Mediocre Team Monday

I was back at Citi Field on Monday night for my 15th game of the season, but my first since it seems like the Mets had really thrown in the towel on the season. The Mets came into the game with a record of 54-68. 54-68 is one of those "benchmark" records for abject medoicrity, because that's the record the Mets had in 2001 before making a late charge that made their season look cosmetically better than it probably deserved to. While I don't see them running off a 28-12 finish, if there's ever a season where the Mets looked like a 54-68 team, this is it.

However, the Mets aren't drawing like a 54-68 team, as in spite of the fact that I was on a basically empty 7 train heading out to the game, there was still a reasonably healthy crowd for a Monday night against an Arizona Diamondbacks team that appeared to have shown up for the night's game while still in their pajamas. So you had all the fixings. An underachieving Mets team that looks like they've been sleeping through the season against a Diamondbacks team that literally looks like they're sleeping. And, unsurprisingly, I watched a 54-68 effort out of a 54-68 team that by the end of the evening sat at 54-69.

While the Mets collected plenty of hits against Taijuan Walker and a passel of relievers, they could manage none at moments where it really would have helped. Meanwhile, Robert Gsellman pitched admirably well and kept his baserunners to a minimum, but still found himself behind a run when J.D. Martinez singled home a run in the 4th inning. The Mets continued to get hits and strand runners until the 7th inning, when they loaded the bases with one out against Archie Bradley and his ferocious Relief Pitcher's beard. Yoenis Cespedes was up and finally picked up that key hit to drive home the tying run, and perhaps could have drove in the lead run were Asdrubal Cabrera a bit faster.

Having required 10 hits to score one run, the Mets then stopped hitting as both bullpens shot zeroes at each other through the 8th and again in the 9th. The game, in spite of being 1-1, was drifting and dragging along, well past 3 hours and to the point where I was running out of steam. My other half multiple times texted to see if I'd left yet. I hadn't, although by time the Mets went down in order against Jimmie Sherfy in the 9th (and, really, if there was a point in the game where you knew the Mets were screwed, it was when they couldn't manage a hit off of Jimmie Sherfy), I headed downstairs where I figured I'd watch for an inning and hope for a quick ending. Or maybe I figured that a quick ending was imminent when the Mets went to Erik Goeddel. Sometimes you have premonitions. Mediocre pitcher + Mediocre team = you get the picture. Goeddel played the part by walking the leadoff hitter, getting an out that advanced the runner, and then allowing a 2-run Home Run to A.J. Pollock, who himself has been perfectly mediocre.

In the 9th inning, I was sort of hoping that the Mets could get Michael Conforto to the plate because I have a fairly solid track record of him hitting Home Runs in games I've been to this season, but he didn't get to bat in the 9th. He did bat in the 10th, against Fernando Rodney, and he did hit a Home Run, but that only made the score 3-2, and there the score stayed and off into the night I went. A fitting end for a 54-68 kind of night.

Groundhog Day

Wednesday night's Subway Series game was basically the antithesis of how stupid this chore of a series has become. The Mets scratch out an early run, the Yankees tie the game. The teams then trade 1-2 runs back and forth. The Mets are usually battling and clawing and score runs on ground outs and Sac flies. The Yankees score on monumental Home Runs by their biggest names. The game gets late, the bullpens take over, some Mets reliever gets attacked by Subway Series gremlins, the Mets try to rally and then someone else has their own Subway Series and the Mets lose again.

I saw maybe an inning or two of last night's game and I already knew how to sum it up. The Mets had an early lead, Robert Gsellman gave up an 800 foot Home Run to Mike Judge that broke Baseball, the game was tied late because the Mets scored two runs on Sac flies, and then Paul Sewald came in for the 7th, was one strike from getting out of a jam and instead gave up a 2-run double to Didi Brontasaurius and the Mets had no recourse in a 5-3 loss.

I throw up my hands at these games now. I said on Monday just don't get swept and now I'm not sure that that's not better for them. Probably because I have no confidence in them winning, particularly when you have to throw the Gremlins on top of the odds.

Groan

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

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

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

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

The Same Thing

I'd essentially turned off Monday night's game before I ever started watching it, and for all intents and purposes I did the same thing on Tuesday. Or at least I should have.

