Fortitude

If nothing else, the Mets, in a year where basically everything that's gone wrong, continue to fight, and sometimes they actually provide a bit of a glimpse of greatness. This happened on Saturday, one of those weird late afternoon starts that they seem to play almost exclusively now. Zack Wheeler didn't have it, he was betrayed by his defense, the bullpen faltered late, the Mets found themselves behind, but somehow they got off the mat, and thanks to 7th inning Home Runs by T.J. Rivera and the day's bobblehead honoree Asdrubal Cabrera, came back to beat the Phillies in a hideous affair, 7-6.

Certainly, this wasn't quite what Doubleday had in mind back when he invented the game (nor what Doubleday had in mind when he purchased the Mets in 1980). Wheeler started for the Mets and was good early against a once-again moribund Phillies lineup, but he hit a wall in the 4th. Against stiffer competition this might not have gone so well. Against the Phillies, he only allowed two and wasn't helped by a pair of errors (and yes, one was his own), but after slogging along and throwing an inordinate number of pitches, he couldn't finish the inning and the Mets found themselves in the bullpen far earlier than is palatable.

The Mets, however, came back against Jeremy Hellickson, one of those guys who's constantly getting traded or rumored to be getting traded. Jay Bruce drove home a run on a groundout and Lucas Duda followed by hitting a Home Run into the Apple to put the Mets back ahead. Erik Goeddel, who's resurfaced here despite still not being particularly good and now sporting a ridiculous coif, spit the lead back up, and so the game was tied 3-3. Fernando Salas followed, pitched a good 6th inning, and then Terry Collins pushed his luck and tried to squeeze another inning out of him, so of course he allowed a 3-run Home Run to Tommy Joseph.

Hellickson, meanwhile, was pitching like the anti-Wheeler and had thrown about 75 pitches through 6 innings, and with the lead, there seemed no reason to remove him. So, of course, he allowed a Home Run to Rivera to start the last of the 7th. And that ended Hellicksonnn's day, in favor of Pat Neshek and his bizarre 1890s windup. Neshek pitched a solid inning on Friday but was less effective on Saturday, giving up a double to Travis d'Arnaud and a pinch-hit single to Wilmer Flores, which then set the stage for Cabrera to repeat his Home Run Heroics from last September.

Then, of course, it rained. It looked like it was going to rain basically the entire game, but they stopped the game in the top of the 8th inning, and in spite of Collins being rather incensed by the whole thing, it was probably a good idea since it was pouring where I was and generally what happens where I am usually ends up at Citi Field 10 minutes later. So that halted things for a spell but eventually the game resumed, Addison Reed came in, finished the 8th, finished the 9th and finished the game, a good 4 and a half hours after it started, as Saturday afternoon became Saturday night.

So, now, the Mets have done what they needed to do here and can sweep the Phillies tomorrow if all goes well. Then again, "all goes well" has been a dicey proposition for the Mets this season. But, still, they fight.

Storming and Storming

After hemming and hawing and debating with myself whether or not to go to Friday night's game, I decided to pass. The threat of severe thunderstorms and a tornado watch kind of took the starch out of my sails. 10 years ago, and hell, probably 3 or 4 years ago it wouldn't have mattered. But for once, I let logic win out and I decided to watch from home.

By not going, I missed a bit of what I was hoping to see and also a bit of what I was hoping to avoid. In spite of three rain delays that ran over two hours and shoved the game past midnight, the Mets thoroughly bludgeoned the Cubs, feeding them a bit of their own medicine by hitting 5 Home Runs off Jason Hammel en route to a 10-2 thrashing.

Since I wasn't at the game, I went home and took a nap after work and therefore missed the first rain delay that held up the proceedings by 12 minutes. By time I tuned in, it was the 2nd inning, but Jacob deGrom was humming right along, shutting down the Cubs lineup without much difficulty. In the bottom of the 2nd, James Loney hit a skyscraper of a Home Run to start the inning and Asdrubal Cabrera followed with one of his own, and the rout was on. More rain fell in the 3rd inning, stopping things for over an hour but failed to dampen the Mets' spirits. deGrom came back after the delay and didn't skip a beat and neither did the offense. Loney doubled in 2 more runs in the 3rd, Brandon Nimmo smoked a 3-run Home Run in the 4th, and in the 5th, Yoenis Cespedes hit his daily rocket of a Home Run and Cabrera followed with his 2nd of the night. Mercifully, Hammel was pulled after this, having absorbed a 10-run beating and, going back to his brief appearance in Game 4 of the NLCS last year, giving him an ugly line of 16 earned runs and 7 Home Runs allowed to the Mets in just over 5 innings pitched.

