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.

Long Night's Journey...

I guess it's somewhat fitting that a night that began so ominously for the Mets ended so wretchedly. For the most part, the Mets stood toe-to-toe with a hellaciously tough Royals team and had worked the game directly the way they wanted it to for the first 8 1/2 innings. But for one night, it slipped away, and in an extra-inning war of attrition the Mets ultimately blinked first, falling to the Royals in 14 innings in the first game of the World Series.

To put it kindly, Game 1 of the World Series was simply excruciating. Not so much because of poor play, but because the Mets and Royals are so evenly matched, and both teams had their gears grinding from the first pitch and the longer these games go, and the longer these series go and games remain well within reach for either team, the more excruciating it becomes. I was plenty anxious before the game even started and as things unfolded and stretched further and further into the night, I only got worse. I was a total wreck at the end of the game, and of course this was only Game 1.

But that's the World Series. And that's the plight of being a fan of one of the World Series teams. You try to do whatever you can to bring the team good Karma, wearing shirts, following superstitions or whatever but in reality all you can do is just sit there and watch the game unfold. That's probably the most painful part of this drama; for as much as fans like to think they have some control, we don't. It all comes down to the execution of the players, and who can create a break for themselves.

The Royals seemed to be creating most of the breaks, certainly early on when Alcides Escobar hacked at Matt Harvey's first pitch of the night and sent a screamer to Center that Yoenis Cespedes probably just didn't see, but whatever happened he didn't catch it and then knocked it away, allowing Escobar to circle the bases for an inside-the-park Home Run. And if that wasn't the worst possible way to start off a World Series, well, I don't know what is. That play basically set the tone for the evening, and the tone was that this wasn't going to go the way of the Cubs series. This was going to be tooth and nail for however many games it takes.

Harvey wasn't his sharpest early in the game, but he settled down, and most of the Mets settled down too, after being stopped by Edinson Volquez over the first three innings. Daniel Murphy, who else, got the Mets first hit leading off the 4th, pulled off another heady baserunning play when Duda singled through the overshift and then scored when Mike Moustakas couldn't' handle Travis d'Arnaud's screamer down the line. Curtis Granderson hit a Home Run in the 5th, and the Mets ran amok on the Royals again in the 6th, this time Cespedes doing the exact same thing Murphy did in the 4th.

At 3-1 and with Harvey cruising, things looked great, or at least whatever part of the game Fox allowed us to see looked great. The only problem was that the Royals are basically an entire team of tough outs and aggressive hitters and it seems as though they become even more difficult when they're trailing. Ben Zobrist seems to embody this better than anyone, because he spent the entire night ripping the Mets to shreds. His first-pitch double in the 6th kick started a 2-run rally that tied the game and ultimately ended Harvey's evening after 6 innings in which he allowed 3 runs on 5 hits, but only 2 strikeouts, because the Royals just don't strike out.

The Mets are tough outs too, and in the 8th they took their shot against the Royals virtually-impenetrable bullpen and somehow succeeded in scratching across a run. This, of course, was solely due to Juan Lagares, who took on Kelvin Herrera and refused to give in, fouling off several pitches of the 100mph variety before finally fisting a single. Lagares then stole second and scored when Wilmer Flores' ground ball hopped past Eric Hosmer at 1st base.

Yes, the game had indeed played right into the Mets hands. Ahead 4-3, the Mets went to Tyler Clippard for the 8th, and Clippard was alternately horrifying and great before departing a 2-on, 2-out situation in favor of Jeurys Familia. This was exactly where the Mets needed to be. Familia got the last out of the 9th and then came back out for the 9th and everything was just hunky dory until he left a pitch just slightly up to Alex Gordon...

...and that was the ambush we weren't expecting.

Familia hasn't been perfect this season, but he's been pretty close to it, which is why Alex Gordon's tying Home Run felt so momentously jarring and unsettling. I still don't think Familia can be blamed for it, certainly not after all he's done to get to this point. But that's still a really bad spot to have something like that happen.

Nonetheless, the game wasn't lost, deflating as that may have been. In fact, the Mets didn't fold at all. Jon Niese came in for the 10th and pitched two brilliant innings and Bartolo Colon followed and was similarly effective, weaving in and out of jams as only Colon can, without breaking a sweat. But the Mets offense had gone completely quiet. Juan Lagares tried to inject some life into things with a bunt single in the 11th, but he got no further than 2nd. Each time the Mets looked like they had something going, either David Wright or Michael Cuddyer would come up and strike out and short-circuit everything. Then Chris Young came into the game and just iced the Mets completely. Either way, the Mets weren't doing anything to help themselves offensively, and of course it appeared to be only a matter of time until the Royals caught a break because they kept plugging away.

It took until the 14th inning, but the Royals finally caught that break. It figured that it would be Escobar and Zobrist in the thick of things because they were doing it all night. Wright misplayed Escobar's grounder for an error, Zobrist followed with his 6th hit of the night to move Escobar to 3rd and you could basically stick a fork in this one because for as well as Colon has pitched, he can only pull his Houdini act so many times. Still, Curtis Granderson probably uncorked the best throw he's made in 5 years on Hosmer's fly ball and made the final play much closer than it should have been, but that didn't change the outcome and moral victories only count for so much.