I was watching at the beginning of the proceedings on Tuesday. I figured Robert Gsellman had to fare better than Wheeler did the night before but that was blind hope since the Dodgers basically ate him for breakfast. Logan Forsythe led off with a single, Corey Seager followed with a Home Run over the Center Field fence, I slapped my head in disbelief, Justin Turner reached when T.J. Rivera threw a ball not especially close to 1st base on a routine ground ball, Cody Bellinger hit another Home Run, I slapped my head again and then went to do something else.

By time I checked back in, the Dodgers were busy flossing their teeth with Gsellman, Seager hit two more Home Runs and everything else that could possibly have gone wrong, went wrong.

I know that the Mets aren't as bad as the Dodgers are making them look right now, but then again I'm not convinced of this. The Mets season right now is, ostensibly, finished and I would guess we'll be hearing rumblings and grumblings of trades in the coming weeks, but these last several games against really good teams have been mostly noncompetitive efforts. This from a team I believed was going to do something great with themselves. I've been shown. The more fool you.

These Freakin' Guys

So because of work commitments, I neither heard nor saw any part of Thursday night's game, which I suppose is just as well because it was terrible. Robert Gsellman was lit on fire by Bryce Harper early and later the entire Mets roster apparently turned to mush, because I guess the Nationals willed it so, and they once again fell meekly to the Nationals, 8-3.

It's mid-June and the Mets haven't managed to beat the Nationals at home, and now sit at 2-5 against them for the season, which is some 2013 shit. How the hell do the Mets expect to make any headway into that deficit they've dug for themselves if they can't do anything against their chief rivals? They've lost here, tomorrow they face Scherzer, then Strasburg and before you blink this whole thing could be out of hand.

I don't know. This whole thing makes my head hurt right now.

Many Happy Returns

The Mets, on Saturday, did not follow prior history on Saturday by continuing to lose games in Atlanta in June, in spite of Saturday's Day-Night Doubleheader (my favorite!) at least partly being played on one of those painfully sunny Atlanta days where the temperature looks to be no less than 115˚.

But the Mets did not lose the sunshine game. In fact, they didn't lose either game. They won both games and kind of looked like a cohesive team in doing so. It was a little more like another day-night Doubleheader they played in Atlanta (which oddly was the last time they swept a doubleheader of any kind) a few years ago that proved a harbinger of things to come—or perhaps of a time the Mets are trying to recapture.

I was out most of the afternoon, which shouldn't be of much surprise to anyone who's read this blog with any regularity, and as such I didn't see much, if any of the early game. But I did follow along on my phone as I was able, such as the case may be, and so I saw the Mets hanging on to a tenuous 1-0 lead throughout most of the afternoon. The Mets scored an early run off of Sean Newcomb, a lefty making his Major League debut—one of those things that has a tendency to bedevil the Mets—but he was matched for the most part by Robert Gsellman, who kept the Braves off the board altogether. I checked back later to see the score was 2-1 in the 8th; to that point both Mets runs had involved Wilmer Flores, who was busy quietly putting his stamp on a pretty memorable afternoon all things considered. Fortuitously, I found myself in a store with some televisions on around the 9th inning, when the Mets had the bases loaded and Yoenis Cespedes at the plate, so I saw what transpired there as Cespedes hit a Grand Slam to give the Mets a 6-1 cushion and, you know, provide the team with that little something extra that had been missing these past six weeks.

I was still out when the nightcap started at the rather odd time of 6pm, which I guess was done to accommodate a postgame concert, although they have a habit of throwing in some bizarre start times in Atlanta (I seem to remember there being a game scheduled for 5pm on Sunday of all hours some time ago), so I didn't see the early innings of the game, which essentially involved Steven Matz welcoming himself back into the fold by providing that little something extra that had been missing from the starting rotation all season and, you know, pitching economically without giving up any runs. Unfortunately, Matz was matched by Matt Wisler, who hasn't pitched especially well in general, except when he faces the Mets, and he subsequently turns into John Smoltz. So it was scoreless into the middle innings, but the Mets rallied in the 5th and Jay Bruce hit a 3-run Home Run to break the ice and more or less ice the game. Matz threw shutout ball through 7 and reminded everyone that when he's healthy, he's really good (now if only he could stay healthy). The Mets then tacked on more runs, most of them involving Wilmer Flores, who banged out 4 hits in the 2nd game to finish the day 6-for-9, and the Mets coasted home with an 8-1 victory to give the Mets a sweep of the Doubleheader at a point when things seemed to be at their most grim.

