Fare Thee Well

Thursday night's Mets/Padres game was sort of emotionally pre-empted by the pregame news that Lucas Duda had been traded to the Tampa Bay Rays. Granted, a move like this was forthcoming and certainly Duda's life span with the Mets was limited at best given his impending Free Agency, but, still, when a home-grown player that's been in the organization for years moves on, there's still a little bit of sadness attached to it. Certainly, Duda's time with the Mets had its ups and downs, and I picked on him maybe a little more than I should have, but for once, someone I really ragged on quite a bit in 2012 and 2013 shut me up good and proper when he emerged for a career year in 2014, and came up with several key hits in big spots during 2015. More than that, Duda was a favorite of my other half, who had a Duda shirt and usually stopped whatever she was doing to watch an At Bat, and was always happy to see him when she went to games with me. She was particularly distraught over this; the news of the trade broke as I was leaving work, and when I arrived home, she greeted me with a scowl and said "I'm not going to the games anymore! THEY TRADED DUDA! HOW COULD THEY TRADE DUDA?!" and of course any logical explanation about the business of Baseball went out the window.

Duda, himself, handled himself with particular class on his way out the door. Others (Curtis Granderson) had a harder time of things. Irregardless, Duda is off to Tampa, where we wish him all the best for the remainder of this season, and wherever he may end up in 2018.

There was still a game to be played, however, and it featured the Major League debut of Chris Flexen, a young righthander who was one of those named I'd heard of but didn't know much about. Flexen was up from Binghamton to make this start in the Wheeler spot in the rotation. You have starry-eyed fantasies about guys like this coming up and setting Baseball on fire in spots like this, but sometimes these sorts of things can backfire. The Mets got him a 1st inning run against Luis Perdomo, which helped, but you still can never tell until you the kid on the mound. And whether it was nerves or whatever, Flexen looked very much like what he was: a young pitcher that kind of got overwhelmed by the moment. It's never helpful to have your entire family in the seats watching (and his poor mother looked like she was ready to pass out the entire time) but, well, we know what happened. Flexen gave up a Home Run to Manuel Margot, his first batter, then walked the next batter, then gave up a hit. Disaster seemed imminent but for a pair of slick plays to tag out Padre baserunners at Home Plate, and Flexen escaped his first inning only having allowed 1 run.

Flexen did not fare nearly as well in the 2nd inning, when, after loading the bases, he allowed a long double to Margot that ultimately scored 3 runs and kind of sealed Flexen's fate. To his credit, he came back and worked a clean 3rd inning, but by that point the damage had been done and this game, which was just creeping along, was headed for a repeat of last night where I turn it off and go to bed early. Tyler Pill emerged after Flexen and made things worse, allowing a 3-run Home Run to Dusty Coleman that made the score 7-1.

I was about to throw in the towel, but then the Mets rallied in the 7th, scoring 4 runs off a trio of Padres pitchers, and involved a long double by Yoenis Cespedes and an even longer Home Run by Jay Bruce. This got the score to 7-5, and, well, this was the Padres...

...but it was also the Mets and they got no closer than 7-5, going down meekly in the 8th and gonged out of the stadium in the 9th.

So, the Mets leave San Diego, where they did not get swept, and they did not lose every game 2-1, but they also leave in no better shape than they were when they arrived, which is basically the same old story here. Actually, you could say they leave in worse shape since they've now officially started to break down the roster a little bit and by time they return to New York, who knows who's here and who will be gone.

Everybody Wins!

The Mets had been kind of dancing and jabbing their way through the first week of the season, riding pitching, more pitching and Jay Bruce. But, finally, in the 8th game of the season, everyone woke up at once. The Mets bats banged out 20 hits and hit 7 Home Runs, 3 by Yoenis Cespedes, 2 from Lucas Duda, and 1 each from Travis d'Arnaud and Asdrubal Cabrera.

To nobody's surprise this took place in Philadelphia.

It's now been 3 times in club history that the Mets have hit 7 or more Home Runs in a game, and all three times it's happened at Citizens Bank Park. And you wonder why I kept referring to it as Steroid Field I all those years.

The Mets already had a 3-0 lead before Matt Harvey ever hit the mound, thanks to Yoenis Cespedes. While I was getting home from work and nodding off for a brief nap, he was busy golfing a Clay Buchholz offering out into the garden in Center Field. By time I woke up, he'd hit another, immediately following Asdrubal Cabrera's first of the season in the 4th inning. By this point, the Mets were ahead 8-1 and Reinvented Harvey was humming along.

In the 5th, Cespedes hit his 3rd Home Run and of course once that happened, all the focus turned to how many at bats he'd get over the remainder of the game, and how once he gets locked in, those Home Runs can come in bunches. To say nothing of the fact that by time Lucas Duda homered in the 6th and d'Arnaud hit one in the 8th, the Mets had three players that were a triple shy of a cycle...and of course it happened to be three of the least likely players to hit a triple. On the other hand, John Olerud hit for the cycle twice and he was one of the most glacial players in Mets history, so anything was possible.

None of these Baseball Oddities came to pass, and even Harvey's injury departure in the 6th turned into much ado about nothing...so how do you spin a game like this juxtaposed against every other time they've gone into Philadelphia and bludgeoned the Phillies into submission?

You don't, I suppose. You just take the 14-4 victory, put it in your back pocket and be happy about it, because the bottom line is that when everybody hits, everybody wins.

Everything In Its Right Place

Monday's season lid-lifter at Citi Field was about everything you could ask for as far as the results of the first game of the season. The weather, which had heretofore been kind of dicey and in April at Citi Field can be downright brutal, suddenly turned bright and sunny and warm at around 11am, right around the time I arrived at Citi Field. George was with me as per usual, marking what I believe is 11 of the last 13 Opening Day games we've been present for. Howie Rose was on the field by 12:40 to blow the Shofar and welcome us to the 2017 National League season in New York, fans warmly welcomed back our team, as well as some fondly-remembered players on the opposing side, and then it was business time. Noah Syndergaard hit the mound and pitched, well, basically the way you'd expect him to pitch, mixing things up, getting out of jams and keeping the Braves off the scoreboard until a blister forced him from the game after 6 innings. The Mets had a hard time with Julio Teheran—because they always have a hard time with Julio Teheran—until he departed in the 7th, where the Mets capitalized on a replay reversal and then bombed the Atlanta bullpen into submission and cruised home with a 6-0 victory to start their season.