So...yeah. 5 hours and 9 minutes and an ending time of 1:16am didn't make for a good night's sleep. In fact, I have to say I feel pretty damn miserable right now. This was a pretty deflating loss for the Mets. But just as much as coming from behind has been a staple for the Royals this season, the Mets trademark has been their resiliency and their ability to bounce back from tough losses. I keep saying this but as was the case against LA and Chicago, they just had to split the first two games. Particularly here, playing on the road. These Royals are a bunch of Tigers that have already been through this and although coming back from 0-2 isn't impossible, I'd rather not be in that position. Hell, I just don't want to be in the position of the ennui that comes following a Postseason loss. I was despondent after the Mets lost the 4th game against LA, just imagine how I'm feeling now. The one thing I can take solace in, other than that the Mets have the ability to bounce back, is the guy they're sending to the mound tonight. Jacob deGrom has stood tall in some pretty big spots this year and if there's anyone you want on the mound in a game like this, he's the guy.

The Right Roles

A problem the Mets had earlier in the season, and in fact a problem that's reared its ugly head several times over the course of the past several years has been a lack of reserve depth, particularly on the offensive side of things. The Mets have managed to field lineups that are decent, but tenuous and when someone inevitably goes down, a suitable replacement is nowhere to be found. So, what ends up happening is that guys like Alex Cora, or Jason Pridie, or Omar Quintanilla, or Andrew Brown end up playing way, way more often than players of their caliber should be playing. Not surprisingly, the team suffers for it.

When the Mets are performing at an optimal level, as they appear to be over the past 5 games now, it's these reserve guys that are playing about as often as they should be playing that come up with necessary hits. Such was the case of Eric Campbell in the 8th inning last night. Campbell has been one of my leading flogs this season (slightly above Jon Niese, but way behind the leader in the clubhouse, Daniel Murphy) because he's not good enough to be an every day player, nor will he ever be, and even when he's pushed into action on a semi-regular basis, he's exposed. But with these new faces on the roster, Campbell's face time has decreased and so what you end up with is he has less chances to look bad, and it exponentially increases the chance that he might do something useful with the playing time he does find. In the 8th inning on Tuesday night, with the game tied 1-1, Campbell came up to pinch hit for Niese with 2 on and 2 out, after Flores had popped up a bunt attempt and Tejada had struck out. And all he did was stick his bat out and knock a little floater over the shortstop's head, just enough to score Lucas Duda with the lead run and open the floodgates for Juan Lagares and Curtis Granderson to drive home 3 more runs afterward as the Mets came away with their 5th win in a row.

Campbell's case is the most obvious example, but for the moment the entire team is functioning at an optimal level. Were this 3 or 4 weeks ago, Campbell would probably have started in left and gone 0-for-4, Niese would have taken the tough-luck loss in spite of allowing 1 run in 7 innings and the Mets would have spent the night smacking themselves in the head with their bats wondering how they lost a 1-0 game to a team that looks like they're already on the 5th Green. Instead, the Mets waited out David Phelps, eventually tied the game in the 6th thanks to a clutch hit from Ruben Tejada and an equally clutch slide from Wilmer Flores (whose fan club has traveled all the way to South Florida), and eventually pull away late.

Niese was the beneficiary tonight and outside of the one start against the Dodgers when he probably shouldn't have pitched, he's rather quietly been just as good as the other starters on the team, which I have to consider appreciable. Niese was one of the guys on the hot seat at the beginning of the season and for about 2 months he looked like he was pitching with one foot out the door. I've talked many times about how he continues to trade high on a good year he had 3 seasons ago but he's started to recapture that form, probably because there's now too much competition around him and he feels pushed. On the one hand, that's not always the sort of thing you want to do to motivate a player, but then again, some players just need to be kicked in the ass a little bit. I guess you could say that about most of the team but some examples are more stark than others.

Gee, A Comeback!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith Rewarded

I found myself home on a Saturday night, something that seems to be a moderately rare occurrence of late, and happily, my quiet evening was accompanied by Mets baseball. More appropriately, winning Mets Baseball, because a Mets loss wouldn't have been much fun at all, considering a) they were playing the awful Phillies, b) the Phillies seemed all too happy to hand the game to the Mets by throwing their D-lineup out there, and c) They'd already lost on Friday night to the awful Phillies, and come on.

Jon Niese took the start for the Mets and continued what for him might almost be considered the Golden Age of Jon Niese. Quietly, Niese has held serve on the back end of the rotation, while sort of getting a little lost amidst Harvey/deGrom/Colon to very quietly place himself among the ranks of the best lefties in the NL. You know, where we thought he might be heading three seasons ago. I suppose it remains to be seen where this goes because Niese has been known for being mercurial and pissy, but to this point, now 6 times through the rotation, he's had, what, one bad start? For Niese, that's pretty good, particularly for a guy I've been ready to place on The Ballclub's Shitlist.

So Niese hummed along through the early part of the game, getting the same amount of run support that the Mets offense has been providing its starting pitchers lately, which hasn't been much. There was a run scoring error in the 5th inning, I want to say Lucas Duda hit the ball and Cesar Hernandez, playing in the stead of Chase Utley, who's 9-for-91 start to the season has landed him on the bench, pulled a Daniel Murphy and the Mets had a lead. But Niese ran into trouble in the 6th, where a Dilson Herrera error set up a Jon Niese inning, in which he got dinked and dunked to death by his opponent and started moping around the mound. 2 runs crossed the plate for Philadelphia, and it appeared Niese was done for the night in line for a loss.