These reinforcements are nice and kind of underscore why people were so optimistic about the Mets at the outset of the season, or, more appropriately, why the spate of injuries is so infuriating. If the Mets could stay healthy...If, if, if, to the point where it's all kind of hollow. The reality is that it happened and the Mets have dug themselves a pretty major hole. I'm not certain if it's altogether too late for them to claw themselves out of it. however, stranger things have happened...

Sleepy Saturday

Saturday night's game was one of those games where if you blinked, you might have missed it. Or at least that's how it felt. First of all, the game was on FOX, which always goes well for the Mets. Fortunately, Joe Buck wasn't involved, so that was a slight moral victory, although the guy who was doing the game first of all neglected to ever announce who the hell he was, and second of all was one of those stereotypical "deep-voice" types that FOX tends to hire because I suppose it's swarthy and romantic and will keep the ladies interested.

But I digress. I'd been out and came home and fell asleep, or almost fell asleep and at some point I remembered there was a game on, so I put it on just in time to see Wilmer Flores hit a Home Run, which made it 4-2 Mets, but it was the 4th inning so I figured there was still lots to happen. And then I started making dinner, which precludes me from paying too much attention to things and relying what I hear. Usually, it's Gary Cohen, and, you know, you spend so many years listening to The Best, you get used to certain inflections. I wasn't getting that with Jimmy Deepvoice. So I took that to mean nothing interesting was going on. And, well, it wasn't.

In fact, the rest of the game basically flew by to the point that by time I did check in, Addison Reed was in the game and I automatically assumed it was the 9th inning. Except he got Adam Frazier to ground out for the 3rd out of the inning and then walked off with his cap flipped back, so the game wasn't over. At that point I refocused and realized that Terry Collins had finally had enough of this shit and decided to just let Addison Reed get the 2-inning Save. It of course figured that he gave up a leadoff single to Josh Harrison to start the 9th, but he did get the next three outs to finish the game and give the Mets a 4-2 win that they sorely needed. And that's, of course, indicative of this sad state of affairs because it's June, the Mets are miles under .500 and even farther from where they need to be in the standings, and these wins are "sorely needed."

Is it any wonder I'm barely paying attention?

One for Two

Much like every game from the past weekend, I didn't see much of Monday afternoon's Memorial Day affair against the Milwaukee Brewers. Under other circumstances, perhaps I might have been at the game. I did have tickets at one point, as a part of my ticket package, but knowing that it was highly unlikely I'd actually be at the game, I took advantage of the perks afforded me by the Mets and swapped out the tickets.

The Mets won the game I swapped to, so I already had that in the bank, but they won yesterday as well, 4-2 over the Brewers, behind Robert Gsellman. As such, they accomplished something they could not do while they were in Milwaukee—beat the Brewers. Again, not that I saw much, but Gsellman basically won the game by himself. In addition to pitching 7 innings—a luxury given how porous the starting pitching has been of late—and also drove in a pair of runs without the virtue of picking up a hit. This, of course, provided him with his margin of victory. After falling behind 1-0 in the top of the 5th, Gsellman found himself at bat with runners on 2nd and 3rd and no outs after an RBI double by Rene Rivera tied the score. Rather than attempt a squeeze play or give himself up, Gsellman poked a fly ball to right for a sacrifice fly that scored Wilmer Flores.

One inning later, Gsellman found himself ahead 3-2 and at bat with the Bases loaded and 2 outs against Rob Scahill...and he worked out a walk to force home a run and make the score 4-2.

Having done whatever he possibly could and then some to get himself a win, Gsellman turned the ball over to Paul Sewald for the 8th and Addison Reed, who survived a hairy 9th and the Mets finished out a victory to start off this series and actually put the Mets on a 2-game win streak, something they've been hard pressed to accomplish over the past month.