It had been some time since I'd seen George; this offseason has been somewhat checkered for me and certainly from a mental standpoint, though I might not have been especially prepared for it, I was more than ready to get back to the sanctuary of Citi Field. But at any rate I spent most of the pregame discussing with him reasons why I believe now that the Mets are going to win the World Series this season, and really, what it boils down to more than anything is that it's simply their time in the arc of this era, if this era of the Mets is going to be what we want it to be. They had the near-miss, they had the regression and somehow turned it into another near-miss, so now, it's time to strike.

But that was preamble and there was still the matter of seats and ceremonies and concessions and hordes of people to work through. I'd mentioned I upgraded my seats; after four years of bouncing between sections 512 and 513, I've moved down to 418, because it's just time for a change. However, the Mets for whatever reason decided to get cute and put me in different seats for Opening Day. Different seats being Section 106, sure, it's the Field level, but it's jammed down in the Right Field Corner. Not exactly where I would have preferred to sit. For one, you can't see the field directly in front of you. Two, you can't see the scoreboard above Right Field, which is where important things like pitch count and scoring calls are generally displayed. Three, because it's the Field Level, and because of the assorted "entertainment" options down there, it seems to be more crowded than the Promenade, and for whatever reason it seems there are substantially fewer restrooms, which is problematic...

...and as you can see in this video, you're kind of displaced from the action. But on the upside I got a real good view of Syndergaard's pregame routine.

Also a lovely view of Bartolo Colon's backside as he was introduced to a roaring ovation.

And then it was time to introduce our guys...

...and get hyped...

...And, finally, get on with the show!

The game from that point was a little bit of a blur, for a few reasons. For one, I, and this should illustrate how ill-prepared I was for Opening Day, didn't eat anything before the game. I almost always get something to eat before the game but for whatever reason, I waited. At the end of the 1st inning, I got up to use the restroom, thinking it would be quick and painless. WRONG. I attempted to use the restroom by Section 103 only to find the line stretching across the concourse and in fact splitting into two lines because everyone stopped caring. So that was already a clusterfuck. Then, I decided to get something to eat while I was up, and found the most palatable line to be at the Sausage stand by Section 105. Only I got on line somewhere in the bottom of the 2nd inning and didn't return to my seat until the top of the 4th. That's a bad job by me. It's a bad job by everyone, really, because there were rumblings of credit card terminals down, but really, it was a bad job by me. That's the kind of rookie move I don't usually make.

Fortunately, in this digital age, I was able to look at my phone and catch up on my scorecard. Of course, I sat down just in time for Freddie Freeman to bang one off the Right Field fence and after Jay Bruce mangled the carom, what should have been a double was a triple and the Braves were primed to strike first. Except that Syndergaard is unmoved by these kind of things and responded by putting the Baseball version of a sleeperhold on the Braves, striking out Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis to end the threat. More trouble unfolded in the 6th when Dansby Swanson and Freeman singled and Atlanta had runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out, but, again, Syndergaard brushed this aside by striking out Kemp again and getting Markakis to fly out, ending the threat and, of course, thanks to the infamous blister, ending his afternoon.

Still, the Mets offense was stagnant against Teheran, which as I said wasn't terribly surprising since the Mets always have trouble with him. But he too departed after 6 and the Mets attacked the Braves patently awful bullpen right away. Ian Krol was first up and he allowed a hit to Rene Rivera. Wilmer Flores followed, pinch hitting for Hansel Robles, and after being greeted with his usual standing ovation, grounded into a Fielder's choice. He then stole 2nd Base, which I suppose was his way of taking advantage of the Braves kind of falling asleep on him. Jose Reyes walked and then Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a clean single to center for his 3rd hit of the day. Flores was sent home, which if you'll recall is the play that finished his season last year, and although it seemed close he was called out at the plate. However, were I sitting in my normal seats, high up and behind Home Plate, I would have seen that Flores snuck his foot in ahead of the tag. Replay, of course, reversed the call, Flores had the first run of the season for the Mets, and the gates opened up from there. There were pitching changes, walks, more pitching changes, more walks and finally the carcass of Eric O'Flaherty was on the mound and Lucas Duda clanged one off the Center Field fence for a 3-run double that made the score 6-0 and removed any particular drama from the afternoon. Fernando Salas for the 8th, a surprise cameo by Robert Gsellman in the 9th, easy enough and off we go!

Certainly, there will be plenty of bad/irritating/exasperating things to happen to the Mets over the course of the subsequent 161 games. That's Baseball. The goal, really, is to minimize the issues and keep putting forth games like this when you are clearly better than your opponent. One of the Mets larger issues in 2016, besides the fact that everyone was hurt and the replacements stopped hitting for 3 months, was their inability to handle inferior teams. I'm pulling numbers out of my ass but I believe they were something like 7-12 against Atlanta and an equivalent of bad against other non-division lousy teams, and those 7 wins were difficult wins. By and large the Mets should win more of these games this season. Yesterday was a good start.

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.

Going Depth

One of the hallmarks of the past couple of seasons for the Mets, and perhaps one of the primary reasons they've become so enjoyable to watch is the fact that there's a depth to this lineup that hasn't existed in a very long time. I realize that the Mets are, more or less, a station-to-station team that lives by Home Runs and while there's something un-National League about this, think about how many different guys the Mets have in their lineup that can beat you with the Home Run, Then, think back to 2013 or 2014 and ask yourself the same question.

Preferred, no, not especially, but it's working. When the Mets grind out runs, it's somewhat painful, but it gets the job done most of the time. When you add a few Home Runs into the mix, you get what happened in Washington on Monday night, which is a thorough pounding of a pitcher that really handled them last week.

But so getting back to my initial point of depth, I bring this up because of the whole Lucas Duda thing, and how he's out for some indeterminate length of time with a broken back. A few years ago, this would have been an unmitigated catastrophe that would have led to Eric Campbell getting 400 At Bats or something similarly terrible. But now, the question isn't so much What do we do?, now it's Who here can do it? The Mets have several options to fill this gap for the next however long it is that Duda's on the shelf, and it can be from within, whether it's Wilmer Flores, or Kevin Plawecki, or Michael Conforto if he can handle the job, or even David Wright who offered his name as an option... Point is, the Mets have the luxury of trying a few different options out here instead of just making some reactionary panic move to try to cover their asses.

And if none of that works, Ike Davis is still kicking around the Texas Rangers' Minor League system!