But for whatever reason, Terry Collins let Niese hit leading off the 7th inning. Niese responded to this particular windmill by singling to center for his first hit of the season. This seemed to set off a chain reaction of general positivity across the Mets roster. Two batters later, Juan Lagares slammed a Home Run into the seats in Left to give the Mets a 3-2 lead. Niese cruised through the 7th, but after a Multiple-Torres-Induced bases loaded situation in the last of the 8th inning seemed certain to end in instant disaster, Buddy Carlyle came in the game and got Carlos Ruiz to ground into a Double Play. In and of itself, that's just fine, but it took a fine play in the hole by Ruben Tejada to start things off, and an even finer play by Dilson Herrera, who atoned for his error by hanging in to catch the relay throw, avoid a sliding runner and fire a throw off to 1st to get Ruiz by a step and end the inning. Jeurys Familia survived Utley's 10th hit of the season and a cameo appearance by Ryan Howard's carcass to lock down his 12th Save and a 3-2 Mets win that made my night that much better.

It comes back to Niese and Lagares who get the attention, but let's give Tejada and Herrera some credit here too. Herrera, after a throwing error pretty much nuked the 6th inning, shook it off and made a key play on the DP in the 8th. Tejada, on the other hand, had one of the best games he's had in probably the better part of a year, because, given a spot start for the struggling Wilmer Flores, Tejada played a flawless game in the field and even chipped in with a pair of hits and scored the Mets' first run of the night. Granted, this is one game and he's been known to have decent games amidst the general dreck he puts out, but it's at least a positive sign that he's got a pulse and wants to take advantage of whatever opportunities he has left with the team. He's apparently going to get a start today as well, or at least that's what Gary Cohen said at the end of the night, spelling Herrera at 2nd Base, so maybe he'll make something of it. Maybe.

R33pect

You didn't have to be a lip reader in the 9th inning yesterday afternoon to see just how in control Matt Harvey was in shutting down the Yankees and evening up this early-season Subway Series matchup.

"C'mon!" he yelled to Terry Collins, who'd presumably come to remove him from the game with 2 outs in the 9th inning. "Lemme get this guy."

Though Harvey ultimately lost the battle against his manager, by that point he'd already won the war, whipping off a mostly effortless 107-pitch effort that saw him rather economically shut down the Yankees, going deeper than he'd gone into a game this season while only allowing 6 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks and 7 strikeouts. The Mets offense backed him with plenty of runs and Mr. Man went and did the rest as the Mets shook off the Friday night doledrums and responded with a rather easy 8-2 victory in the Bronx Mausoleum.

This game was certainly in stark contrast to the last time Harvey faced the Yankees. Not so much in Harvey's effort—he allowed 1 run in 8 innings in a Mets win—but in that game, the Mets gave him nothing to work with in the way of run support, and only a 9th inning comeback off of some closer dude saved Harvey from being hung with a loss.

Saturday, the Mets scored early and often off of C.C. Sabathia, whose years are starting to catch up to him. Lucas Duda kicked off the scoring with a 1st inning Home Run, a shot over the 260-foot fence in Right Field. Though the Yankees tied the game thanks more to Daniel Murphy having one of his Daniel Murphy moments and not covering 1st on a bunt play, the Mets struck right back with an extended 2-out rally in the 4th inning. Juan Lagares drilled an RBI triple to plate Murphy, and this was followed by a Wilmer Flores RBI single, and finished off by Kevin Plawecki's first Major League Home Run, a real laser beam of a line drive that landed in the Left Field seats. Very quickly, as the Mets have been wont to do, the Mets grabbed a lead and tacked on, putting necessary distance between themselves and the Yankees.

But the Mets didn't stop after the 4th. In the 6th, Eric Campbell, who's been sneaky good in the absence of Wright, led off with the Mets 3rd Home Run of the afternoon, a poke shot to right that was advantageously placed just over that short fence to extend the lead to 6-1. Later, Juan Lagares knocked out the 3rd of his 4th hits on the day, and then relied on his baserunning savvy to advance round the bases and score on an Esmil Rogers Wild Pitch. Plawecki bookended his fine day with another 2-out RBI, this time an 8th inning single that scored Lagares and capped off the Mets scoring.

Lagares' 4-hit day was nice, and Plawecki's Home Run was even nicer, but Harvey was obviously the story of the day. Where deGrom had failed on Friday night by not really adjusting to the Yankees attacking his pitches early in the count, Harvey instead used his entire arsenal to counter the Yankee approach. Instead of trying to blow everyone away with fastballs, which he's certainly capable of doing, Harvey instead mixed in his curve and his slider and watches as the Yankees tapped harmless ground balls all over the place. This was not only effective, but economical and essentially gave Harvey the opportunity to work deeper into the game because he just wasn't throwing that many pitches. By the 6th inning, he'd only registered an un-Harvey-like 2 strikeouts, and only then did he dial it up and start gassing guys. By the 9th inning, he'd only thrown 90 pitches, and although this would have been the perfect place to get him out of the game, Collins gave him a shot to finish things off. He certainly came close, and his whipsaw strikeout of A-Rod nearly brought the house down, but at that point, being over 100 pitches, he'd finally run out of gas and couldn't quite finish things off.

Still, I can't imagine anyone other than Harvey himself is going to complain about his inability to finish the game. When innings are supposedly a concern, maybe it's going to make a difference later in the season. Maybe not. But after this outing, he'll be rewarded with an extra day of rest before his return to the mound at Citi Field on Friday night, where everyone will certainly be keyed up. First, though, the Mets have to finish up the madness that is the Subway Series tonight on The Biggest Game in the Galaxy on ESPN. That should be flashy.