A third rain delay followed in the 6th, which seemed to greatly annoy deGrom, because he was pitching really well and probably would have kept on going. I suppose if I'd been at the game it would have annoyed me as well, because once the game is that far out of reach (and yes, the Cubs did score once when Baseball Jesus hit a Home Run in the 4th), you just want to get it over with quick. With the Mets ahead by 9, most of the crowd in attendance left during that delay and I think, had I been there, I might have taken my cue to depart there as well.

So, I don't know either. For whatever reason, the Cubs seem to bring out the best in the Mets, or at least this has been the case the last 6 times these two teams have met. Last season, everyone wrote the Mets off as a cute little story prior to the NLCS and instead the Mets stormed the gates and ruined the Cubs' coronation. This season, the Mets were essentially dead and buried and assumedly mere cannon fodder for the Cubs juggernaut. But instead, the Mets have woken up and fought back, coming back from a deficit on Thursday and riding that wave through Friday's game. It could have been Cespedes' Upper Deck Home Run on Thursday that started this in motion. Perhaps it's Nimmo, playing in front of the Citi Field crowd for the first time and coming up with some key hits and providing a spark that hadn't been there for a while. Whatever it is, the switch flipped once the Cubs showed themselves and the Mets all of a sudden look like they did last October as opposed to the team that couldn't get out of their own way. I don't know if this is going to last, but at least they're not just lying down like a bunch of patsies. This team is better than that.

No Such Letdown

The circumstances for the Mets on Thursday night screamed out for a letdown game. After going through a hard-fought and highly emotional series against Washington, the Mets now had to continue their road trip by traveling to Atlanta and everyone's favorite stadium, Turner Field. You know, that place where the Mets have gone something like 33-471 during its existence (and will fortunately close next year and hopefully be burnt to the ground immediately thereafter). Further, the Mets were greeted upon arrival in Atlanty by torrential rain that turned the field into a lake and delayed the start of the game by about 2 and a half hours. This has happened to the Mets before, usually with disastrous results.

However, these given circumstances seem to mean very little to the Mets nowadays. In a situation where a loss probably would have been perfectly acceptable, the Mets instead won 7-2 behind Bartolo Colon, who continues to defy age, logic and physics by performing the way he does. Colon hurled shutout ball into the 7th inning, chipped in with an RBI single and the Mets took advantage of an Atlanty team that looks about as bad as a Major League team can look.

The Mets didn't exactly have an easy matchup, as Shelby Miller has proven himself to be one of the NL's better pitchers, but at the same time, being stuck on a Braves team that's won 14 of their last 56 games, he's also been one of the most luckless pitchers in the NL. Coming into the game, Miller had won none of his previous 20 starts, and after the Mets jumped on him for 3 runs in the 4th inning, they ensured that his streak would reach 21 straight starts. The Mets extended their lead and even though Colon would ultimately tire in the 7th and the Braves would end his scoreless inning streak at 31, the game was never in much doubt. Even without the services of Tyler Clippard and Jeurys Familia (both of whom could benefit from a few days off). Dario Alvarez did a fine job finishing the 7th and getting through the 8th, and Addison Reed served the role of Closer du Jour even though he didn't enter a Save situation.

So, unlike the other times the Mets have sat through extended pre-game rain delays in Atlanty, this game was worth staying up for, although my complaint—if one could have a complaint about a game like this—€”is that it didn't end until after 12:30 and even though it was on Friday, it was still a school night and I would have preferred not to be up quite so late. The Mets had been doing so well with playing quick games. I'm not sure what happened.

Awesome And Uninspiring

An appreciable number of Mets fans turned up in Baltimore this evening, enough so that Jacob deGrom might have felt very much at home in Camden Yards. Although, given how well deGrom has pitched lately, he might have felt at home pitching in Luzhniki Stadium. deGrom got an early lead thanks to a pair of Curtis Granderson Home Runs and basically did the rest himself as the Mets rode his pitching into the 8th inning and then survived a 9th inning scare to beat the Orioles 5-3.

The game started late, though it didn't much matter to me as I'd come home and come perilously close to falling asleep altogether. There was apparently some rain in the Baltimore area that delayed the game by something in the neighborhood of 42 minutes. I glossed over this completely and I could be wrong on the time but what difference does it make? Unlike when the rain fell on Sunday, it didn't turn the Mets into meatballs, probably because it was before the game started. Or because deGrom just wouldn't let his teammates fall down the same rabbit hole they did two days prior.

Whatever it was, this was basically another typical game for deGrom. He tied the Orioles up and stuck them in his back pocket, allowing all of one run, a Gerardo Parra Home Run that was more flukish than anything else, 5 hits and 6 strikeouts before he departed with 2 outs in the 8th and 100 pitches. Perhaps, much like Harvey against the Colorados last week, deGrom could have finished the deal, but there was no need to push him. At that point the Mets had a 3-1 lead and when they stretched it to 5-1 in the top of the 9th, it seemed there was little reason for concern.

