The Feel-Good Finale

Yesterday's finale at Citi Field was truly a finale to be welcomed, but not so much for the obvious reason of finally putting to rest what has been a miserable, forgettable season.

More importantly, by winning their final game of the season yesterday, the Mets snapped my 8-game losing streak, and erased a lot of ill will and bad feelings in the process.

It wasn't so much that they won, but it was how they did it. They did it by manufacturing runs and riding the shoulders of Nelson Figueroa, whose first complete game shutout came a little over two months after I witnessed him absorb a beating so bad that I assumed his career as a Major Leaguer was over. That was the 3rd loss in the infamous 8-game losing streak. The streak saw the Mets lose in all sorts of mystifying ways. They lost games they were in until a late screwup. They lost games where they didn't hit. They lost games where they didn't pitch. They lost games where they neither hit nor pitched, nor looked worthy of taking the field. It stretched for over 3 months. I hadn't seen the Mets win a game since a sunny Thursday afternoon in June. But Sunday, they won. And by winning, the Mets most importantly ensured that I wouldn't have to carry around that losing streak all winter, until Opening Day 2010 on April 5th. There's not much to feel good about as we embark on the offseason, but if nothing else, I won't have to carry that around with me on top of it all.

I was in Section 516 yesterday afternoon, one of those rare games where I wasn't up on my perch in 518, to see the redemption of Nelson Figueroa finally complete its course. Yes, on August 3rd, he was TERRIBLE!!! But since then, he'd been better. The past couple of outings, he was respectable. And on Sunday, he was brilliant, even if the Astros team he blanked looked like they just wanted to get the hell out of there. But who cares about that. The day belonged to Figueroa, who wrote a happy ending to a magnificent Citi Field Finale, and on the 10th anniversary of another notable Mets pitching performance in a much higher-stakes situation.

Citi Field wasn't full by any stretch, but there were certainly more people there than I had expected to see. A crowd announced at 38,135 was probably more in the 15-20,000 range, enough people that the Shake Shack line was once again too long to attempt. My final Citi Field meal for '09 came from Blue Smoke, and perhaps it was the winning combination of the Pulled Pork Sandwich and Fries that helped to end my streak. However, superstitious as I may be, I don't know if this is going to be the meal that I continually get every time I go to Citi Field from here on out. Up in Section 516, I was sitting amongst some familiar faces, the group of gentlemen who used to inhabit UR1 at Shea, led by the guy who does his ubiquitous strikeout chant and kept everyone within earshot updated on the happenings of the more important games of the day. A friend was texting me updates from the day's NFL games. Everything was going well, and the game was moving along at a nice, brisk pace. The weather was fabulous, the crowd was into it, nobody booed anyone (other than Kaz Matsui), and in a season that seemed to be full of misery and frowns, on this afternoon, everyone appeared to leave with a smile on their face. And if that's what we can take into the offseason, well, that's good enough, I suppose.

Coming up:
2009 Mets Report Card
Divison Series Predictions
A Nod to things that happened 10 years ago

TERRIBLE!!!

Last night was my 10th game at Citi Field, and the first one where the most adequate description of the game was provided repeatedly by a guy sitting about 5 seats to the right of El Guapo and myself. Primarily in the first two innings of the game, and also sprinkled several times throughout the remaining 7 innings, he let us and just about everyone know his feelings in succinct fashion.

"YER TERRIBLE!!!" was his opinion. For what it's worth, he was right.

This isn't to say that El Guapo or I were somehow encouraged by the specter of a Dan Haren/Nelson Figueroa pitching matchup. But we thought that Nelson Figueroa would take the mound and at least perform at some sort of competitive level. Sadly, this was not the case. Basically, we witnessed the career of Nelson Figueroa die. I don't think there's any other way you could put it. Words like pitiful come to mind, but I think that about sums it up. After 4 pitches, Arizona led 1-0. Mark Reynolds and Miguel Montero hit Home Runs so far that it looked like the ball had been set on a tee. One inning later, Reynolds tagged another rocket. Figueroa wasn't just not fooling anyone. This was an absolute embarrassment. It was TERRIBLE!!! The DBacks just beat him so mercilessly it was like they knew what was coming. Every bit of contact was a solid shot. And after 53 pitches, the 6 runs and 10 hits told the story. And thus, we figured, it was time to sit back, wait for the beer guy to come around and hope that the Mets just took their hacks and got us out of there quick. The guy down the row was right, this game was TERRIBLE!!! So TERRIBLE!!! that I suggested we make it into a drinking game. Take a drink whenever this guy said something was TERRIBLE!!! El Guapo was skeptical. It had every opportunity to be a bad idea.

Oddly, though, the Mets sort of got themselves back into the game. They plated a run in the 3rd on an Angel Pagan triple, though he was stranded at 3rd by Luis Castillo, who put forth an at-bat that was TERRIBLE!!! and David Wright did the same. In the 5th, they struck quickly and quietly, and really out of nowhere. Cora and Santos started things off and following a Pagan walk, Castillo atoned with a 2-run single and Wright followed with an RBI single of his own. And here was Sheffield, who, with one good shot could actually give the Mets the lead. And Sheffield hit a good shot, but unfortunately, it was right at Reynolds, who went around the horn for a DP that killed the rally, more or less killed the Mets chances and was TERRIBLE!!!