Good Times

The times in which you really feel confident that someone's going to come through for the Mets to guide them to a win in a close game have been few and far between over the team's somewhat checkered history, and let's face it, in recent years, that feeling has been non-existent. But this has been a different story with the 2015 Mets. For whatever reason, you not only feel confident that someone's going to come through, you sort of have the feeling that EVERYONE will come through. Tuesday night, Curtis Granderson and Kevin Plawecki led the charge. Last night, it was Dillon Gee coming through with a solid 7-inning effort, assisted by Juan Lagares, who came up with a clutch defensive play (or, for him, a routine play), and then Wilmer Flores, who'd driven home the Mets first run early in the game, smacked a game-tying Home Run in the last of the 7th, setting the stage for an 8th inning winning rally where everything that could have gone right, did.

You need a lot of things to go right in order to win 10 games in a row, and in plating the winning run in their 10th straight win, everything just fell perfectly.

Curtis Granderson, given a rare night off in favor of John Mayberry Jr (who for whatever reason found himself hitting leadoff in Terry Collins' Valentineified lineup—although the way things have been going lately, Collins could have hit Jacob deGrom leadoff and I'd buy it) and did what you're supposed to do as a leadoff hitter in the late innings of a tied game: work the count and draw a walk. Lagares, fresh off his latest acrobatic gem in the Outfield (a twisting, over the shoulder grab of a Jace Peterson drive that got caught in a Citi Field wind gust—a fine play that Lagares usually gloves 113 out of 100 times) followed by executing a perfect hit-and-run. With Granderson in motion, Lagares basically stuck his bat out and hit a nubber of a ground ball towards the right side of the infield. But with Granderson on the move, the Braves had vacated that side of the field and not only had Lagares picked up a rather fortuitous hit, he also sent Granderson steaming all the way to 3rd. Lucas Duda followed by doing what has become the new Lucas Duda in this situation. Whereas two years ago, Duda might have either popped up to the 1st baseman or struck out, now, the new Lucas Duda inside outs a pitch in front of the left fielder to bring home Granderson with the lead run. The lead is then handed over to Jeurys Familia, who nailed down his 7th Save in as many chances to give the Mets the 3-2 victory.

Is this really how it is now? I like it when things fall into place like that for the Mets game after game.

Signs Of Life

The Mets rebounded from Monday's miserable effort with a more lively showing on Tuesday night in Mickey Mouse Stadium, committing only one error instead of the 6 they made Monday, and breaking out for a whopping 8 runs, just enough to top the Marlins 8-6 in a back-and-forth affair.

September Baseball is often kind of wistful, and this year I feel like I'm noticing it much earlier in September than I usually do. By time you start seeing Minor League callups and resurfaced veterans peppering Major League rosters, you know, especially if your team is out of contention, that these days are finite. The new season is no longer new, it's almost over and in less than a month, I'm going to go back to writing about the 49ers once a week and writing about Baseball when I feel like it.

That's sort of a long preamble to my point, which is that when the hell did Brad Penny resurface with the Marlins? This isn't 2003, from what I can recall, and so Penny, who I have to imagine hasn't pitched in the Major Leagues in at least 3 seasons and hasn't pitched effectively in about 5 seasons, is back in some sort of weird effort by the Marlins to recapture some of their past glory. I seem to remember the Mets handling him rather well in the past, and that hasn't changed; in 3 innings of work, the Mets attacked him for 4 runs and 7 hits, and his presence even managed to awaken David Wright. Wright hasn't hit a thing in about a month, and all of a sudden, here's Brad Penny to remind him of the days when he hit .320 and he's banging doubles down the Right Field line and all of a sudden it's 2006 again. Juan Lagares, who does not have a history with Penny, also seemed to take a liking to him, as he banged out 2 hits off him and remained in a hitting mood the rest of the night, finishing out with 4 hits, 3 runs scored and 2 RBI.

The 8 runs were needed because Jon Niese had his typical good bad outing, taking a 4 run lead and doing his best to hand it back to Florida. Giancarlo Stanton hit a Home Run off Niese in the 3rd, which I guess shouldn't be too surprising, but come on, keep the ball in the ballpark at least. After that, the Marlins sort of nicked and pecked Niese to death and after his 6 innings of work, which on the surface might appear effective because he did make it through 6 and didn't walk anyone, but he gave up 6 runs and 10 hits, so what's the difference here?

Carlos Torres and the Jeurys Familia/Jenrry Mejia Report followed Niese to the mound and were much more effective, which leads me to believe that the Marlins weren't on fire so much as Niese was just being annoyingly inconsistent as is his wont. 3 innings, one hit and 3 strikeouts, punctuated by Mejia's patented karate chop tells quite a story in and of itself. For one, Niese, who was supposed to be one of the key members of this rotation, now isn't the young, emerging lefty anymore, he's a veteran and it's time to put up or shut up. On the other hand, this Familia/Mejia hour is becoming quite a dynamic duo at the back end of the bullpen, providing enough effective outings for me to tentatively start to think that maybe the Mets have some guys you can actually have some confidence in coming out of the bullpen for the first time since I believe the 2000 season.

Let's see how long it lasts.

The Double Play's The Thing

It was a beautiful evening at Citi Field tonight, for a multitude of reasons. Many mitigating circumstances, paramount among them the fact that the Mets beat the Braves 3-2 in a crisp, 2 hour, 27 minute game served to make my 14th game of the season at Citi Field immensely enjoyable. The win brought me back to 2 games over .500 for the season, at 8-6 at Citi Field, and also brought me to 2-1 for the season against the Braves. So much good went on in this one, the only thing I was able to complain about was that my burger had a stale bun. When Citi Field stale bread is the low point of the evening, it was probably a pretty good game.