Except that Tyler Clippard didn't have it in the 9th, and Jeurys Familia barely had it either. Clippard had gotten one out, but then allowed a walk and an annoying dying quail of a hit to Matt Wieters before departing in favor of Jeurys Familia. Familia got the 2nd out and then appeared to get Steve Clevenger to hit a game-ending ground out. Except that Lucas Duda basically pulled a Daniel Murphy and tried to field the ball, then realized he couldn't field the ball, and then tried to make it back to 1st base to receive the throw from Kelly Johnson. Had Duda just stayed at home, he probably would have saved a lot of headache but instead he received the throw while not standing particularly close to 1st Base. So the bases were then loaded, and at that point Familia essentially had an attack of Benitez because he inexplicably walked the next two batters to force in two runs, send the tying run to 2nd base, put the winning run on 1st and put half the Mets fan base in the latrines. Manny Machado was next and Machado's got the potential to put one in the seats and seal an absolute disaster of a game, but instead Familia pulled himself together and got Machado to ground to 3rd, far away enough from Duda that he had no choice but to stay planted to 1st base and the game was over.

So, that was a lousy ending to what was otherwise a rather fine win for the Mets, and it once again underscores the Bullpen as just vulnerable enough to cause concern, except that this is the Mets and when you bring up bullpen problems people start to have Vietnam flashbacks. Combine that with the fact that the fan base has basically forgotten what a pennant race is like and you have a real hot time.

That Black Cloud

In the bottom of the 6th inning on Sunday, a rogue downpour formed over Citi Field. Quite literally, because it didn't appear to be raining anyplace else in the city except around Citi Field. At the time, the Mets had battled the Pirates to a 1-1 standstill, thanks mainly to Matt Harvey and his ability to grit his way through 6 innings in spite of not having his best stuff. Though he pitched in and out of jams all afternoon, the Pirates only reached him in the 2nd inning when Pedro Alvarez mashed a Home Run. Travis d'Arnaud matched Alvarez with a Home Run of his own and up until the rain came, this game appeared headed down the same track as the two games prior: a late (and perhaps later than late) decision.

The Pirates sort of seemed like they were treating this game as a house money affair; their best player, Andrew McCutchen was out of the lineup with a case of sore Harveys for a routine day off. The Mets, of course, tried to do everything they could to salvage one game in this series, particularly when they had their best pitcher on the mound. But then the rain hit and after a 50 or so minute delay, the game resumed and it seemed like this delay had just taken the Mets completely out of the game.

Bobby Parnell, whom I'd already expressed some concern about, entered the game for the 7th inning and immediately walked Pedro Florimon, and you've heard plenty about this because Parnell was ahead in the count and walked a guy hitting .200. So basically he'd made his own bed right then and there. Then, of course, came the ill-fated Mike Morse comebacker, a ball that seemed ticketed for a double play until Parnell chucked the ball into Center Field. This seemed to be some kind of cosmic mindfuck that involved everything that's gone wrong with the Mets crammed into one play, which happens sometimes. It involved Parnell, who's struggled, actually make a pitch and put himself in a position to get two outs. It involved Daniel Murphy, who for years has been the Shleprock of the Mets, essentially cowering in terror as if he couldn't believe a baseball was being thrown in his direction. And it involved Ruben Tejada, whose career arc could be best described as a tractor stuck in neutral. The play was Tejada's, at least in the sense that he was the one heading for 2nd base, except that when the throw arrived at 2nd base—and the throw did arrive at 2nd base, Parnell couldn't have walked it over there any better—€”the ball had already sailed into Center Field, because Murphy, as I mentioned, was too busy avoiding the fallout instead of trying to back up the play.

Basically, from this point forward, you could put a fork in the Mets, because they were done. Parnell then Wild Pitched a run home, gave up another 4 hits and 4 runs, got booed off the mound and replaced by Eric O'Flaherty who wasn't any better, and essentially the entire game went down the shitter as what was shaping up to be another close game turned into an 8-1 debacle.

You could, I suppose, say that the Mets were due for a real stinker like this, and the rain delay basically killed the entire team's energy. This isn't a good excuse, but it's the only reason I can think of for everything to break down as completely as it did in the 7th inning. Perhaps after battling the Pirates tooth and nail for 30 innings over the past 48 hours had something to do with it, and the day off they'll have today is probably a good thing because they can sleep this game off like the bad hangover it probably was.

Suspended Animation

There's still something that's truly bizarre about the suspended game concept. Some time on Saturday, I'd decided, because my other half was out of town and because I was kind of bored and needed something productive to do, that I would get myself a ticket for Sunday's game so I could see Steven Matz's debut. I've done things like this before with mixed results, but whatever.

Little did I know that I'd be signing up for more than one game's worth of action, because Saturday's game, which probably shouldn't have been started at all, ended up in that netherworld of this-game's-tied-but-it's-raining-really-hard-and-we-can't-finish-it-tonight. Again, this happened because the Mets can't hit and Matt Harvey will sometimes allow a run.