I guess you can commend the Mets bullpen, which did an outstanding job of mopping up Figueroa's mess. Redding, Parnell, Feliciano and Stokes got through the rest of the game only allowing 3 hits to the DBacks and allowing the Mets to chip away enough to make the game somewhat respectable. But as has been the case all too often for the Mets, they get that rally-killing DP and never really recover. Murphy hit a HR in the 6th to cut the deficit to 6-5. Sheffield doubled in the 8th, but got no further. Francoeur swung at the first pitch and grounded out to end the inning, which prompted the gentleman to the right to scream and yell, but not use the one adjective that properly described the situation: TERRIBLE!!!

At least the game was quick. I hadn't been out to Citi Field in almost a month, but I see that the promotional staff has been hard at work thinking up insipid new things. One such thing was a karaoke contest, which featured two girls truly butchering an Alicia Keys song. Both such performances were properly described as TERRIBLE!!! by our friend to the right. Later in the game, when the voting results were revealed, he immediately dismissed the outcome as TERRIBLE!!! But all things considered, it was only TERRIBLE!!! enough to get us through 2 beers each.

However, there was one thing that made it all better. El Guapo and I were discussing food options while riding out to the game. He had mentioned that he had tried Blue Smoke at his last trip and said it was pretty good. He wanted to try the El Verano Taqueria. I've gone on record as saying I'm not much of a taco person, but I was willing to give it a try (Jason at Faith and Fear also gave it high marks). And I'm quite glad I did. Shake Shack is good, but this place is a hidden gem. I went for the Combo Taco Platter, which features a Chicken taco, a Pork taco and a Beef taco for $9.50. It looks small, but it's surprisingly substantial. All I'll say is DAMN! That's some good eatins' right there. The masses can wait on line at Shake Shack all they want. I'll go for the tacos. I'm convinced and converted. It's kind of a sad commentary on the team, but the tacos were by far and away the highlight of the evening. Good enough that El Guapo and I deemed the evening satisfactory.

The food better be good. That's sort of all you can look forward to now, because the team is TERRIBLE!!!

Reinforcements

During the 4th or 5th inning of last night's game, I heard Ron Darling talking about how he had been speaking to one of the Nationals broadcasters before the game. He said that the Nationals broadcaster (whose name escapes me) was talking about the team. He said that they had been very inconsistent so far, particularly in regards to the performances they had been getting out of their regulars. He mentioned that when they'd hit, they weren't getting good pitching. When they were getting good pitching, they didn't hit. When they had leads, they couldn't hold them. Sometimes they hit and pitched, but couldn't field. It was never the same from one day to the next. Darling concluded this by saying that this was the sign of a last-place ballclub.

Doesn't that description sound a little too familiar here?

One inning later, it was the Mets doing the imploding, allowing the Nationals to come back from a few one-run deficits and eventually romp over the Mets for 10 runs, mainly off of Nelson Figueroa and Jorge Sosa. Following the game, Figueroa blasted the Nationals for cheering and yelling during the game.

Again, sound familiar?

Seems to me that Figueroa could have circumvented that by simply pitching better against a last-place team, but then, maybe that's asking a little too much. And after their performances last night, both Figueroa and Jorge Sosa have been sent packing, designated for assignment this afternoon in favor of Claudio Vargas and Matt Wise, with Vargas scheduled to make the start on Wednesday evening. Of course, this happens to be the next game I have tickets for, so we'll close our eyes, eat an extra bowl of Matzoh Ball soup and hope for the best.

If nothing else, today's moves (which includes the disabling of Angel Pagan, who'd been struggling anyway, and the recalling of Fernando Tatis), particularly that of designating Sosa, are a sign that the Mets are, at the very least, not going to stand idly by while the same players screw up over and over again. Sosa was set to make $2 million this season, which the Mets have displayed that they are willing to eat in order to somehow better the team. Whether or not Matt Wise is actually going to better the team remains to be seen, but even if he's terrible, he's not going to be any worse than Sosa had been over the first 6+ weeks of the season. In the case of Figueroa, yes, it was a nice story having him return to the Mets after being dealt 10 years ago (for a pair of rent-a-players, Jorge Fabregas and Willie Blair, if you can believe it), returning to his hometown team and pitching well for a pair of starts, but the sad reality of it is that once you're a journeyman, you're forever a journeyman, and once you stop producing, you're likely out of job again. But that's what the 5th starter's spot is for the Mets right now, at least as long as Pedro is out. So, it's Claudio Vargas now. We'll see what happens.

With the Mets embarking on a rather difficult stretch now (next 5 series include @NYY, @ATL, @COL, FLA, LA), they need to beat up on the teams they're clearly better than, such as the Nationals. They should win the remaining games in this 4-game series, and with Maine tonight, that's a good start. But with Vargas tomorrow and Pelfrey Thursday, it's hard to know what the hell you're going to get. The next 19 games are going to tell you a lot about where the Mets are, and where they're going to go this season.