Inescapable Stupid

The Mets will, over the course of the season, invariably lose games to teams they ought to beat handily. Such a thing happened this evening. The Mets ran out to a 5-1 lead over the miserable Padres behind some modest hitting and a solid effort from Robert Gsellman. Gsellman departed after 6 innings, and the bullpen blew the lead and ultimately the game, allowing 5 runs before 4 pitchers collectively could record 4 outs. Still, the Mets had opportunity as the Padres seemed more than happy to hand the game back over to the Mets, but the Mets just didn't seem capable of picking up the social cue as they loaded the bases with no outs in the 9th, and when a single would likely have won the game, the next two batters struck out, and the third batter flew out meekly, and the Mets came away with a puzzling 6-5 loss.

Things started off similarly to last night. The Mets banged out several early hits off of oft-injured former gambling addict Jarred Cosart, among them a 3-run double from Wilmer Flores to kick start a 4-run 3rd inning that ultimately knocked Cosart from the game outright. They plated another run in the 4th and everything was lovely. Gsellman, in his return to the rotation, pitched reasonably well against the Padres, which is what you'd expect because the Padres lineup is just a melange of boring. Gsellman made it through 6 but was pulled there after 84 pitches, a curious move considering the state of the Mets bullpen and the fact that Blevins and Sewald, perhaps the only two somewhat-reliable arms, were deemed unavailable. But Fernando Salas, who pitched close to 2 innings on Tuesday, was, and of course after getting two outs ran out of steam. He gave up a hit to Chase d'Arnaud (which is more than could be said for his brother on this night), and then walked Matt Szczur (because Szczur's whole deal is drawing walks and being annoying) and Yangervis Solarte (duh slobber yankee prospect) before finally being pulled in favor of...Neil Ramirez. NEIL RAMIREZ?! Ramirez shouldn't be allowed near the mound unless someone has a 9+ run lead and he's done nothing to prove to me otherwise, so was anyone at all surprised that he came within a goat's whisker of allowing a Grand Slam to Wil Myers?

So by the grace of Mark the ball stays in play and the game is merely tied, and Josh Edgin then has to come in and rescue the Mets from this mess. Fine. The Mets go in the tank in the 7th and out comes Josh Smoker to start the 8th. Smoker also pitched on Tuesday and on his first pitch gave up a rocket of a Home Run to Shemp. So what happens here? You guessed it—first batter, Hunter Renfroe, parked one in the 2nd deck in Left Field.

Now the Mets are losing and the game is creeping past 3 hours. Juan Lagares starts the last of the 8th by hitting a shot to right that Renfroe drops and Lagares ends up on 2nd. He went no further. In the 9th, the Padres go to Brad Hand to close the game, which seemed perfectly normal to me because I have no idea who the Padres closer is actually supposed to be. Maybe it is Hand. I don't know but the Mets had seen plenty of Hand during his time in South Florida Purgatory. Walker singled to start, Duda drew a walk, and Flores singled past Aybar, and had the ball been a bit more well placed, Walker probably would have scored outright. But why push it with no outs? Surely, against a reeling Hand, someone out of Curtis Granderson, Rene Rivera and Juan Lagares ought to be able to push across a run and perhaps two, right?

RIGHT???

...

Sigh. To say I was glad I didn't exchange my tickets off of last night would be an understatement because if I'd been there, I'd be totally apoplectic. Again, I know that sometimes these things happen. Hell, the Mets have lost 47 of the 55 games they've played in Petco Park by the score of 2-1, no matter how good or bad or boring the Padres are. But right now, when the team is just desperately seeking some kind of consistency while they stem the tide and wait for reinforcements, losing like this when they were playing a team that barely showed any signs of life all night just baffles me.

Exasparation

There have been seasons, or maybe I'm remembering wrong and it's just season, where the Mets were kind of dancing and jabbing, and then they went to Milwaukee and their entire season just got the life sucked out of it.

I know it's still May but after the way this past weekend played out I feel like I watched the same thing happen to the Mets. They had early leads both Saturday and Sunday, their starters gassed themselves way too early, the Brewers came back and then lit the Mets bullpen on fire.