Some particular highlights I took away tonight include Dillon Gee, who's had a string of semi-tolerable to lousy starts over the past month or so, got his act together and pitched rather well, not allowing the Barves a hit until the 4th inning and keeping them down until the 7th inning when he ran out of steam and turned things over to The Familia/Mejia Report. Juan Lagares had his usual sterling effort in Center Field, picking off a multitude of fly balls of assorted difficulty and making all of them look rather easy in the process. Offensively, his second inning single helped move along Travis d'Arnaud so that he could eventually score the Mets first run of the game. Two innings later, his Home Run into the Left Field seats plated d'Arnaud in front of him and provided the Mets with the eventual winning runs. The weather, which had become uncomfortably hot during the day, had cooled down to a rather pleasant, breezy 87˚ at game time and although I wasn't paying attention it probably went down during the game. The game itself, as I mentioned, was only 2:27, over before 9:40 and allowing me to make a quick exit and be home before 11pm, which is when I sometimes turn into a pumpkin.

However, the most enjoyable thing for me, other than the general fact that the Mets beat the Braves, was seeing the wildly overrated Barves hit into 4 Double Plays over the course of the game. This is something that at certain times has been an all too familiar sight for the Mets, but tonight, it was the Braves turn to continually shoot themselves in the foot, and I can't tell you how delightful it was to witness. Four times, the 2nd, 5th, 7th and 9th innings, the Braves got their leadoff man on, and in each of those instances they managed to screw it up. It was beautiful. Gee (or Mejia in the case of the 9th inning) got a Ground ball (or in the 5th inning, a well-placed line drive right at Lucas Duda) in the right spot, and whether it was Ruben Tejada or Eric Campbell starting it, the result was the same, 2 outs and a budding rally cut off before it could go anywhere. When your offense can only generate 3 runs and 5 hits for the night, you can still manage to win a game if your defense can put forth an effort like the one we saw tonight. If you can induce your opponent to hit into 4 Double Plays, well, you've done an excellent job of making them look like schmucks, but you've also given yourself an excellent chance to win the game, and when Mejia froze Evan Gattis with a fastball at the knees for the final strike, the Mets had done just that. They won this game on the basis of pitching and defense and one well-placed hit, and you'd have to think that if the Mets are going to find success in the future, they'll have to have plenty of games like this, where they pitch well and play outstanding defense. 

Good And Less Good

One good way to shake off the general malaise caused by too many long extra inning games and a blowout on the West Coast can be to take the field against a team that's probably in worse shape than you are. Fortunately, the Mets found themselves in such a position last night when they went out and beat the Diamondbacks 7-3.

The Diamondbacks were, by some reports, a potential dark horse surprise candidate in the NL West. But multiple injuries to their pitching staff (including Patrick Corbin, who was expected to be their ace), combined with the hangover of their overseas trip to Australia have spelled instant doom, and Arizona has sprung from the gate with a whimper, pitching poorly and hitting equally as poor, and the result is more or less just what the Mets needed at this particular point in time.

The Mets, who have a history of rolling into Arizona and performing well (their 13-game win streak in 2004-2007 is the stuff of legends) came in this time reeling a little bit after too much Anaheim Angels. Fortunately, the Mets got to go up against Josh Collmenter, who wasn't supposed to be in the starting rotation for Arizona until things went haywire. The Mets jumped on Collmenter early and often and got some runs on the board in support of Zack Wheeler.

No one particular player stood out for the Mets offensively; everyone seemed to benefit from a trip to Arizona. Lucas Duda had 4 hits, Daniel Murphy and Eric Young, Jr. had two each, and the Mets had 13 overall, a far cry from the strikeout brigade we'd been witness to over the first couple of weeks of the season. Wheeler was the lucky recipient of this offensive explosion, and I'm sure it helped him relax, since he had his best outing of the young season, allowing 2 runs and pitching into the 7th inning en route to his first win of the season. Carlos Torres, who's been surprisingly reliable of late, picked up for Wheeler and carried the rest of the game home, a tidy enough effort to net himself a rare Save.


But, of course, since this is the Mets, there's always got to be some kind of downer to offset what was generally a good, positive night for the team, since 2/3rds of the starting Outfield managed to get hurt, leaving the Mets stuck having to trot Lucas Duda out to Left Field for a cameo appearance late in the night. Curtis Granderson crashed into the chain-link Outfield fence early in the game and banged himself up pretty good. He managed to stay in the game for a spell before the bruises caught up with him and he departed. Given his slow start, a day off or two to clear his head might not be the worst thing in the world. Of more pressing concern, however, is the injury to Juan Lagares, who's been the best thing going on the Mets to this point. Lagares came up with the dreaded hamstring pull running out a Fielder's choice in the latter innings. It didn't, at first glance, appear bad, but as we all know, these are the kind of injuries that you can fake your way through and then you end up with what happened to David Wright last season and you're out 6 weeks. So it's of no surprise that Lagares departed immediately, in spite of the fact that he tried to be slick and grab his hamstring while nobody was looking, like it was some kind of natural motion for him to make, but nobody was fooled. Annoyingly, he's probably headed to the DL (Late note: He is, indeed, on the DL, replaced by (trumpets) Kirk Nieuwenhuis).

It seems almost fitting that two Outfielders would go down the same night, particularly considering Chris Young is set to come off the DL on Friday, and also considering I'd laid out some particular thoughts as to whom should emerge in the Mets crowded Outfield situation the other day. The Mets, in one night, went from too many Outfielders to too few, and the replacements, which range from the recalled Nieuwenhuis to habitually creaky Bobby Abreu, are hardly palatable. A typically Metsian problem to have.

