard's unceremonious departure from the game. Whenever Syndergaard leaves a game prematurely now, I think every Mets fan drops into heart attack mode. The game becomes secondary to waiting around for some sort of word about what the story is. It came down later that the issue wasn't elbow-related, but still, fatigue seems like a really vague description and doesn't make anyone feel any better.

The game, by this point, had already been decided, after Syndergaard was touched up for a Clint Robinson Home Run and an RBI double from Daniel Murphy, who continues to fuck things up for the Mets even though he's on another team. The Mets did nothing against Stephen Strasburg, who finally has decided to perform up to his potential, and the whole night had basically become a wash, proving once again that the prior day's momentum really means very little in the grand scheme of things.

After the game, Syndergaard spoke and was throwing around phrases like "my arm feels dead," "It's just that time of year," and "I've thrown a lot of pitches, a lot of innings." Certainly, I wouldn't expect to see him in the All Star Game on Tuesday at all, which I guess is just as well. The more time he can take to rest and regroup, the better, at this point, since there's a lot of season left to be played, and the Mets still have some winning they need to do.

Already, they'll have to do this without Matt Harvey, and even though this is disappointing that his season is finished altogether thanks to this Thoracic Nerve issue, but at least there's some kind of tangible answer to his struggles this season. He never seemed right, and even though he'd gotten some of his luster back over the past month, it was once again beginning to fizzle out. It's a double-edged sword. He could have had some temporary fix but who knows if that would work, and is it all really worth trying to suck it up and continue to pitch lousy when this surgery will likely fix the problem? Sure, I know it's risky. All surgeries are. But as I've kept saying about Harvey, it's not as though he's somehow yakking it on purpose. Nobody wants him to pitch better more than he does himself, and sometimes I feel like I'm on an island defending him but I believe this as fact. It's easy to forget that behind the bluster and the image he's created for himself, he's still human. He gets hurt, he feels insecure and he takes his criticism to heart. I know athletes are supposed to be these cold, unfeeling cyborgs but not everyone is wired that way. It's never been Harvey's strong suit. So I think a lot of him masking whatever issue he'd been going through to this point this season is sort of his way of trying to fix his own problem, and he tried to do this until he couldn't do it any further. It sucks to lose him in the middle of the season. But it's probably better to do this now and come back with a clear head and a rested arm next year rather than fumpher his way through the rest of the season not knowing where the ball is going to end up.

Agony Of Victory

At this late part of the evening, it's easy to look back on this afternoon's Mets victory and just enjoy it. For a while there things seemed to be awfully Pyrrhic, what with the postgame news of Noah Syndergaard's elbow and Yoenis Cespedes' wrist, and whatever was going on with Zack Wheeler, but it seems as though everything is reasonably OK on all fronts.

The afternoon affair, of course, meant following, vaguely, at work, so I can't say I know an awful lot about what happened, but I know it was a back-and-forth affair that seemed to be like basically every other game the Mets and Royals have played against each other over the past year. The Mets score early, they get a Home Run from Asdrubal Cabrera, and an RBI hit from James Loney, and then the Royals dink and dunk Syndergaard to death and when he gives up a Home Run to Lord Cheslor Cuthbert, the game is tied. Maybe it wasn't quite in that order, but it happened, so we'll just go with it.

For as shaky as the Mets bullpen has seemed at times, they still manage to lead the Majors in Bullpen ERA, but they still don't have the flair of the Royals bullpen. So in a tie game in the later innings the game still feels like it's tilted Kansas City's way, but Matt Reynolds reached out and knocked his first Major League Home Run off of Joakim Soria in the last of the 6th inning to put the Mets back in front 4-3, and damned if that didn't hold up for the remainder of the game. In spite of being mostly gassed after working 8.2 innings on Tuesday night, Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia held the line, stepping on the Royals throat and allowing them 1 hit over the final 3 innings to close out the victory.

So, the Mets sweep this abbreviated two-game series from the Royals. If they'd managed this sort of result several months ago, maybe we'd be feeling different right now. Hell, if they hadn't gotten swept by the miserable Braves last weekend maybe we'd be feeling different right now. But you just take what you can get at this point. At least for once everyone is in one piece for one day.

Plan C

Tuesday night was, as the calendar fell, my 11th game of the season at Citi Field, and an important one at that, as the Mets had lost the last 4 games I'd been to, each one a more horrible slog than the one before it. I'd figured that the scheduled starting pitcher, Noah Syndergaard, would be helpful in ending this streak. But the Mets intervened in the middle of the day by dropping, rather innocuously, word that Syndergaard would be pushed to tomorrow, and Bartolo Colon would pitch tonight.

No matter, I hadn't seen Colon yet this season, so perhaps he could bring me some luck. Or perhaps my other half might bring me some luck, as she made the trek to Flushing with me for the first time this season ("I'll go when the weather warms up," she said. Have I mentioned she's not the sadist I am when it comes to this stuff?)