To their credit, the Mets did manage to get 6 hits on Saturday against a combination of Jared Michael Lorenzen and Manny Parra, but their only run came courtesy of Curtis Granderson, who hit another Home Run into the left field seats of all places.

Harvey, in spite of the comical conditions, pitched well. His only problem was that the Reds tied the game in the 5th inning and the Mets couldn't scratch out another run for him. The rain delay didn't matter much to him; he'd already been hit for so he wasn't going to come out for the 7th.

But, there was still a completion to this game that needed to play out, and with the rain, which was only getting worse as the evening dragged on, the game was called and now will get picked up at the front end of Sunday's game, so I'll have to tell you how it turned out after I see it.

Due For A Stinker

Tuesday night at Citi Field was my 13th game of the season, and my second against the Washington Nationals. I have been to plenty of Mets/Nationals games over the past several years, and generally they haven't ended well. Last night was no exception. In a game that featured a 25-minute rain delay, 4 Nationals Home Runs—including one from an Outfielder who clearly was not more than 16 years old—and my own early departure, the Mets got torched by one of their chief nuisances, 7-1. My personal 4-game winning streak came to a crashing halt in a truly forgettable affair.

The weather was ominous all day, enough that I was somewhat skeptical about heading out to Citi Field altogether. George, who was meeting me there, bailed altogether. He wound up the wiser, given the way the evening played out. Though it didn't rain very hard, it was slightly drizzling at the beginning of the game, as Rafael Montero made the start instead of Jacob deGrom, who everyone was probably hoping to see, or Noah Syndergaard, who many others might have wanted to see. Ultimately, it's probably better that Syndergaard didn't make his debut in a home game against the Nationals, because that's been a losing proposition for the better part of the last 5 years. Even when the Nationals were lousy and losing over 100 games, they still managed to beat the Mets 10 or 11 out of 18, including 6 of 9 at Citi Field. Plus, after snaking their way through two innings without any weather-related difficulties, the heavens opened in the top of the 3rd inning, enough for me to put away my scorecard in favor of an umbrella and, when play was stopped, enough for me to run for cover and fast.

Rain Delays have, in recent years, been a rare occurrence for me at games. I'd sat through plenty at Shea Stadium but to this point, only once at Citi Field had I ended up at a game delayed, a fairly good streak. And this wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a long rain delay, but after the game resumed and played out, I sort of wished it had kept raining and the game was called.

I decided to pass the time during the delay by milling around some other levels window shopping, when the game resumed without much warning while I was down on the Field level. I scrambled back upstairs and was able to nab a Promenade Box seat, as opposed to my usual perch in section 512, not because people left during the rain delay, but because nobody was there in the first place. Montero and Doug Fister kept a brisk pace and so the game moved into the middle innings not much off the pace of a game that hadn't been delayed.

Montero hadn't been pitching badly going into the 6th inning. He'd been touched up for an opposite-field Home Run by Bryce Harper, the 21-year old Outfielder who looks 35, and a hit from another outfielder I'd never heard of who had to be making his Major League debut since he looked to be no older than 16. Michael Taylor hit a 37-hopper up the middle his first time up and later on hit a 2-run Home Run off of Carlos Torres, so he had himself quite a night even if he looks like he should be heading off to Social Studies class with his teammate Tyler Clippard. Montero ran out of gas in the 6th inning and the Nationals started bombing Home Runs off of him. He was probably done when Anthony Rendon got him, but then Ian Desmond, who might be the quietest Met Killer of them all, got him for a 2-run shot that essentially put the game out of reach.

By time Taylor hit his Home Run, things were looking bleak and it was starting to rain again, and I frankly had had enough. I was tired and not really in the mood to wait out more rain, so I figured I'd just count my losses and get the hell out of there. At 7-0, with Fister mowing the Mets down, there wasn't much to stick around for. I'm never proud of leaving a game early, but if there was ever a night to do it, this was it. So, after 6, I left. I was home before the game ended, and all I missed were some singles from Daniel Murphy and David Wright, and I believe someone on the Mets hit a sacrifice fly, because at some point they scored a run. I don't feel quite so guilty about leaving early now. Had they made the comeback of comebacks is another story, but I felt pretty certain that that wasn't going to happen. Hopefully, a scenario like this does not repeat itself again anytime soon.

Severe Conditions

Things were a bit hairy at Citi Field this evening, and it wasn't because it was Free Shirt Friday and I wasn't there, and it wasn't because of a major June Thunderstorm that rolled through the area at around 7pm, forcing about an hour's delay. What was hairy was that once things got started, the Mets won a game by virtue of the performance of a pair of guys more suited for significant contributions in 1998, not 2014.

That would be, obviously, Bartolo Colon and Bobby Abreu.