The other nice thing about depth and a deep lineup is that even without Duda, who hadn't exactly been performing up to snuff anyway, the Mets don't lose much on the offensive side. After Bartolo Colon spotted Washington an annoying 1-0 lead in the 1st inning thanks to an 87-hop Daniel Murphy single and a Ryan Zimmerman flair that fell in, the Mets got off the mat in the 3rd inning against Gonzalez. And of course after being mostly flat offensively for the past week plus, they all decided to wake up at once, beginning with David Wright, whose 3-run Home Run put the Mets ahead and started the roller coaster moving. The Mets followed Wright's Home Run with a string of hits that led to two more runs, giving them what felt like their largest lead in weeks. In the 5th, Yoenis Cespedes and Neil Walker each hit Home Runs of their own to extend the lead to 7-1, which is where it stayed as Bartolo Colon righted his own ship and pitched 7 rather efficient, Colon-like innings where he didn't walk anyone, made hitters hit balls right at his fielders, and then walked off the mound and gave everyone chewing gum.

Then, there's the depth in the starting lineup itself, which starts and ends with Cespedes. Cespedes, to this point, has proven himself worth whatever it is the Mets are paying him and could potentially be on the hook to pay him beyond this season. Or maybe they can somehow cajole him into resigning the same contract year after year so every season is his walk year. I don't know. Whatever it is, the Mets haven't had a power hitter like Cespedes probably since Darryl Strawberry—I don't even think Mike Piazza had his kind of power—and when you talk about the Mets hitting a lot of Home Runs, Cespedes is probably the ringleader. His 15 HRs lead the Majors right now—when the hell was the last time a Met led the Majors in Home Runs, Dave Kingman?—and you want to talk about a guy making the lineup deeper simply by stepping to the plate, well, that's what Cespedes has done from the second he showed up here last August. I know he's going to probably hit the skids at some point but even a slumping Cespedes is still a presence because you never know when he's going to flip the switch and hit 17 Home Runs in 44 games again.

Now, we hold our breath for Tuesday and see what happens when Harvey goes to the mound. Anyone got any ideas? I don't. No depth for that.

Creeping Upward

Figures that Tuesday night, the night I went, was the hiccup for the Mets.

Wednesday afternoon, the Mets shook off the doledrums of Tuesday's debacle of a game. Though the weather conditions were similar, the Mets went out and bombarded the Braves good and proper, hitting 4 Home Runs in support of Steven Matz, who turned in a sterling 7.2 inning effort as the Mets won the series finale 8-0.

As is usually the case with these afternoon games, I'm in the office and therefore can only sporadically keep up with the proceedings. The game had already started by time I remembered that there was a game, and of course when you're watching on MLB.com's Gamecast there's a limit to what you can grok, but really all you need to know is the score and who's winning. On days like this, I have to just check the score in between tasks, so what I saw was the number on the Mets side creep up from 0, to 2, to 6, and then 8, while the Braves stagnated at 0.

It helped that Matz was pitching like a metronome. It was sort of the anti-Harvey performance. After his initial mess, Matz has been nothing short of brilliant in his subsequent outings and really, against the Braves' lineup, this was a case of simply smashing the flea with a sledgehammer. Matz worked quickly, walked nobody, allowed 2 hits and struck out 8, which is just the sort of outing he should have vs. Atlanta.

Matz was backed by a quartet of Home Runs, all of which came off of Jhoulys Chacin, who generally doesn't allow Home Runs, except that today the Mets just had his number. Rene Rivera, who's sort of filling the Taylor Teagarden role here, belted his first as a Met in the 2nd inning. In the 3rd, Asdrubal Cabrera connected, and then Lucas Duda connected, and later on Duda connected again for a second. By the end of the 5th, there wasn't much more to be said on this end, which is just fine considering that coming into the game, the Mets hadn't scored since the 1st inning on Monday. Sometimes, the minimum necessary works. Other times, it's just good to remind everyone who's in charge here. In this series, the Mets did a little bit of both.

So, the Mets are now done with this easy-ish part of the schedule. Now comes a nice challenge: 11 games in 11 days on the West Coast, and that involves 4 games each in San Diego and Los Angeles. Then, there's 3 games in Colorado, where they either win games 14-9 or lose in 15 innings. Get your coffeemakers out, because there's some late nights coming up. The Mets won't see a division opponent for two weeks, when our friends from Washington come to town.

Remember The Feeling

Losing hurts worse than winning feels good.

-Lewis Grizzard

That pretty much summed up what I was feeling as the clock struck midnight both literally and figuratively on the 2015 Mets season. Though the Mets nearly closed out Game 5 of the World Series behind a Heroic effort by Matt Harvey, the Kansas City Royals once again proved to be far too relentless, too determined to let the Mets keep that door open. The Royals broke our hearts when they tied the game and ultimately won in an absolutely gut-wrenching 12th inning explosion, forcing Mets fans to flee and Royals fans to take over our building as they closed out their first World Series Championship in 30 years. 

I was, once again at Citi Field on Sunday night, fortunate enough to have been a ticket plan holder, prescient enough to go all in on a full package of Postseason tickets and wind up in possession of seats for all 3 World Series Home Games. Sure, I'd batted around the idea of selling some of these tickets and running to the bank, but my heart won out. How often do the Mets make the World Series period, let alone how often does a schmuck like me end up with tickets basically dropped in my lap? I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Sure, ultimately, it's just a game. But a game at this level of the Playoffs, on November 1st of all days is pretty intense without the teams even setting foot on the field. This would have been the final game of the year at Citi Field regardless. I and the other 45-some-odd-thousand people there were just hoping it wasn't the final game of the year period.

And it started off good, it really did. We all know what happened. Curtis Granderson homered in the 1st. Matt Harvey set out intent on pitching the game of games. Some games, Harvey pitches angry and you can tell from the moment he sets foot on the field. I don't know if pitching angry really does enough to justify how he was pitching. His intensity was palpable throughout the entire stadium. Or maybe everyone was just so anxious because the entire season was on the line. He knew that runs were going to be at a premium. He had to be as close to perfect as the circumstances would allow him to be. Yes, the Royals nicked him early, but they only nicked him, not cut him. Three early baserunners never made it past 2nd base. In the 4th, he struck out the side, something he didn't accomplish in his Game 1 start when he struck out two batters in total. After finishing off the inning by whiffing Mike Moustakas, Harvey pumped his fist and started screaming as he ran off the mound. The further he went, the more intense he got, feeding off the energy of the crowd. Three more strikeouts in the 5th. Worked around a 1-out single in the 6th. The Mets got him a second run off of Edinson Volquez in the bottom of that inning, in a rally where it seemed like they had to do an awful lot of work to just scrape out one run. A third run would have been enormous, but it never materialized.