Winning Time

Generally, a lot needs to go right for the Mets to win a series in Atlanta, and fortunately, a lot went right for the Mets in the past three games. Even in the one game they lost, last night, they got off the mat and got some hits off "Mr. Unhittable" and made a lost game interesting at the end. Tonight, they played a game that they could have easily lost, but thanks to a pair of clutch performances from Juan Lagares and Eric Young Jr., and an amazing 4 scoreless innings out of the bullpen, they won a back-and-forth affair, 6-4.

I was out a majority of the night and missed the hot action, but some helpful text messages from a friend kept me abreast of what was going on, until I arrived home just in time to see Jose Valverde close things out with a surprisingly dominant 9th inning.

What I missed was a standout performance from Young, who managed to interject himself into the Outfield conversation after three rather good games in Atlanta. He peaked tonight, with 3 hits and 3 stolen bases, capping off a fine series where he stole 5 bases and managed to raise his batting average above the Mendoza line.

Young, lest we forget, did have a reasonably respectable season last year and did lead the league in Stolen Bases (though a third of his season was spent with the Colorados), and lest we forget, he has some position versatility, since he can play any Outfield spot (or at least I assume he can play any Outfield spot) as well as 2nd Base. It's worth bringing up because at some point Chris Young is going to come back from the DL and one can assume that he and his $7,000,000 contract will get every reasonable shot to play, and who knows, maybe he'll play well. Having 3 quality players for two positions (Lagares being the 3rd) is a reasonably good problem to have, and perhaps it's been pushing Lagares and now Young to play well in the early going this season. Or at least this week—can't really discount the fact that Young started out 0-for-16—these guys are playing for jobs.

Lagares, on the other hand, has played well from day 1 this season, and I'd have to think he's the decided favorite to take the CF job full time. The drawback to this is that should Collins name Lagares the full time starter, it leaves them shorthanded at the leadoff position. Young, despite his sabermetrically-challenged numbers, is the closest the Mets have right now. Lagares has hit like he means it, at least to this point, and although there's no guarantee that he'll keep it up, this start at least proves that he's capable of going on a good hot streak. Lagares also has either Young beat defensively, where he only had 15 assists last year and routinely makes highlight reel catches. This might be better known as the "Rey Ordoñez Corollary," wherein one particular player is so spectacular on defense that it takes away from his complete offensive ineptitude. Lagares isn't quite as putrid as Ordoñez was with the bat, but you get my drift.

The other wildcard here is actually Curtis Granderson. Granderson, who is, of course, the established, high-priced veteran, who to this point is barely batting his weight. You'd have to assume he'll heat up at some point, and it's also only been 11 games, but if this holds, not only will mass panic ensue from those of us still suffering from PJBSD (Post-Jason-Bay-Stress-Disorder), but would it force Collins to consider throwing Granderson into this Outfield revolving door, thus creating a 4-men for 3-spot rotation? It remains to be seen but I would have to imagine we all hope it doesn't come to that.

Flying Start

And after two games, everyone's ready to sound the alarms.

The Mets at least put up a fight on Monday afternoon, when it took them 10 innings to strike out 18 times and lose. Tonight, they didn't strike out as frequently, only 13 times, but they also only managed 1 run and 3 hits against Gio Gonzalez and the other Washington Nationals, so it stands to reason that the Mets simply had fewer at bats with which to strike out. If the Mets offense is going to put forth these kind of performances every night, it's going to be a long season.

I was late arriving home from work, so I actually missed the interesting part of the game, which involved Juan Lagares hit a triple and not get stranded at 3rd Base, thanks to a David Wright sacrifice fly. I arrived home to see the Mets ahead 1-0, which was nice, but the lead was, naturally, short-lived. Bartolo Colon, all 283 pounds of him, was on the mound and pitched reasonably well in his Mets debut. But with the Mets offense consisting of players doing little more than swinging through pitches, Colon was left on a rather short leash, and the Nationals, with their lineup of professional, potent hitters eventually tied the game in the 4th, and then took the lead in the 5th thanks to a pair of Home Runs from Ian Desmond and, gallingly, Gonzalez himself.

The Mets had a reasonably decent opportunity to claw back into the game in the last of the 5th, thanks to a Ruben Tejada single (he's hit in both games now—stop the presses), but Colon couldn't bunt him over (and appears ill-prepared to bunt in general) and even though he was running when Lagares pulled a pitch just fair down the Left Field line, he still managed to get himself thrown out at home by a reasonably good margin.

And that, my friends, was the Mets last good opportunity to keep the game in reach. The remainder of the affairs involved such highlights as Gonzalez Germen getting lit up like a Christmas tree, Lucas Duda being sent up to pinch hit following a Tejada walk and like clockwork striking out, and several other Mets doing the same to close out a completely terrible 5-1 loss.

The pessimistic way to look at this would be to think that the Mets right now stand to strike out 2511 times this season if things hold to form. Curtis Granderson, Travis d'Arnaud and all the 1st Basemen are currently 0-for the season, and the Mets are getting completely outclassed by a much better team. It's probably not that dramatic after 2 games, but there's already a goodly share of bad news flying around. Hopefully, Zack Wheeler, one of the bright spots on the team, can wake the team up tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully.