In what's spiraling into another lost season for the Mets, Bartolo Colon has emerged as pretty much everything the Mets wanted him to be: a Marketable Trade Commodity. Colon obviously wasn't brought in here for his bright future, he was brought in here with an eye to, if the team struggled, be easily flipped for more prospects. Though Colon has had his share of implosions, as he was usually wont to do in his more "salad" days, of late Colon has pitched rather well, and beaten teams he probably should be beating. The punchless San Diego Padres, who arrived in town with an offense to rival the Mets, were little more than an annoyance for Colon. Following a 2nd inning Home Run by Rene Rivera, Colon then retired 18 Padres in a row, bridging the game straight to the 8th inning, while the Mets offense set out and actually scored a few runs in his support.

In addition to Abreu, who scored twice and drove in two runs, Taylor Teagarden contributed with an RBI hit, and even Lucas Duda, who hasn't had a hit all month, chipped in with an RBI double. These are nice signs, but they unfortunately seem like isolated events all too often. Even more unfortunate is the fact that a Mets victory seems like an isolated event all too often. I can't even say with great confidence that playing a team that's clearly worse than them, like the Padres, is a winning proposition.

You Cannot Be Serious.

Tonight's...or perhaps by this point last night's...we'll just call it Thursday's game probably is the most 2014 Mets effort of the season. Consider all the ways this game went wrong and you'll probably agree:

1. After 7.2 brilliant innings and only 97 pitches, Jon Niese is bewilderingly removed from the game by Terry Collins. Niese's natural reaction to this move is to shake his head and utter epithets you didn't need to be a lip reader to understand. There's no particularly good reason for Collins to remove Niese from the game at this point, and it's a move that will ultimately bite Collins in the ass later on in the evening. But he doesn't know it at that time. The flipside of this move, though, is that although Niese certainly appeared capable of mowing down the Brewers for another 4 innings, it likely would not have led to a better fate since his teammates were again generally incapable of getting a run for him.
2. In the top of the 11th inning, Jenrry Mejia came up with some back stiffness and had to leave the game instead of remaining in for a second inning of work. This meant that since Collins had already pre-emptively removed Niese several innings ago, and since then burned through Jeurys Familia and spent Josh Edgin on one batter, he was now even thinner in an already thin bullpen, forced to use Gonzalez Germen one inning earlier than he probably wanted to.
3. If that wasn't enough, Germen's entry to the game was immediately followed by a spontaneous downpour. Immediately, Angel Hernandez, whom we know all too well for his rather unique approach to Umpiring, waved the Mets off the field and called for the Grounds crew. Immediately, my thoughts went to things like suspended games and return trips to New York for the Brewers. That in and of itself would have been a fitting conclusion for the night. Only the Grounds crew didn't appear to want to show up and bring out the tarp. A couple of crew members came out with a bit of a "WTF are you doing?!" look on their face, and all of a sudden they were holding court with the entire umpiring crew. Then some kid with the Apple Weather app was running out and showing it to anyone who would listen to him. Finally, the whole mess was concluded by Crew Chief Gary Cederstrom overruling Hernandez and calling the Mets back onto the field, concluding a rain delay that lasted all of 3 minutes. Because if there's anything that took this game to another zone, it was a 3 minute rain delay.
4. Hernandez, clearly jilted after having his rain delay overruled, didn't want long to re-interject himself into the game. The Mets had a rather golden opportunity to win the game in the last of the 11th, getting David Wright to 3rd base with 1 out, and Chris Young coming to the plate. This isn't exactly a winning proposition, but still, the odds had to be in the Mets favor, particularly when the Brewers decided to throw the rarely-seen 5-man Infield alignment together with Ryan Braun. Young walked, amazingly, and Curtis Granderson and his back spasms were intentionally walked behind him, which brought Wilmer Flores to the plate. The Brewers countered with essentially moving Braun to Pitcher's helper, while the rest of their infield was straight up. Flores did the proper Mets thing to do by hitting a chopper to Mark Reynolds at 1st, who easily threw Wright out at home for the second out. Angel Hernandez then stole the show, spontaneously expanding the strike zone in order to punch out Anthony Recker on a 2-2 pitch. Recker, not surprisingly, blew his stack. Unwisely, Recker got himself thrown out of the game, meaning that the Mets, who by this point had blown through not just their entire bullpen, but their entire bench to the point that Zack Wheeler was thrown out as a Pinch Runner, had to throw the last man on their bench, Taylor Teagarden, into the game. 
5. Collins, now left to Carlos Torres and lefty specialist (with pizza) Dana Eveland, opted for Torres in the 12th inning, and after barely surviving the Brewers 12th, finally imploded in the 13th, allowing the first 6 Brewers that batted in the inning to reach. Highlights of this particular shit show included a Home Run by Jonathan Lucroy, a double by Aramis Ramirez and an RBI single from Reynolds before Torres was mercifully removed from the game. Eveland fared only slightly better, getting 3 outs while only allowing one more run when he hit Rickie Weeks. 