Saturday, things seemed to be perfectly nice early in the game. Though Robert Gsellman struggled early, he settled down, got some runs thanks to Kevin Plawecki, who came through with a rare double, and from Neil Walker, who Homered, and everything was hunky dory until the 5th when Gsellman just lost it and the roof caved in. Brewers hitters started stringing hits together, guys I'd never heard of were coming off the bench and hitting (Jesus Aguilar? Didn't he surface with the 2010 Mets?), Gsellman was pulled for Hansel Robles and Robles just made things worse, capping things off by essentially throwing Travis Shaw a Bugs Bunny fastball so Shaw could hit it out and cap off an 8-run nightmare that put the Mets to bed for the night.

Sunday was basically Saturday's game, just magnified and slower in developing. Michael Conforto hit everything in sight, Neil Walker and Rene Rivera hit some more and the Mets ran out to a 7-1 lead for Jacob deGrom, who looked OK, if less than economical. But the Brewers kept pushing the envelope and pushing the envelope, and 7-1 turned into 7-3, and then relievers were involved, and Jerry Blevins couldn't get anyone out, and Fernando Salas couldn't get anyone out, and guys like Keon Broxton and Jonathan Villar were hitting Home Runs, and there was this Jesus Aguilar again, and who the hell is Manny Pina and what the hell is he doing hitting a Home Run off of Addison Reed to finish off this debacle because it was 7-1 and now it's 11-9...

I usually can find the solution hiding somewhere behind the story and the problem right now is I can't find the solution. The Mets hit all weekend but couldn't outhit their pitching and I'm not sure what the hell happened. I know guys are hurt and/or inconsistent, but maybe this is just my old theory of The Stink coming back to bite the Mets in the ass again. It starts with the Mets not tacking on runs last Wednesday and creeps into a blown save, and then a Jeurys Familia injury, and then a Matt Harvey meltdown, and then Hansel Robles and that miserable puss on his face, and then the utter collapse on Sunday. Nobody that's pitching for the Mets right now seems to be inspiring any sort of confidence.I don't know.  Sometimes you just need to get a town out of your system and maybe it's just Milwaukee's year and they'll go to Arizona and the change of scenery will help. Or is that just me trying to convince myself it's something else and not The Stink.

No photos today. That's how much this weekend troubles me.

Small Big Ball

The Mets continued their recent trend of great offense/lousy pitching again on Saturday, as they jumped on Odrisamer Despaigne early and often to the tune of a 5-run 1st inning, then survived another shaky outing from Robert Gsellman and another injury, this time to Asdrubal Cabrera, and eventually turned things back on late against the Marlins bullpen to come away with another win, this one by an 11-3 score, which gives the Mets 6 wins in their last 8 games and 3 series wins in a row.

As usual, it is the little things that add up.

Not that it matters much to the press, who seems more interested in cracking on the Mets than actually reporting on what happens in the games, but the Marlins were the victims of some stupid in this game. Their scheduled starter, Wei Yin Chen, went on the DL on Friday with the mythical "tired arm," for those who think that sort of thing only happens to the Mets one month into the season. The replacement, Despaigne, who famously no-hit the Mets into the 8th inning that one time, was a minor irritant, as the Mets hammered him early and often and led 5-0 after 1 inning. The Marlins played like you'd expect them to, as they kicked the ball around plenty, starting off with Nickleback mishandling a hot shot from Michael Conforto that started the rally. Later, balls continued to clank off gloves and fly balls were bungled as the Mets tacked on more runs late in the game. Once again, they did so without the virtue of a Home Run; most of these runs scored because the Mets were working counts and hitting singles and doubles and just moving the line along. Conforto alone had 2 RBIs without the virtue of a hit as he walked three times, twice with the bases loaded, the latter time coming after a brilliant AB where he fell behind 0-2 and managed to check his swing three times to work out the walk. But the point is, if you just hit singles and doubles and bunch them all together, you'll accomplish the job just as well as if you sat back and waited for Cespedes to hit the 3-run HR.

Gsellman was effective, if not especially good, in his 5 innings. It seems to be more an issue of location and execution rather than stuff, that's preventing him from pitching as solidly as he did down the stretch last year. I can't quite figure it out just yet. With a full complement of pitchers, he might be on thinner ice but as the numbers have dwindled, there's not many other passable options. Certainly not if Montero continues to make an ass of himself whenever he gets an opportunity.