Failure To Answer The Bell

Whether you had good expectations for the Mets over the course of the regular season or not is sort of academic as far as Opening Day is concerned. The Mets almost always come away with a victory on Opening Day, usually giving the fans that come out to see them some nice good vibes to take home for a couple of days. Usually. I've been to Opening Day each of the last 10 years now, and in years when Opening Day was actually Opening Day (and not just the home opener), the Mets are 4-1.

The one, of course, was yesterday, when a series of feel-good stories, courtesy of Dillon Gee, Andrew Brown and Juan Lagares ultimately dissolved into a series of failures by a Bullpen unit that was considered shaky to begin with and ended up justifying everyone's fears. Even worse, the Bullpen became even more shorthanded this morning when it was revealed that Bobby Parnell was injured and probably badly enough to require surgery.

Things started out reasonably well enough for the Mets, despite a few harbingers that things were going to go sour. First, Chris Young, who was expected to start in Left Field, came down with a Quad injury and couldn't play. Daniel Murphy was unavailable due to his impending fatherhood. Their absences, however, couldn't dampen the spirits of the fans, who were certainly out in full force despite great weather for Football (the wind so bad in the seating area that fans abandoned their seats in droves for the "warmer" confines of the concourses). Howie Rose welcomed everyone to the 2014 National League Season, the shofar was blown and away we went...except that the Mets took the field without a 1st Baseman. The missing man at 1st went on long enough for me to muse that perhaps the Mets had simply decided that no 1st Baseman was better than the ones they had, but then Ike Davis popped out of the dugout to the delight of everyone in attendance and away we went.

With 2 on and 2 out in the bottom of the 1st, courtesy of hits by Lagares and Wright, Andrew Brown came to the plate. George mused to me that he had no idea who the hell Brown even was. I mentioned that he was on the roster last season, but that he didn't do anything to particularly distinguish himself. The ensuing discussion of the exploits of Andrew Brown ended with the conclusion that Andrew Brown is a Professional Baseball player who plays in the Major Leagues and is capable of occasionally getting a hit. Brown then proved that he is also capable of running into a Stephen Strasburg fastball and blasting it into the Left Field seats for a 3-run Home Run. This was, of course, completely unexpected but nonetheless warmly welcomed by all who saw it.

Staked to an early lead, Dillon Gee, himself an unlikely presence on Opening Day, nonetheless went out and pitched great, save for one bad pitch to Adam LaRoche that was deposited into the bullpen. Following that, Gee settled in and retired 15 Nationals in a row, a streak that stretched into the 7th inning. For Gee, who'd pitched especially well over the 2nd half of last season, this was really picking up right where he'd left off. He pitched great, both effective and economical until he ran out of gas in the 7th. But he managed to get within shouting distance of getting out of the inning until Anthony Rendon reached him for an RBI double that made the score 4-3.

Then the Bullpen took over.

Then things pretty much went downhill from there.

It took 3 pitchers and 9 pitches before a Met reliever managed to throw a strike, which right there should tell you how well things were going. Carlos Torres walked his batter. Scott Rice walked his, forcing in the tying run and stripping Gee of what would have been a well-deserved win. Finally Jose Valverde, Papa Grande of all people, somehow managed to restore order to an imminent disaster, striking out Ryan Zimmerman after a sweaty 9-pitch at bat.

Valverde's perfect 8th inning was icing on the cake and for a hot second it appeared he would be the game's unsung hero when the second unlikely Mets Home Run of the day came courtesy of Juan Lagares leading off the bottom of the 8th. Lagares, like Brown, probably wasn't supposed to be in the Opening Day lineup, but circumstances brought him there, and Lagares, who seems to be one of those "if only..." guys on the Mets roster, justified his presence in the lineup with a pair of hits and 3 runs, including a laser of a Home Run off Tyler Clippard that briefly gave the Mets a 5-4 lead and had everyone dreaming of a nice, clean 9th inning and another happy Opening Day.

Then, of course, the rest of the game happened. Bobby Parnell didn't have it and Jeurys Familia and John Lannan had even less, and the result was a Blown Save and a 10th Inning meltdown that needs no recapping except to say that it was horrible and made a cold day feel even colder. Perhaps in another dimension, Lannan gets Anthony Rendon to pop out and David Wright ends up the hero, but instead, Wright's Home Run, which capped a 3-hit performance, was purely putting lipstick on the pig that was this 9-7 loss.

I suppose I probably should have known better than to think things would turn out well on a day that was so miserably cold in the wind tunnel that is the Citi Field Promenade that George and I willingly spent an inning watching from the Promenade Club. True, it's easy to overreact. But given the compounding circumstances surrounding the team, and the fans, and the general dissatisfaction with the way the organization has been going, how could any Mets fan come away from this game feeling very good? The bullpen is a complete disaster, at bats in key spots are being given to Lucas Duda and the equally worthless Omar Quintanilla, and even though they might be excused for having faced Strasburg, striking out 18 times on Opening Day is pretty far from confidence-inspiring. Hopefully this isn't a sign for the rest of the season.

Understudies

The Mets followed up their series win in Atlanta with a series win in Philadelphia, that featured an impressive comeback, an even more impressive comeback, and a full-scale shellacking, a trio of efforts where the Mets have looked better than they've looked in about a month, probably ever since they played the Yankees.

The mixture the Mets have been going with this past week hasn't been perfect, certainly, but it has been effective, or at least effective enough to generate some liveliness and wins in the process, as opposed to the muck we've been used to. Ike Davis continues to sit around AAA. The dregs like Cowgill and Ankiel are gone. Lucas Duda now finds himself on the DL. Replacing them are players like Eric Young, Jr and Juan Lagares, not exactly the sexiest names out there, but they've been getting the job done, which is really all we've been asking for. Just go out there, make a good effort and look like you're worth something. Young and Lagares have done that, and particularly this weekend it's managed to turn those 3-1 losses into some 4-3 wins, and even made a blowout into a respectable game on Saturday.