All this mattered little to Harvey. In the 7th, he gave up a leadoff single, but then coolly set down the Royals, expending all of 9 pitches, and when Alex Rios grounded out to finish the inning, there was more yelling, more pumping of fists, more "LET'S GO!"s. By now, pitch count was immaterial. This was his last shot. He had all winter to rest, so just leave it on the field. Conventional wisdom, I suppose, would have said let him go until he ran into trouble in the 8th, and then bring in Jeurys Familia. But I wasn't thinking that. When he ran off the mound in the 7th, I turned to my friend and said, "He's finishing this shit."

Harvey cruised through the 8th again on only 9 pitches. Ben Zobrist finished by flying out and the crowd was roaring with approval. Then, of course, there was that half inning of trepidation, where we in the stands had no idea whether or not he'd finish what he started. We wanted him to, of course. I felt he should. Harvey obviously felt he should too, and of course when Dan Warthen came and told him he was out, he flatly said "No Way," and ran down the dugout to state his case to Terry Collins.

Obviously, Harvey was persuasive enough, and perhaps had Collins not relented Harvey likely would have taken his Manager's head off, but that set the stage for what would be a legendary finish to a legendary performance. It was sort of an odd scene. After the last of the 8th inning ended, none of the Mets came out on to the field. The song "Seven Nation Army" began playing over the PA. One by one, the Mets position players came out of the dugout from one end. As they entered, an absolutely deafening roar began to rise from the 3rd base side of the stadium as Harvey ran up the steps and charged on to the field, still screaming, still pumping his fists, and Citi Field shook like Shea. He had this. He Had This.

And then he didn't. Instead of crafting the kind of game reminiscent of Jack Morris in '91, or Curt Schilling in '93, or Josh Beckett in '03, Harvey's game melted away into an ending closer to Al Leiter in 2000. Though he was ahead in the count against Lorenzo Cain, he lost him to a walk. It seemed like that was all the Royals needed. Like clockwork. Stolen base, RBI double, lead cut to 2-1, Harvey out of the game and instead of the roaring hero's sendoff, it was more of a horrified murmur. Jeurys Familia came in the game and, of course, things went from bad to worse. The Royals continued to push buttons and cajole the Mets into careless mistakes. Familia got Moustakas to ground out, moving Hosmer to 3rd with 1 out. Salvador Perez followed and with the infield in, hit a ground ball to David Wright. Wright looked the runner back, but Hosmer broke for home as Wright threw to 1st. Lucas Duda secured one out, wheeled and threw towards the plate. A good throw and Eric Hosmer is out by 20 feet.

A good throw is what Lucas Duda didn't make. The ball sailed to the backstop, Hosmer scored, Royals players were skipping all over the place and the game was tied.

More appropriately, the game was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

It really was only a matter of time before the Royals figured out a way to force home the winning run. The Mets had been able to muster 3 hits to that point, and the way the Royals bullpen had been performing, anything beyond that didn't seem especially likely. Meanwhile, the Royals kept grinding. You could probably say this about any At Bat they had in the series. Mets pitchers would get ahead 0-2 or 1-2, and then the sequence of pitches would go something like this: Foul, Foul, Ball, Foul, Foul, Ball, Foul, Ball somewhere in play. Watching the Royals at bats in the top of each Extra Inning was a study in pure torture. Familia set them down in the 10th and Jon Niese, who did yeoman's work out of the bullpen this series, worked the 11th. By the 12th, sitting around, catatonically shaking my legs and chomping on my fingernails became too much. I had to get up and move around somewhere, and my friend did as well. At that late hour, with things playing out as they were, I was doing myself no favors staying where I was. So we got up and moved around, down towards 3rd base. And, of course, that's when the Royals struck.

When that first run scored, a few people started to get up and leave.

When the second run scored, more Mets fans headed for the exits.

When Lorenzo Cain cleared the bases, turning the inning from a debacle to a total bloodletting, the mass exodus occurred. Could you blame them? This seemed to be an almost predictable finish. Just to expedite our exit, which had become a painful process during this Postseason run, we moved down to the Field Level. Unfortunately, we found ourselves directly behind a mass of Royals fans, ready to kick off the celebration of a lifetime in our house. With two outs, I could see Royals players literally hanging over the dugout railing.

I couldn't take it any longer. I couldn't watch them celebrate on our field.

I had to leave.

Oh, I heard that final roar as I reached the plaza. It seemed as though many Mets fans had left before me, perhaps wisely. For as loud as the Royals fans were inside, that's how quiet it was outside.

The ride back from Citi Field on the 7 train can either be a long ride or a short one depending on the circumstances. This night was a particularly long ride. I spent most of the time reflecting on this 2015 Mets season, and really, it's hard to not consider the season among the most memorable in the history of the team. I mean, who the hell though that this was even a Playoff team, let alone a World Series team? I picked the Mets to go as far as the NLCS before the season, but I can be overly optimistic at times. Usually, when that happens, the Mets end up falling flat on their faces. And they did plenty of that this season, but man, when they got it together, they really got it together and for once, the Mets actually overachieved. This wasn't supposed to happen this year, but it did. Somehow, the Mets caught that lightning in a bottle and rode it all the way down to the World Series.

Yeah, things ended up badly, and the Mets ultimately turned to mush at some key moments, but the Royals really forced the Mets into making these mistakes. The Royals played every game as though it were their last. They took the horrible bitterness that came from losing the 7th game of the World Series last year and used that to fuel them through to a World Series Championship this year. And perhaps the Mets could learn from that. Remember this feeling. Remember how awful it was to watch those guys celebrating on our field. Remember how they ran all over us, stealing bases, working pitchers, picking up cheap hits and pressuring the Mets into mistakes. The Royals played like Champions and they earned their Championship. The Mets still have to do that yet.

Remember this feeling, because it's hard to get to this point. But getting back isn't quite in the forefront of my thoughts right now. It's sort of hard to articulate, perhaps because the sting of losing, and losing the last two games the way they did is still fresh. Time passes, though, and the losses fade, or at least I hope they will, and I'll begin to reflect on this 176-game wild ride the 2015 Mets took us on, and how I made it to 27 games this year—my highest total since 1999—and how I made it to 6 Postseason games, and how the Mets Actually Made It To The World Series This Year! I went to a Mets game in Freaking November!

It actually happened this year! Who the hell saw this coming? Sure, there's a lot of bitterness right now. But I'm awfully proud to be a Mets fan.