So it becomes the offense that has to shoulder the load, and they've done so as they scored 5 or more runs for the 9th game in a row, which is a far cry from the days when they were hard pressed to score 5 runs in a week. Then again, this could just as easily flip so we should just enjoy it while it lasts.

I Like This Place!

The Mets played their first game in Suburban Atlanta's sparkling new SunTrust Park or SunTrust Field last night, a refreshing change after playing the past 20 years in a stadium that shall no longer be named, where they posted a record of 20-142 and suffered innumerable indignities. And after one batter in this new place, perhaps we saw signs that things would be different here. Michael Conforto led off the game with a Home Run, getting things off on the right foot, and spurred the Mets on to a 7-5 victory.

I like this new place already!

SunTrust Park or Field or Gulag or whatever they're calling it seems to be a fairly generic-looking "old new" ballpark, which is now what basically every stadium is nowadays. The other place wasn't especially memorable either, except for all the wrong reasons but that didn't even have a "retro" feel to it. I suspect, as time passes and these new stadiums eventually lose their shine, that the new retro will become the utilitarian, cookie-cutter stadiums of the 1960s, so maybe someday we'll get Shea Stadium and Fulton County Stadium back, but what the hell do I know.

The Mets scored early and often against Julio Teheran, which they could have done last week if they'd bothered to hit, since he was ripe for the taking, and on the other side, Robert Gsellman if nothing else didn't have the complete and total meltdown that he did last week and managed to get through 5 plus innings allowing 5 runs instead of giving them all up in the 1st inning, which was nice of him. In fact, it was actually good enough to net him a victory this time around.

Other good things happened too. Conforto supplemented his Home Run with a 2-run single in the 3rd inning. Jose Reyes, who has appeared to show some signs of consciousness lately, hit a Home Run late to give the Mets an insurance run. Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia finished out the game with some more cobweb-shaking performances or stabilizing performances as the case may be. Really, more than anything else, the Mets needed this victory just to heal everyone's psyche after the early-morning injury news regarding Noah Syndergaard. To say nothing of the fact that they needed to remind everyone that they were still a viable team after getting 23 runs hung on them on Sunday. What this will lead to, I'm not sure. It feels like a long road back to respectability at this point, but at least they didn't have to follow up Sunday's debacle with having to go to Atlanta Baseball Hell.

Can I Leave Yet?

Wednesday night was my 3rd game of the season at Citi Field. It was actually supposed to be Tuesday night, but extenuating circumstances forced me to change my Tuesday tickets to Wednesday. Then, weather forced the cancellation of Tuesday's game altogether. Then, what I had assumed would be a most entertaining pitching matchup of R.A. Dickey and Noah Syndergaard dissolved into Julio Teheran vs Robert Gsellman...which meant that through three games this season, I've seen Julio Teheran pitch more than anyone else.  It was still somewhat misting when I arrived at Citi Field although it seemed like the game was in no particular danger of being delayed altogether.

Then, of course Gsellman came out, started flittering sliders all over the place and gave up 5 runs before most of the paltry crowd that showed up had even made it to their seats. When that happens, and the Mets are in an instant hole like that, and I immediately wish I hadn't shown up that particular night, well, those final 8 innings just can't go by fast enough. It's one thing if the Mets are playing well and you think they might actually be able to pull themselves back from a 5-run deficit, but the Mets continue to not hit, and even the return of Yoenis Cespedes and Travis d'Arnaud didn't help. Teheran was more than ripe for the taking in this one, as the Mets had opportunities in the middle innings, but the stink was on this one already.

So, yeah. By 7:40 I was ready to leave. That's not a good feeling. And of course being that I obsessively score all my games I have to at least pay some kind of attention to what's going on, so I can't just meander around the stadium, even with access to all these clubs and whatnot. The point of all this is that the game becomes mostly scenery to an evening out and, yeah, I'm keeping score but I couldn't exactly tell you what happened from there. I know Gsellman didn't improve in spite of gritting his way through 5 innings and I know that Teheran wasn't particularly sharp, but the Mets continue to not hit and not hit in key spots so he was let off the hook every time. Then I went downstairs at some point just to give myself a quicker exit and slunk off into the night once the game ended.