If the Mets were hitting, perhaps none of this would have been necessary. This was a game that could have been won if the Mets could have scored more than one run, but more than one run appears to be a tall order for the Mets on most nights. I mean, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised, when the latest solution involves Daniel Murphy hitting leadoff, and then immediately followed by multiple at-bats per game for the geriatric Bobby Abreu, the useless Chris Young and the hopeless Lucas Duda, plus a mostly scuffling David Wright, the problems are quite evident. Unfortunately, there's no good solution other than just boiling that spaghetti for different intervals, throwing it at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Tough Mudders

For about 6 consecutive seasons, whenever the Mets would go into Philadelphia, no matter what time of year or what miserable weather, you could expect that Steroid Field II Citizens Bank Park would be filled to the gills with obnoxious, mustachioed fans that liked to drink a lot and pass all kinds of judgements on your parents and life preferences if you didn't root for their team. Didn't matter if the Phillies won or lost. But those days have passed and the Phillies Dynasty has come to a crashing end, reduced to a roster decimated by aging stars with huge contracts choking the team's payroll, combined with a general dearth of young talent due to years of poor/failed draft picks and a win-now attitude. The result is a night like tonight, where, after a 90-minute rain delay and a few trips down Mets Memory Lane, the Phillies finally took the field for their first game of the season against their hated rival...in front of a mild audience that made Citi Field on a late September night look like a sellout crowd.

The Mets didn't come out and bombard Cole Hamels like they've been known to do on occasion, tonight, they really just kind of pecked him to death. They started slow, with some single hits in the early innings. Then, they started to string together some hits, punctuated by an RBI single from Daniel Murphy in the 3rd. In the 4th, Hamels continued to struggle, allowing two more runs on a long hit from Josh Satin and the always-galling bases-loaded-walk-to-the-opposing-pitcher. Still, Ryne Sandberg stuck with his ace, whom the Mets have generally handled fairly well ever since he opened his trap several years ago (further proof that this rivalry hasn't died). Hamels rewarded him by allowing 3 more runs in a 5th inning that he failed to finish, punctuated by a 2-run single by, of all people, Ruben Tejada. It was here that Hamels walked off the mound with his trademark puss on his face in favor of Fausto Carmona Roberto Hernandez Roberto Hernández.

But by then the damage was done and the only thing really left to chance was whether or not the Mets could get the game through 5 innings before the Heavens opened again. Though it certainly looked quite unpleasant at times, they somehow managed to play through the worst of the rain and ended up getting through 5 and then some. Jon Niese had a big hand in this; he continued the string of solid Mets starting pitching performances with a 7-inning effort that saw him give up 4 hits and 1 run in pretty dire conditions—though dire conditions don't seem to bother Niese. He punctuated his outing by striking out the side in the 7th inning, before giving way to Daisuke Matsuzaka, who did not take the mound in his ski cap, and Jose Valverde, who gave up several fly balls that fortuitously did not leave the slight confines of Citizens Bank Park.

All this being said, the Mets came away with a 6-1 victory that put them 4 games above .500 for the first time since 2012. And, of course, they got a lesson that they are not the only team that plays in a stadium with a severe wind tunnel that can increase the wind chill factor by a good 10˚. It must have been really cold, particularly if the players were making a thing about the frigid conditions on the postgame show. But maybe this bodes well for the Mets. If they're used to playing in football weather to begin with, why would it make a difference if they run across that weather on the road, where they play well anyway?

The Longest Week

In honor of the 4th of July, we, as always, remind you to take your hat off and keep out of the aisles during the National Anthem.

If the first two games of this series against Arizona were long, the final two were not only long, but also excruciating given the results.

The Mets had already played a pair of games that stretched late into the night for different reasons on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday's game was destined to do the same before it even began, thanks to a lengthy rain delay. Rain isn't something that generally bothers Matt Harvey, and for most of the early going on Wednesday night, it looked like every other Matt Harvey start. David Wright homered, Josh Satin homered, there was a full house on hand for Fireworks Night, everything was great!

Then, the 6th inning happened and everything went to pot. Matt Harvey got into a 2 on, 2 out jam, which generally isn't a problem for him, but he threw a slider that our dear friend Cody Ross just managed to get a hold of and sail over the Left Field fence for a 3-run Home Run that changed the game completely. Of course it was Cody Ross, one of those little bitch-faced nuisances that always seems to stick it to the Mets and take a little too much joy in doing so. Monday, Ross homered in the 13th and flipped his bat away like he'd just hit a walk-off. Fortunately, the Mets still had a chance to answer him in the bottom of the inning and managed to stick it in his ear by coming back to win the game. Wednesday night, the Mets had 4 opportunities to respond to Ross and were unable to do so. Harvey faltered again in the 7th inning and the Mets couldn't push enough across to get him off the hook, as he ended up stuck with his 2nd loss of the year in a rather unexciting 5-3 defeat that ended at somewhere around 12:30am, or, generally the same time as Monday's 13-inning game. And, of course, the Mets then shot off fireworks for those who remained at 1am, which was not quite as absurd as when the fireworks went off at 4am in Atlanta that one time, but was still much later than anyone involved in the planning of these things probably wanted.