Believe It!

I keep coming back to something I said way back at the beginning of the season. It seems like a lifetime ago now. I feel like I've been repeating it incessantly over the past few weeks, but that's only because as the Mets keep on playing and keep on winning, it's the truth. The Mets of 2015 were a better team than anyone wanted to give them credit for. But the pieces were there. This was a really good team, and all they needed was an opportunity. At some point in the season, they would have that opportunity and they would prove to everyone what they really were.

What they are right now are the National League Champions for 2015.

It seems so strange to actually say that, and to say that the Mets are, in fact, going to play in the 2015 World Series starting next Tuesday, but it's actually happening.

They got to this point, of course, by finishing off a clean sweep of the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night with an 8-3 victory, one of those games where the magnitude of the accomplishment seems to overshadow what happened in the game itself. That, I suppose is natural, but overlooking this game would be doing a disservice to the spirit in which the Mets got to this point. Though there were standout efforts by one or two particular players, it's been a different player every night providing some kind of key support during this Postseason run and that's the formula the Mets have used all year long.

Wednesday, Lucas Duda provided the punch, after spending the entire NLDS and NLCS in a deep slump, to the point where he was benched for Game 1 of this series. But as he's done all year, Duda persevered, kept working, never complained and of course last night he came through with a 2-out, 3-run Home Run in the 1st inning to give the Mets a lead they'd never relinquish, and with 2 out in the 2nd inning, he hit what was basically a hard line drive that skipped through the infield, through the outfield and all the way to the wall for a 2-run double to give the Mets a 6-0 lead. Duda seems to have a flair for clinching games, lest we forget what he did in Cincinnati.

Steven Matz was on the mound for the Mets and you figured things would be OK for him when he got an At Bat before ever setting foot on the mound. Matz started his evening by blanking the Cubs through 3 innings. In the 4th, though, the Cubs rallied and loaded the bases with no outs. It seemed a bit hairy, and believe me, watching this game was pretty hairy even with a big lead, but Matz did what seems to be the norm among Mets pitchers and stop things before they got out of hand. He got Starlin Castro to line out to David Wright, allowed a run on a Kyle Schwarber ground out and then got Javier Baez to pop up. In the 5th, Matz allowed more men on base and this time was pulled in favor of Bartolo Colon. And, of course, Colon delivered, because that's what he does. He struck out Baseball Jesus to get out of the 5th, worked a spotless 6th, and turned the game over to the regular relievers.

The Mets, meanwhile, certainly had plenty of opportunities to blow the Cubs' doors off, taking advantage of some more sloppy play, particularly from Schwarber in Left. Part of me actually felt bad for Schwarber, who clearly is a fine offensive player but just moves with the elegance of a camel in Left Field and in the last two games this has been exposed to the point of embarrassment. Still, the Mets didn't tack anything on until the 8th inning, when Daniel Murphy hit what is now apparently his daily Home Run, a 2-run shot to put the Mets ahead 8-1. At this point, I'm done trying to explain what's going on with Murphy, because it just defies all logic. But then again, that seems to be the key trait of being Playoff Chosen. Murphy's entire career has been a red-hot April, then 3 and a half months of hitting .248, and then picking it up over the last 6 weeks. But now he gets into October and he's George Brett. It might be the most well-timed two week hot streak anyone has ever had, ever.

Addison Reed worked a clean 7th for the Mets. Tyler Clippard followed for the 8th, and although he allowed a 2-run Home Run to Baseball Jesus, it was of little consequence. An A-Rod Home Run is what I referred to it as, because it basically padded his stats while having zero effect on the outcome of the game. Jeurys Familia came in for the 9th, which nobody was going to argue with, because even with a 5-run lead and the Cubs and their fans totally demoralized, it wasn't worth taking a chance. Familia gave up a 2-out walk before striking out Dexter Fowler looking and the Mets won the Pennant. The Mets won the Pennant!

Seeing how many different names I mentioned in the last few paragraphs just illustrates my point. Yes, Daniel Murphy was the MVP of the NLCS, and deservedly so, but how many other players on this team played a part? Wednesday, it was Duda. Tuesday, David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes. Sunday it was Noah Syndergaard and Curtis Granderson. Game 1 was Matt Harvey. And so on, and so forth. Every game, someone is doing something right to tilt things in the Mets favor, and that's what the recipe for Postseason success seems to be.

The Mets, for these 4 games, completely dominated a Cubs team that really had all the makings of a "Team of Destiny." Certainly, as I'd mentioned many times, their fans seemed to have anointed them as such. They had the flashy names, the breakaway Rookie Sensation, the Pitcher that dominated everyone for months, the rabid fan base—they really were The Hot Team coming in to this series, and the Mets just stoned them completely. The Mets scored runs in the 1st inning in each of the 4 games, and not once did the Cubs ever have a lead. In fact, in the 36 innings of the NLCS, the Mets led for 34 of them. When the Mets clearly needed to come out, make a statement and play their best Baseball of the year, they delivered from start to finish and the reward, of course, is that now they get to go to the World Series.

I'd watched the game at an establishment with some friends and afterward, after some brief reveling, got in a taxi home. The driver asked me if I'd watched the game, and for whatever reason this caused me to open up and start waxing poetic about how I'd been rooting for the Mets for 30 years and I'd watched a lot of games and how in recent years it had been really difficult to be a Mets fan. I mean, you just have to go back over the 9 seasons of this blog just to see how bad things have been at times. But through it all, I and many other Mets fans remained unwavered in our love for this snaffulous team. The Mets are a team that was founded on fans that always believed. How often in some odd moment did I find myself thinking about the Mets and how it might be when they finally turn the corner and get good again. How would it be when they win a Pennant? What's it going to be like to see these guys back in the World Series? Someday, it was going to happen again. Right? If you believe it, it has to.

Believe it! That someday is finally here. And it's better than I imagined it would be.

Respite And Recovery

The Mets once again took advantage of the porous Reds pitching on Friday night, storming out to a 12-0 lead on the strength of three 3-run Home Runs, two of which were off the bat of Lucas Duda. While Duda seems to be picking the right time to start getting back to his old self again, the offensive fireworks took a back seat on Friday night to the pitching of Noah Syndergaard.

Syndergaard's season has gone more or less like most Rookie Pitchers. He's been somewhat inconsistent at times, he's been victimized by one or two bad pitches other times, and of course he's had moments where he's looked really, really good.