As nights at Citi Field go, this will probably rank among the least memorable. This recent malaise has taken the sheen off the Mets' hot start and now they're on one of these death valley stretches that seem to hit them in the middle of the Summer. I can't tell if it's good or bad that it's happening here in April because on the one hand you'd rather get the stupid out of your system early, but on the other hand it's bad that this happens at all because the Mets are supposedly better than this.

Born To (Home) Run

Wednesday night's game appeared to be headed down a similar track as Tuesday's. In miserable weather, perhaps colder than last night, combined with some late-inning rain, the Mets held a late one-run lead over the Phillies. Robert Gsellman had done yeoman's work getting himself into the 8th inning, but a leadoff double knocked him out and the run ended up scoring thanks to a 2-out, 2-strike dying quail of a hit that landed in front of Yoenis Cespedes. But, unlike in the previous few nights where the Mets could not respond, on this night they did as Jay Bruce hit a 2-run Home Run in the bottom of the 8th to provide the Mets just enough to hang on and win the game, 5-4 and end this mystifying 4-game losing streak in which everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong.

It of course is always irritating to me when I go to the first game of a series and the Mets lose, and then come back and win the next night, and that's no different on this evening, although in reality, I can't say I missed sitting out in weather that appeared to be colder on Wednesday than it was on Tuesday, among an even sparser crowd than Tuesday, in intermittent rain and from what Howie Rose told me on the radio, a dead standstill in transit as the 7 train had suspended service entirely right in the thick of the evening rush. So even if I had gone to this game instead, I would have been just as cranky and miserable as I was on Tuesday. On the other hand, the Mets win probably would have made it more worth it.

But so the game, which in addition to the positive outcome appeared to move at a much brisker pace than Tuesday, boiled down to Robert Gsellman's ability to just be his own bridge, keep the Phillies at bay and keep the Mets in the game, and he did that. Gsellman hadn't been especially good in either of his first two outings, and yes, one of them was the 16-inning game last week but in neither game did we see the toughness he'd displayed late last season. Wednesday night, we saw it back and for the most part he looked really good. He made himself the 1st starting pitcher to make the 8th inning this season by allowing 2 runs on 5 hits with 7 strikeouts through the first 7 innings. Yes, the Phillies annoyingly undid his effort by tying the game in excruciating fashion. However, Gsellman more importantly kept a majority of the Mets' relievers in the bullpen, which was good because I already discussed how the bullpen is burned out 3 weeks into the season and that's not safe.

Meanwhile, the offense continued to stagnate. Curtis Granderson isn't hitting which isn't anything new because he always starts slow. Jose Reyes isn't hitting and is kind of becoming a liability to the point where maybe it's time to just give Wilmer Flores the job or give Amed Rosario a buzz. And of course if that wasn't bad enough, two guys who were hitting, Lucas Duda and Travis d'Arnaud, left the game with injuries. Duda got banged in a rather ugly-looking collision at 1st base and at this point diagnosis seems uncertain. d'Arnaud banged his hand on someone's bat and later came out which is concerning because every time d'Arnaud comes out of a game because of an injury we don't see him again for two months, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. So, it came down to the one guy left who's been hitting, and that's Jay Bruce. I went into this season talking about how Bruce seemed out of place here and he may still be out of place here but to his credit all he's done this season is shut up and hit and basically he won this game by himself. The Mets looked dead in the water until Bruce hit a 3-run Home Run in the 6th to put the Mets ahead and then in the 8th, after the Phillies tied the game, he basically decided he'd had enough of this and hit another Home Run, this one a 2-run job, to put the Mets ahead for good and, of all things, earning himself a curtain call. And, well, he deserves it. I don't know how long this will last, I don't know how long he is for this team, I know he's a Free Agent to be, but hell, he needed to have a start like this because there's multiple players here that could very easily take his job and he's making it hard for anyone to do that right now.