Of course, Colon lasted all of 4 pitches in this game, as his last one was whacked back at him by the whimsically-named Whit Merrifield, directly off his thumb. Not that you could tell the severity of it from my perch in section 513, but it didn't look great and, well, it spelled the end of his night.

So...now what? I go from Syndergaard to Colon to...Hansel Robles?

I've had a bit of love/hate with Robles this season because he still pitches like he did last year, which is that sometimes he looks really good, and sometimes he looks really terrible, and there tends to be no in-between. Lately, he'd been more terrible, so let's just say I felt a bit dubious when he emerged from the bullpen with 1 out in the 1st inning, and even more dubious when he gave up a hit to Alcides Escobar. But it turned from there. Robles struck out Eric Hosmer, Travis d'Arnaud, back from Purgatory, threw out Escobar attempting to steal, and the Mets just took it from there. Robles probably earned back some of the luster he'd lost with his effort this evening. Put in an impossible spot, Robles somehow managed to make it all the way to the 5th inning, mostly on what I have to imagine was guts. I figured he'd be done after the 3rd.

It took 5 relievers in total, but somehow, the Mets managed to hold down the Royals in a game that seemed to be heading down a path similar to a majority of the games these two teams played last Fall. The Mets took an early lead off Ian Kennedy thanks to a Home Run from AsdrubAl Cabrera and, later, a Home Run from Yoenis Cespedes, and that was it. The Mets opportunities were constantly snuffed out by Royals Outfielders running down fly balls that appearEd Headed for greatness, and as such the slim lead the Mets had remained slim throughout the game. This didn't bode well. Of course, Royals batters would get hits, and constantly had men on base, and they were doing their usual annoying thing of fouling off multiple pitches and making me squirm uncomfortably. They appeared primed to break through in the 5th, when Robles finally ran out of gas and gave up a run on a single by Tyler Eibner, one of those Social-Studies-Class-Kids. Erik Goeddel then came in and gave up a frighteningly long fly ball to pinch hitter Kendrys Morales, but it died at the warning track and landed in Granderson's glove. A rare opportunity where the ball didn't fall for the Royals.

You could, I suppose, make the argument that this is a vastly reduced Royals lineup, without hell-raisers like Mike Moustakas, Alex Gordon or Ben Zobrist, but then again, the Mets are pretty reduced too. Whatever the Royals threw at the Mets, Robles, Goeddel, Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia weathered and the Mets managed to come away with the 2-1 victory.

So, the streak has been broken. I'm not sure if this means I now have to bring my wife with me to every game (she would probably object), or if the Mets have to lose their starting pitcher after 1 batter, or there needs to be a drunken idiot running onto the field, but at least I don't have to carry around a losing streak any further. At least not until the next one.

Past and Past

The day for the Mets and basically everyone who follows them kind of got off to a morose start when the word came down that David Wright was going to have surgery on his neck that would basically end his season, and for all we know could end his career altogether.

I don't especially feel this is the proper place to eulogize Wright's career, whether this happens to be it or not. That's a different story for another time. Right now, the Mets still have a season to worry about and at this point, I'm not entirely convinced that they're not better off without Wright in the lineup. Think about it. 2006 David Wright wasn't walking out of that dugout. We'd been getting creaky, old David Wright that can't move along runners, can't drive guys in, occasionally pops a Home Run and just isn't hitting those authoritative line drives that he made his name with. To say nothing of the fact that he's been a walking strikeout most of the season anyway.

I know that Wright is the captain and there's a whole morale thing at work here but there's only so much that morale can do when the guy who's supposedly providing it isn't making a meaningful contribution. The larger issue for the Mets has been the compounding injuries. It's not just Wright out that's problematic, it's him, combined with Duda, and d'Arnaud, and Walker, and Conforto and even Lagares, and all the depth in the world can't compensate for so many missing pieces. But the remainder of these guys will be back at some point. Which is why I'm comfortable saying what I said last year when the Mets didn't trade for Tulowitzki: I remain all in on Wilmer Flores.

Of course, then Flores went out and got hurt in tonight's game, leaving after getting hit by a Juan Nicasio pitch. But the Mets won anyway, and part of the reason is that two of these hurt guys, Neil Walker and Michael Conforto, hit Home Runs and Conforto actually looked like a hitter again after a few days to recoup and clear his head. This, in support of Bartolo Colon, who had his usual solid effort and even chipped in with a double that brought the house down. The game, then, seemed mere scenery from everything else going on, but that's now two days in a row where the Mets offense actually looked like an offense and scored some runs, so that's a step in the right direction. Now comes a number of games against Atlanta, so if the Mets want to cut into this deficit they've gotten themselves into, now would be a good time to do that.