Last night was one such night where he looked really good, and like Duda this happens to be coming at the right time. I know that the business of skipping starts and moving people around in the rotation is under some criticism but it seems to have benefited nobody better than Noah Syndergaard. After skipping a start a few weeks ago, Syndergaard came back and dominated Atlanta, lost to the Yankees based on two pitches in bad spots and some other bad luck, and now this game against Cincinnati, where he basically beat them singlehandedly.*

Syndergaard's stuff has never been in doubt, because when he's on his game his stuff can take care of everything. But it's a matter of learning stamina and durability and consistency more than anything else. It's not so much a game-to-game thing because he can throw 8 innings and 110+ pitches without much difficulty. It's stretching that out to a season's worth of games (and maybe more than that) that is the concern. Come August, Syndergaard began to fizzle out with a number of lesser efforts where he was throwing too many pitches too early in games and teams were starting to hit him. But maybe he's now beginning to get back to where he was too. Certainly, he's proven himself worthy of being in a rotation in October; if he can keep this little string going and avoid those bad luck pitches then everything should be just delightful.

Meanwhile, yes, he still had to get through this game, and he helped his own cause with an RBI single in the 2nd before the Dudaworks went off, and as the Mets built their lead, Syndergaard got tougher, retiring 16 Reds in a row before allowing a 2-out Home Run to Brennan Boesch in the 8th inning. Then of course, we had to sit through the awful part of the Mets bullpen that needed 4 pitchers to get the last 4 outs of the game and extended things more than they needed to be extended. These pitchers don't need the further humiliation of having their names bandied about on snarky, second-rate blogs so I won't discuss them further.

So instead of a 12-0 whitewashing the Mets had to settle for a 12-5 whitewashing and that, combined with the Nationals continuing to trip over their own feet literally and figuratively, the Mets Magic Number is now 1 and even if the unthinkable happens and they lose their remaining 8 games, the worst thing that could happen is they end up in a tie. I have a feeling this probably won't happen, not so much because I think the Mets won't lose 8 in a row, but because I'm quite certain Washington can't win 9 in a row. Regardless, the Mets are now one thin game away from winning their Division, which is certainly more than I'd predicted for them this season. After everything the Mets and their fans have had to endure over the last 9 seasons, it's going to be quite a party.

*I say Singlehandedly because that's basically what he did. The Mets didn't need to score 12 runs in support of him. 2 would have sufficed. With a 1-2 run lead he certainly pitches differently to Boesch in the 8th inning and with a 1-2 run lead even if Boesch does hit a Home Run anyway, Collins probably brings in Clippard and Familia for the remainder of the game instead of the dregs of the bullpen.

The Place To Be

Very quickly, the Mets have managed to regroup and make some moves to fix the issues that the team was having. It cost the Mets little in terms of impact talent; the players that were given up are still a year or two away from Major League contributions. In their place now, the Mets can boast Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe, Tyler Clippard and their big catch on Friday afternoon, Yoenis Cespedes. Yes, these players are essentially rentals for the remainder of the season, but if nothing else, this was a show of support by the front office and a message to the fans that this team is indeed going to go for it as opposed to sitting around twiddling their thumbs while opportunity slips away.

I'd not been around for the Padres series, obviously, and given the way Wednesday and Thursday went, it certainly seemed like the ship was sinking. But then again, how many times have we felt that way about the Mets this season. When it seems particularly awful, as it did going into Friday, the Mets somehow pull it together. Here the Mets were, coming off a 2-4 road trip and coming home and going 3-4 and sitting at 5-8 post All Star Break, with the Washington Nationals, the Mets chief competition coming to town. The Nationals, who routinely have come into Citi Field and just beaten the Mets senseless, had won something like 44 of the last 47 games they'd played at Citi Field, and each loss seemed worse than the one before it. But that was also during the Wilderness years for the Mets. It seemed daunting, but the task was rather simple: Just step it up and beat these turkeys and show them they mean business.

So far, that's what the Mets have done. Matt Harvey pitched his ass off for 8 innings on Friday, only to depart a tie game, but Wilmer Flores, who's now everyone's favorite player, hit the winning Home Run in the 12th.

Last night, it was Jacob deGrom's turn to take the mound. deGrom, despite not having his best stuff and despite getting pinged to death by the Nationals all night somehow managed to grit his way through 6 innings and allow only two runs when at multiple points he appeared ready to melt down. But deGrom didn't give an inch when he needed to most, and by keeping the score 2-0, he gave his teammates time to come back. And by teammates, I mean Lucas Duda, who's gone back to being Lucas Duda and mashing Home Runs all over the place. Duda's hit 8 Home Runs in the past 8 (?) days, probably because he now has real Major League hitters hitting behind him, and now with Cespedes in the fold, that's even more protection. The results were pretty obvious; not only did Duda hit two solo Home Runs to tie the game, but in the 8th, the Nationals walked Cespedes in front of Duda with Joe Schmegeggie on the mound and Duda responded by blasting an RBI double over the head of Jayson Werth to plate the game's winning run.

These two wins, in the grand scheme of things, have done little for the Mets in the standings, other than to draw them within one game of the Nationals for 1st place in the NL East. They're still only 7-8 since the All Star Break, and now 5-4 for this homestand, but the attitude on and around the team seems completely different. I guess everyone seems to be pointing to Wilmer Flores and his display of emotion on Wednesday night. Here was a guy who probably had every good reason to be pissed off at the team and yet the thought of being traded away absolutely broke his heart. Zack Wheeler showed a similar display of emotion on Friday, far from the public eye, when he went so far as to call Sandy Alderson and ask not to be traded. As strange as it seems now, given how miserable the past several years have been, players really want to be a part of this team, and when the fans sense just how much the players want to be here and be a part of what could happen, well, it endears them to the fans. Wilmer Flores now gets a standing ovation and fans are roaring his name every time he comes to the plate. The passion of the players isn't always quite so in your face as it has been these past few days, and now it's spilling over onto the field. Citi Field was sold out last night and it appears it will be sold out again tonight, on a Sunday night no less. It's starting to get very interesting.

Lucky 11th

Some Mets games I've been to have more twists and turns than I'm able to adequately describe. Monday Night's game at Citi Field most definitely can be classified as one of those games. On the heels of seeing the Mets get No-hit last week, this game got off to an eerily similar start. Things turned in the Mets favor in the middle innings when they finally got a hit and some runs, only to slip away at the hands of an overused Closer. Things appeared lost in the 11th inning, but the Mets managed to take advantage of some bizarrely specific circumstances to come back from the dead and win the damn thing, 4-3, stopping the Blue Jays' 11 game winning streak and keeping their perfect Home record against Toronto intact.