That set up Thursday's July 4th afternoon game as the last chance for the Mets and D'Backs to get it right and play a nice normal game on getaway day. Unfortunately, they couldn't, as they instead played the longest game of the series in terms of innings and elapsed time. A rain delay was avoided, fortunately, because who knows how late things would have gone had that occurred. I tuned in to the game directly after watching the time-honored tradition of watching grown men shovel hot dogs into their faces in the name of the American Way and followed that up with my usual Sunday tradition of cleaning my apartment with the Mets game on in the background. It appeared that Dillon Gee was mostly efficient, but matched by Ian Kennedy (A former Yankee Prospect, so you know he MUST be good) as both teams managed only two runs apiece as the game moved into the later innings. Surely, for everyone's strength and sanity, someone ought to be able to push across a run before things ran late once again.

Surely was apparently not in the house this afternoon, because both teams went down meekly in the 9th.

Arizona threatened in the 10th, but was turned away by Carlos Torres.

The Mets got the leadoff man on in their half of the 10th, only to have Eric Young, Jr pop up a bunt and turn the inning to Jell-O.

Neither team threatened in the 11th.

The Mets got a couple of men on via walk in the 12th, only to have Kirk Gibson pull a Kirk Gibson and change pitchers with 2 outs and get David Wright to ground out to end the inning.

Finally, in the 13th, Arizona broke through, just as they had on Monday night, as the game steamed closer to 5 hours. Terry Collins' machinations led to David Aardsma intentionally walking Eric Chavez to pitch to Cody Ross and then unintentionally walking Cody Ross to force in the lead run. Then, he started playing matchups in the 13th inning, with Josh Edgin coming in to pitch to Gerardo Parra. Parra grounded into a Fielder's Choice, and then got called out for running inside the baseline. This would become rather important immediately, because Collins then pulled Edgin for Beleaguered Brandon Lyon. Lyon gave up a hit to Wil Nieves. This probably would have extended the lead, but Marlon Byrd threw out Chavez at home with ease to keep the score 3-2.

With 2 out in the bottom of the 13th, Anthony Recker hit a Home Run off Heath Bell to re-tie the game.

Arizona took the lead again in the 14th inning thanks to a series of annoying bloops and bleeders.

With 1 out in the bottom of the 14th, Kirk Nieuwenhuis hit a Home Run of Chaz Roe to re-tie the game.

Arizona took the lead again in the 15th inning thanks to more bloops and bleeders strung together with 2 outs.

Unfortunately, There was no 3rd rabbit to be pulled out of the hat. The Mets managed to get runners to 2nd and 3rd in the bottom of the 15th, but Kirk Nieuwenhuis grounded out weakly to first to end the game, after 5 hours and 46 minutes of bumbling around the field.

It was fairly easy for me to describe Monday's lengthy affair, because not only was I there, the game also featured a lot of interesting little nuances. This game on Thursday defies description, simply because it was just long and you could feel how sweaty and disgusting it was just by watching it on TV. I would consider Monday's affair memorable and a game I was glad I was at, but I think I'm equally as glad that I wasn't at today's game. Of course, had the Mets lost Monday and won Thursday, I might feel differently. So maybe it's not so interesting in retrospect. I have the feeling that the Mets didn't lose on Thursday, so much as they may have just run out of gas first. Now, of course, without a day off, they have the privilege of trekking off on a road trip to Milwaukee, where they'll be right back in action tomorrow night. No rest for the weary, that's for sure.

Another Late Night At The Office

After the Mets played it out until 12:24am on Monday night, last night was another late night, but for a vastly different reason. Tuesday's game was, in fact, motoring along rather briskly, having reached the bottom of the 7th inning before 9pm had struck. Monday night, the 7th inning stretch hit close to 10pm.

The pacing of this game was a credit primarily to Jeremy Hefner, who continues to impress me and everyone else who pays attention to the Mets. Hefner has, of course, been one of my flogs for quite some time now, and early in the season, he certainly deserved it. But somewhere along the line the switch flipped a little bit for him. He pitched rather poorly in the one start I attended against St. Louis, but for the most part he's pitched rather well, particularly against the Yankees, Cubs and Colorados, and last night he was outstanding against Arizona, giving up 1 run in his 7 innings of work and only departing, I suppose, because of the 90 minute rain delay that hit in the bottom of the 7th.