Antimarlin Game

The Mets ground out a rather dumbfounding 6-4 victory over the Mickey Mouse Marlins on Saturday that sort of underscored just how much this team has been wracked by injuries over the past few weeks, how much they need reinforcements, and, perhaps, how much better their team depth is in 2016 than it was in the early goings of 2015.

In the big picture, sure, the Mets are about the same as they were last year when it comes down to wins and losses and place in the standings. But on an afternoon when the Mets lineup did not include Yoenis Cespedes, David Wright, Travis d'Arnaud or Lucas Duda and did include James Loney, Kevin Plawecki, Juan Lagares and Wilmer Flores, and later required contributions from Matt Reynolds and Alejandro De Aza, somehow they managed to win the game.

This was 27 different kinds of ugly, to be sure. For starters, there were so few people at the game that the calls of the Home Plate umpire Greg Gibson were clearly audible to those of us watching on TV (I call shenanigans on the "hot mic" argument). In the first inning, Celebrity Manager drew his ire, probably by acting as though he was entitled to circumvent the rules, but that went nowhere.

The Mets let some of the Marlin Stupid rub off on them in the early innings. This game really had all the makings of one of those annoying Marlin games where they shut down Giancarlo Stanton and instead end up getting gnawed to death by guys like Derek Dietrich, Martin Prado, Nickleback, J.T. Realmuto and Miguel Rojas. Guys that wouldn't be in the Major Leagues if it weren't for the Marlins, and guys that for whatever reason turn into superstars when they play the Mets. Even their Pitcher, Justin Nicolino, was in on the action. In the second inning, the Marlins loaded the bases, when Nicolino came up and hit what was a sure inning-ending DP. Except that it turned into the quintessential Stupid Marlins Play. Instead of throwing to 2nd, Wilmer Flores, at 3rd, vapor-locked and threw home to Plawecki. Except Plawecki seemed only marginally aware that a play might be coming to him, and so although he caught the ball well ahead of the arriving baserunner, he neglected to step on home plate, and everyone was safe. Fortunately, Bartolo Colon stopped the Marlins from doing anything further. For his troubles, Plawecki was given an error, and then after he doubled to lead off the top of the 3rd, got picked off 2nd base. So he was just off to a flying start.

The Mets now trailed Nicolino and the Marlins 2-0, and they weren't doing very much in the way of generating offense. As we've seen this past week, 2 runs can sometimes be a tall order for this group. They got 1 in the 4th inning when Loney drove in Flores, but then Michael Conforto, who's in the Keith Hernandez Dark Forest right now, struck out and Plawecki was similarly useless. The Mets finally managed to tie the game in the 6th, but this again was pulling teeth. The Mets loaded the bases with none out, but Conforto, Plawecki and the Pitcher's spot were due up and the Mets were still facing the Marlins. This seemed like the perfect situation for Nicolino to strike out everyone and then pump his fist so hard he would cause himself to levitate. Fortunately for us all, we were spared this indignity when Conforto hit a Sacrifice Fly to tie the game.

Hansel Robles entered in the 7th and Robles to be kind has been patently awful of late. He continued this trend by getting the first two batters, then walking the next two and allowing an RBI single to Miguel Rojas to put the Marlins back on top. Robles was mercifully removed from the game in favor of Jerry Blevins, as the Marlins had sent Ichiro Suzuki up to pinch hit, and Ichiro hit a line drive that appeared headed towards imminent disaster, but Juan Lagares did a Juan Lagares thing and laid out to make the catch.

Cut to the 8th inning when David Phelps (drool drool YANKEES) came in the game for the Marlins to face the bottom of the lineup. But the Mets went on the attack. Loney doubled and Conforto followed by picking up his first hit in about a week, a well-placed single that tied the game once again. Two outs later, after a walk by Curtis Granderson, Matt Reynolds hit for Lagares. Apparently, Lagares hurt his wrist making the catch two innings ago. As if the Mets didn't have enough injury trouble. But Reynolds went after the first pitch and lined a single to Center to score Conforto and give the Mets the lead for the first time in the game. The Mets continued the attack of the irregulars in the 9th inning when Alejandro De Aza hit a 2-run double in the 9th to give the Mets a 6-3 lead.

In other times, this would have been the point where the Marlins proceeded to get 3 straight singles, then an error, and then a 40-foot infield hit to drive in both the stake in our hearts and the winning run, but that didn't happen. Jeurys Familia did give up a run but it was only a run, and neither Celebrity Manager trying to create a fake argument or the 4 Marlins fans in attendance could will things any further.

Amazingly, the Mets have won the first two games of this series in spite of the fact that outside of Walker and Cabrera, they basically have a makeshift lineup in place. As I said yesterday, you do what you can to win, but I wouldn't trust this to be sustainable. Reinforcements are needed.