My 10th game of the season came a mere 6 days after the ignominy of last week, which I'd prefer to never mention again except that sometimes I have to. The Mets were playing the Blue Jays, a team I'd hadn't seen the Mets play since 2001—because they hadn't played the Mets in New York since 2001. The Blue Jays had also never won a game against the Mets in New York. But, 14 years later, who would pay attention to that? This meant the return of several things to New York, among them Jose Reyes, who received a warm welcome, in stark contrast to when he appeared with the Mickey Mouse Marlins 3 years ago, R.A. Dickey, who was lost in a sea of blue sweatshirts in the Toronto dugout, and the Canadian National Anthem, which I feel squashes the Star Spangled Banner like a grape, and has never been performed at Citi Field—because this was the first time a Canadian team had ever played at Citi Field. As such, they had to get a professional to sing O Canada, because nobody here probably knows it; certainly the school group that sang the Star Spangled Banner didn't.

Then, there was a game to be played, and after striking out Reyes and getting Josh Donaldson to fly out, Noah Syndergaard faced Jose Bautista, and Bautista greeted Syndergaard by clobbering a pitch so far up the 2nd deck in Left Field that Michael Cuddyer didn't even give it a courtesy run. This seemed to unnerve Syndergaard, who then gave walked Edwin Encarnacion and allowed a bloop hit to Chris Colabello (and his .345 batting average) before finally getting Dioner Navarro to end the inning, after having thrown about 15 pitches more than he needed to. However, Syndergaard settled down, and more importantly settled in, and looked every bit like the dominant pitcher we were looking for. Against a lineup that's been bombarding pitchers for double-digit runs over the past few weeks, this was a particularly impressive effort. Though he only managed to make it through 6 innings, Syndergaard allowed only the 1 run, 2 hits and 1 walk in the 1st inning and supplemented that with 11 strikeouts.

Syndergaard's counterpart, Mark Buehrle, had no such pitch count issues, as he set down the Mets in order in the 1st, and then did so again in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, as I began to get more and more apoplectic. It wasn't lost on me that I'd just seen this happen, and that personal hitless inning streak was stretching much longer than I was comfortable with. After 12 innings, I'd had enough of that. After 13 innings, I was really starting to get frustrated. In the 5th, Lucas Duda hit a shot that sort of handcuffed Encarnacion (who clearly plays 1st Base like a DH) and went down the line. I had to wait a few seconds just to make sure it was actually scored a hit. Fortunately it was, so I could finally breathe easier.

Still, for the great work Syndergaard had done keeping the Blue Jays in check, the Mets hadn't cracked the scoreboard. But in the 6th, they broke through for a pair of runs, started when Kevin Plawecki used the often-reviled head-first slide into 1st base to beat an errant throw from Reyes, aided when Syndergaard stayed in the game to lay down a bunt, and finished off by back-to-back RBI Doubles from Juan Lagares and Ruben Tejada.

The Mets turned this lead over to the bullpen. First, Carlos Torres came in and got the lower half of the Toronto lineup in order. This was just fine. Jack Leathersich came in the game in the 8th and got one out, but then walked Justin Smoak, the failed Rangers/Mariners prospect who's mysteriously resurfaced with Toronto. Jose Reyes followed by grounding hard to 3rd, a ball that might have been hit hard enough to double up Reyes, but Tejada double clutched the ball and only got one of the two outs. In Tejada's defense, that was Jose Reyes running to 1st, so it's just as well he assured himself of one out. This, then, brought the meaty part of the Toronto lineup up, beginning with Josh Donaldson. There was no way in hell Leathersich was going to be left in. The only question was who would come in the game. After doing some heavy lifting on Sunday, the Mets bullpen was somewhat limited, to the point where Akeel Morris, a guy you've never heard of unless you watch Spring Training games or collect Bowman Baseball Cards, was summoned from A-ball to fill some holes.

Oddly, Jeurys Familia was summoned for a 4-out Save, one day after he converted a 4-out Save. This wasn't odd in the sense that Terry Collins wanted his best pitcher to go after Toronto's best hitters. But it was sort of irritating because Collins has been working Familia pretty hard all season, and 4-out Saves on Back-to-back days is a tall order, plus the fact that there was no other arm he could trust in that situation isn't really good. George agreed with the move, at least until I mentioned that Familia had picked up a 4-out Save the day before. Then, he thought the move completely asinine. Regardless, Familia came in, struck out Donaldson and got 25% of the way to a victory.

Unfortunately, that's as far as he got. Steve Delabar stopped the Mets in the 8th, so Familia returned still nursing a 1-run lead, which lasted the duration of one pitch in the top of the 9th. That pitch was sent screaming down the Left Field line by Jose Bautista, towards the corner. Were the Left Field foul pole 340' away from Home Plate, the ball might have hooked foul. Unfortunately, the line is only 335' and thus the ball landed a few feet fair for Bautista's second home run of the night, lead gone, 4-out save blown, good vibes gone. Things could potentially have gotten much worse, as Encarnacion followed with a jam shot double. Familia, who was clearly working on fumes at this point, got Colabello to pop out to Duda, but then walked Dioner Navarro. He wasn't putting batters away like he normally does, and Kevin Pillar battled him gamely, but fortunately bounced into a Fielder's Choice, and then Danny Valencia struck out and the Mets emerged from the inning tied.

Roberto Osuna set the Mets down in order in the last of the 9th, and so, after 8 innings of holding the hottest team in Baseball in check, the Mets now found themselves heading to extra innings. Fortunately, the game had been relatively quick to this point, not quite past the three hour mark. This was primarily because Mark Buehrle had spent the first 7 innings working at his usual metronomic pace, averaging :08 between pitches and keeping things moving along. Plus, there wasn't a lot of cocking around with pitching changes, and even a lengthy 3rd inning delay when Home Plate umpire Marty Foster was injured after getting clocked with a foul ball didn't slow things down much.

Hansel Robles, who really hadn't had a chance to calm down after his 9th inning misadventure on Saturday, entered the game and worked a clean inning, even getting through Russell Martin, who I still insist is a low-rent Paul LoDuca. Aaron Loup, a stringy lefthander, came in for Toronto in the last of the 10th, and in spite of facing a pair of righthanded hitters also allowed the Mets nothing.