That rain delay, of course, is what slowed things down, and I suppose it was fortunate that it waited until last night to rain, as opposed to Monday, because what a clusterfuck that would have caused. Tuesday was a similar day to Monday in New York; a sweaty, gloppy mess of a day that makes me want to rip my skin off. You hope it rains because you hope that will knock the humidity out of the air, but generally, it just makes things worse. Sitting in 5 hours of it without it raining wasn't great. Sitting around while it rains must have been even worse. So, I guess given the choice, I'd choose the 5 hour game as opposed to the quick game with the hour-long rain delay. Tuesday's game did not end quite as late as Monday, but it was still after 11pm.

Fortunately, the Mets still won the game. Monday, the Mets kept having their rhythm broken by Kirk Gibson's petulant changing of pitchers. Tuesday, the Mets had no such trouble, although the game probably went on about 3 innings too long before the umpires decided to stop. When the puddles forming on the infield are visible and obvious, it's probably a sign that you should pull out the tarp and break out the card game, but hey, I'm no groundskeeper. What the hell do I know?

So, Hefner was great, only made one mistake to Devil Wore Prado in the 7th which accounted for the one run he gave up. The Mets also didn't have much luck against ballyhooed Patrick Corbin, who only gave up one run himself, a Home Run to Anthony Recker.

The Mets finally got something going in the bottom of the 7th, plating a run and loading the bases before the umpires finally stopped the game. I suppose nobody would have complained if they stopped things right there, but they waited 90 minutes and finally got things going again at around 10:15pm. This time, the delay appeared to ice the Diamondbacks, since the reliever they put in, Brad Ziegler, came in and promptly got whacked all over the park by the Mets, as their 2-1 lead went to 8-1 in a matter of a few minutes, removing any and all drama from the remainder of the game. This was actually rather nice, since we could then all sit back and enjoy the end of a game without something hair-raising happening. Given the rain delay and the increasingly late hour, and the Mets big inning, the D'Backs appeared to punt the remainder of the night, so the Mets ended up with a nice 9-1 victory where everyone pitched in to the war effort that saw the Mets score more runs than they've put up at Citi Field in week. And it sets up Harvey tonight with a chance to go for the kill in this series. 

Sitting In The Rain...

A busy weekend precluded me from having much to say about the Mets taking out the Padres over the weekend, although suffice it to say, those two pitchers that have basically been the saviors for the Mets did what they do best and smash a lesser opponent with authority. Things now less busy, I was back at Citi Field tonight for yet another solid performance from a Mets starter. This, however, was a less likely source in the name of Jeremy Hefner.

Hefner's start last week against San Diego yielded less than desirable results following an hour rain delay early in the evening. Tonight, however, the rain waited until after Hefner had departed the game, following a performance that I'd have to say was pretty damn good.

Not that things started especially well for Hefner, since the Phillies reached him for single runs in the 1st and 2nd innings. But the Mets were game enough to match Philly off of Joe Blanton. After Brian Schneider did something that he rarely did while he was a Met and blast a HR into the Pepsi Porch, the game had all the looks of a 10-8 slugfest that would stretch late into the evening. 

But, Hefner settled down. Given a 3-2 lead to work with, Hefner pretty much stopped the Phillies in their tracks over the next few innings. The only other run he allowed to Philly happened more by accident, following a 2B by Juan Pierre (whom I'm surprised is still in the league) and a hit by lurching Hunter Pence that slipped by Mike Baxter and allowed Pierre to score. But with Pence on 3rd and none out, and disaster looming, it was Hefner who proved up to the challenge, getting the next 3 batters quietly and leaving that tying run on 3rd, and departing the game on a high note. 

Hefner, of course, also helped his own cause in the 4th, by hitting one of those out-of-nowhere Home Runs that sort of took everyone by surprise, partly because it's the pitcher batting, partly because nothing was going on and it was really hot out. I mean, 2 outs, nobody on and the pitcher up in his 3rd Major League AB, the last thing anyone was expecting was to see the ball flying down the left field line and into the seats. But, Holy, Crap, that's exactly what happened. 

Then, the rains came. You knew it was coming, because that black cloud of doom had been creeping over Citi Field pretty much since the 2nd inning. Fortunately, it came much later in the game, with the Mets comfortably ahead and the game having moved along at a very brisk pace. Nonetheless, a 64-minute rain delay is a 64-minute rain delay and it's a drag to sit through. The rain delay is always a weird thing because you've got to find something to do with yourself to pass the time. Back in the Shea Stadium days, I would walk around the ramps to other levels. This, however, was my first Citi Field rain delay, something I'd managed to avoid over the past few seasons. My date for the evening and I found ourselves engaged in a discussion with a couple from Canada whose flight had been cancelled and only found themselves at the game because the hotel they were put in had given them free tickets. It was a fine time-killer, enough so that the 17 minutes of game that followed the rain delay went by quickly, and off to home we went. Another fine night for the Mets, Jeremy Hefner, and everyone in attendance who stuck around 64 minutes longer than necessary.