Friday's game saw Jeremy Hefner, whose position in the rotation is now a bit more secure with Jon Niese's injury keeping him sidelined indefinitely, come out and promptly give up 3 to the Phillies in the 2nd inning. Previously, the Mets probably would have promptly lied down and died, even with Cole Hamels, he of the big mouth and lousy start to the season, on the mound. But the Mets, particularly Eric Young, Jr. and Juan Lagares, kept battling and eventually chipped away enough to turn that 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead. Young chipped in with a pair of hits, one of which set the table for David Wright to drive him in (proof that when people actually get on base in front of him, David Wright can drive in some runs), and later tied the game with a 2-out, 2-run single, scoring Juan Lagares, among others. One inning later, with 2 outs and Lucas Duda on 1st, it was Lagares again coming up with the clutch hit off Hamels, drilling a long double off the wall in center, a deep enough drive that Duda and the icebox he was carrying were able to chug all the way around to score the lead run.

Hefner had done a good job of keeping the Phillies at bay while the Mets came back and eventually took the lead. Though it might not have been the prettiest outing, with 10 hits allowed, he somehow managed to scrounge through, particularly with help from Lagares, who ran down a long fly ball with the bases loaded in the 5th. Now, it was up to the Bullpen to finish the job, much like they did Thursday. And much like Thursday, the bullpen answered the bell, with Scott Rice and Carlos Torres bridging the way to Bobby Parnell. Parnell, who has simply been locked in of late, stopped the Phillies without a peep in the 9th, finishing off a real, live comeback win.

With Friday a success, the Mets decided to try to come back again on Saturday, and in fact they succeeded, even if their furious late rally was negated by Kevin Frandsen's walk-off Home Run. Dillon Gee, who probably just shouldn't face the Phillies anymore, took another beating at the hands of Ryan Howard and company, departing with a 6-1 deficit that turned into 7-1 when the Mets kicked the ball around while Ben Revere circled the bases. Again, what the Mets had shown us this season is that when they went down by enough runs, you may as well stop paying attention. So I sort of did, at least until Eric Young, Jr once again came up with a big hit, this time, a 0-out, 2-run double that cut the deficit to 7-4 and set up another run later in the inning. Though that rally eventually was cut off, the Mets had one more push in them. Jonathan Papelbon, who appears to have a touch of Craig Kimbrel Disease, couldn't lay down the hammer on the Mets. Young led off with a grounder that he probably beat out, except that the umpires decided he didn't. This was unfortunate because Jordany Valdespin followed with a Home Run that made the game 7-6. Wright walked, but it appeared he would be stuck there after Byrd flew out and Murphy looked bad on a couple of pitches. But with Wright running, and Rollins covering 2nd, Murphy somehow managed to reach out and poke a slow roller that snuck through the vacated hole and into the Outfield. Wright, who was motoring and not slowing down, probably would have scored even if Ben Revere had fielded the ball cleanly. Amazingly, the Mets had come back to tie the game.

Then, it took a mere 2 pitches from Carlos Torres in the last of the 9th for Frandsen to un-tie the game and send everyone home. It was a rarity for the Mets: A loss that felt oddly like a win, if only because for once, the Mets kept playing and actually made a game out of a mess.

Sunday, Matt Harvey was on the mound, and that pretty much summed up the game. Harvey had already whipped the Phillies pretty soundly earlier in the season, and on Sunday, he did the same. The rain was the only thing that could beat Harvey, it seems, because after a brief delay in the 7th, Harvey did not return, despite only 72 pitches.

By that point, the game was already well in hand, but there was some doubt earlier in the game as to whether or not the Mets actually would be able to score some runs for him. A pair of plays in the 5th inning answered that question. First, Juan Lagares (notice how he and Young were everywhere this weekend) kicked things off by hitting a lazy fly ball to Center Field. Ben Revere caught it, no sweat. Such a can of corn, in fact, that he figured he'd just style a little and drop the ball from his mitt to his hand, and, oops, he dropped it. Unfortunately for Revere, that made it a live ball, and fortunately for Lagares, he never stopped running, the kind of trait rarely seen from most Major Leaguers, and eventually found himself on 3rd base. Now, could the Mets get him home? Omar Quintanilla couldn't, so Harvey went and did it himself, something he's had to do on more than one occasion this year. This may or may not have shamed his teammates into going out and supporting him themselves, since it kicked off a flurry of extra base hits that drove the score from 2-0, to 4-0, to 6-0 in a matter of 2 innings. David Wright in particular was heavily involved, ringing 4 extra base hits of assorted variety. The Phillies had no answer for Harvey and fared no better after he left, resulting in a resounding 8-0 win and a series victory, the Mets 2nd such win in a row. Baby steps, certainly, but something encouraging, if nothing else.

The point here is that this revolving door of personnel the Mets have been using all season long is finally starting to click a little bit, and the result is that the Mets are looking a little less dead this past week. How long or if it will last, I'm not quite sure. But if nothing else, it makes the Mets a little more interesting. I can tune in to games like this and think there's a chance, as opposed to turning it on, seeing them down a run or two and assuming the game is done. And, of course, Mr. Excitement, Part II is on the mound the next time the Mets take the field on Tuesday.