By the 11th, George was beginning to wind down. I felt I still had a couple of innings left in me, but George, who has to work earlier than I do, said that this would be his last inning. The discussion then turned to the longest games I'd attended, in terms of innings. We'd attended a couple of 13-inning affairs over the years, but 14 innings remains my personal record, something I've been subjected to 5 times. I noted that by time the game gets that long, I start to root for someone to score period, not necessarily the Mets. This, of course, led to the inevitable mention of the fabled Bobby Valentine Moustache game, which took place against the Blue Jays and featured a walk-off hit by none other than Rey Ordonez.

The hope was that this particular game wouldn't follow suit, and when Robles walked Ezequiel Carrera and then gave up a hit & run single to Colabello, the Jays were in business. Robles then got ahead of Navarro 0-2, but Navarro hacked at the 2-strike pitch and hit a fly ball out to Granderson in right, and any fly ball to Granderson in right is likely deep enough to plate a run, and that's exactly what happened as the Jays grabbed a lead, and suddenly found themselves 3 outs from stealing a win and extending their winning streak to 12.

This put me and every other Mets fan in a rather foul mood as Brett Cecil, who somehow is the Jays closer, came in for the last of the 11th. I've always operated under the assumption that Brett Cecil was a former Yankees "prospect," and as such wasn't any good, but it seems that was never the case. He's always been a Blue Jay. So, he retired Lagares to start the inning, but then walked Tejada.

This, then, is when the circumstance and brilliance of Baseball took over.

Michael Cuddyer, who was certainly capable of popping one into the seats, came to bat. He didn't pop one anywhere, instead he hit a ground ball to 2nd base, horrifyingly destined to be a game-ending Double Play. Ryan Goins fielded the ball, and all he had to do was just slap a tag on Tejada, toss to Colabello and finish off the Mets. Tejada, however, broke to a stop rather than running into a tag. He then wisely backpedaled towards 1st, forcing Goins to chase him down in order to make the tag. Goins might have been wiser to try to get the force at 2nd, except that he'd committed to the play and instead chased, and eventually tagged Tejada, but by that point Cuddyer was well safe at 1st, and Tejada had managed to keep the Mets alive for one more batter. This was Lucas Duda, certainly one capable of blasting a pitch into the seats, even against a Lefty. The Jays went into their overshift, as teams usually do against Duda, pulling the infielders over to the right side, and shifting their outfielders over as well, and deep, to the point where Carrera was playing somewhere in front of the Apple, Pillar was in Arthur Ashe Stadium, and Bautista was playing somewhere in Forest Hills. Essentially, they were daring Duda to try and hit one the other way. Duda worked the count full, which meant Cuddyer would at least have a running start as Cecil delivered the pitch. Duda swung and did exactly what was necessary at that particular moment: he lofted a pop fly into shallow left field. With Carrera so deep and the infielders swung to the right, it was easy to see off the bat that nobody was going to catch the ball, and Cuddyer was steaming around the bases. Carrera picked up the ball and perhaps a good throw had a chance to get Cuddyer, but Donaldson for some reason cut the throw off and then fumbled the ball, allowing Cuddyer to slide home with the tying run uncontested. The Mets had staved off defeat, and now had an opportunity to win. Cecil was removed in favor of Liam Hendriks, who came in to face Wilmer Flores. Hendriks only needed one pitch, which Flores grounded straight up the middle for a hit. Pillar made a desperate throw towards home but it was nowhere near close enough to get Duda and the Mets escaped with the 4-3 win.

So, it took longer than expected, but the Mets stopped the hottest team in Baseball and kept their home record against the Toronto Blue Jays undefeated in one of the more rousing games the Mets have played at Citi Field in general, never mind rousing for this season. Duda and Flores will get the bulk of the credit, and they should, because Duda's hit was perfectly placed and Flores earned himself getting bum rushed by the entire team and getting the Juan Lagares Sunflower Seed shower, but this whole inning was made possible because of Ruben Tejada not running into the tag on Cuddyer's ground ball. His keeping the game alive made everything after that possible, but of course, that particular play is basically lost in the box score. The sort of little things that make a game like this memorable. Now, hopefully SNY will show replays of this game in their Mets Classics rotation instead of continually showing that game against the Cubs from 2007.

Cure For The Common Mets

Well, in a game where Bartolo Colon manages to get a hit, advance on a sacrifice fly and leave with a lead, the Mets ought to win the game. Lately, that hasn't necessarily been the case, but when the Mets are playing a team even more moribund than they've looked at times, some liberties can be taken. In yet another game that's a mystery to me because I was out of the house all day, the Mets rode Colon's offense and a troika of Home Runs to a 6-3 victory over the Phillies to right the ship after being ambushed in Ye Pittsburghe over the weekend.

After a pair of patently lousy outings over the last two weeks, Colon rebounded with a cleaner outing on Monday afternoon in front of a festive Holiday crowd. He still walked two batters—including his mound opponent Severino Gonzalez—and gave up a pair of run-scoring hits to his age counterparts Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, but his 6 innings were generally clean, and included 6 strikeouts mixed in with 6 hits and 3 runs. Not a great outing, but good enough that he gave the Mets a chance to win.

The Mets managed two Home Runs off of Gonzalez early in the game, one from Lucas Duda and one from Michael Cuddyer, who feels like he hasn't hit one out in about a month (Duda, on the other hand, just hits everything on a regular basis now—who saw that coming?). But the Mets didn't grab the lead for good until the bottom of the 6th, when Wilmer Flores sailed a pitch from Elvis Araujo into the seats for his 7th of the year, a 3-run shot.

Flores, who's obviously drawn a great deal of criticism lately for his defensive deficiencies, has still hit respectably in spite of that, and at this point it's actually beginning to seem like it doesn't matter what he does with the bat, people are just going to focus on his defense and think he needs to be traded for Troy Tulowitzki. I contend that these are the same people who continue to scream that Wally Backman needs to be the Manager (people are amazingly still carrying this torch), Daniel Murphy is still that loveable kid who needs time to figure it out and the Wilpons will sell the team to a consortium of schmucks that bought a billboard. But I digress. Flores sucks, but currently, he leads the Mets with his 7 Home Runs, most of which have come at Citi Field, and to make matters worse, Flores actually leads all Major League Shortstops in Home Runs. He also hasn't made an error in about a week and a half, for what it's worth. But what the hell do I know.

This upcoming stretch of games the Mets have against some bottom feeders now comes at an opportune time, because maybe the Mets can start to get a little healthy while picking up some cheap Ws in the process and get themselves back above water a little more. The past few weeks have been ugly. If they get their acts together, the next few weeks should hopefully be less so.