A Different Ending

By all rights, the Mets generally lose last night's game in Miami. They've played games like this in Miami previously and that's always the end result. It usually happens in some sort of annoying fashion. Generally it involves the Mets falling behind, scraping and clawing their way back to tie the game, and the Marlins ultimately winning either in the 9th or some later extra inning by getting an infield hit, a walk, an error, and then the winning run scores on a check swing that goes 40 feet, or a Wild Pitch or something typically Marlin, and then they run all over the field slapping each other with baloney and acting like they won the World Series in April.

But something funny happened last night—the Mets didn't lose. They didn't fall victim to Stupid Marlin Tricks, they didn't run out of pitchers and they didn't have the Marlins Pizza Party thrown in their faces. Instead, after twice coming back from multi-run deficits, forcing an already long game into extra innings and running out of Pitchers, the Mets actually won, 9-8, thanks to Travis d'Arnaud's 16th inning Home Run.

Most of the action in this game was long forgotten by time the game ended, which is usually the case when you have ridiculously extended games like this. Robert Gsellman in the 1st inning had some command issues and for the second time in as many outings came away getting cuffed around pretty good. He gave up a Grand Slam to Marcell Ozuna in the 1st to put the Mets in an immediate hole. But, these Mets don't seem to take especially kindly to being pushed around. Almost immediately they struck back and tied the game against Wei Yin Chen, who in spite of some decent years in Baltimore seems to be the Tom Koehler for a new era; the Marlins pitcher whom the Mets face about a dozen times a year and generally rake around. d'Arnaud tripled home 3 runs and then scored the tying run on a Curtis Granderson sac fly in the 2nd inning and almost immediately it became clear that this had all the makings of a real barnburner.

In the 3rd, the Mets started throwing haymakers at Chen. Yoenis Cespedes hit a Home Run that appeared to go over the Magic Machine in Loria's Puke-Green Hell Hole, and Wilmer Flores followed with a Home Run of his own, albeit not nearly as majestic. That spelled the end of the road for Chen, but not so much for the Mets as Cespedes sent a Jose Urena offering into orbit in the 5th. So this 4-0 deficit had turned into a 7-4 lead and everything seemed to be just peachy.

Then, of course, Gsellman ran out of steam in the 5th and everything crashed back to earth in a string of singles and walks and sacrifice flies—you know, the typical Marlins rally—and Gsellman gave way to Josh Edgin who allowed every inherited runner to score by giving up a double to Nickleback and later a single to Billy Marlins and only by the grace of Cespedes were the Mets able to negotiate the final out of the inning as he threw Nickleback out at the plate (he runs like he's carrying a double rack of PBR on his back, dont'cha know).

The Mets, then, needed to negotiate the remainder of this game and keep the Marlins on lockdown. Rafael Montero had a hairy 6th and started an even hairier 7th before Jerry Blevins bailed him out, getting a pair of key outs, among them a strikeout of Ichiro Suzuki. In the 8th, d'Arnaud singled with 2 outs, bringing up Michael Conforto in a Pinch Hitting spot. This has hardly been an ideal role for Conforto, who probably should be playing infinitely more than he has been, but to his credit all he's done over the first two weeks has been shut up and hit the ball, and that's exactly what he did here, drilling a long double in the gap in Right Center to score d'Arnaud, tie the game, and set the stage for the remainder of the night's proceedings.

Usually, in games like this, teams tend to mount spirited rallies early, and then run out of steam. The Marlins had two men on in the last of the 8th vs Fernando Salas, but he reared back, struck out Mike Stanton and got out of the inning. He remained in the 9th and had no issue. The Mets had a similar rally go nowhere in the 10th against Dustin McGowan. Addison Reed came in for the 10th inning and stepped on the Marlins' throats.

By time we hit the 12th inning, the wheels were beginning to rattle off the reality portion of this game. Generally, when it goes beyond 12 innings, you enter "all bets are off" territory, and you have to start thinking about survival tactics. In this case, the Mets had already blown through their front line of relievers, and now were down to Josh Smoker and Hansel Robles, and we already went over Robles last night because he'd pitched three days in a row and had to be avoided at all costs. So it was Smoker to the whip and to his credit, Smoker put forth probably the finest outing of his career to date. He hadn't looked especially good in his early outings this season, but with his ass on the line he rose to the occasion and in three sterling innings allowed a meaningless hit, a meaningless walk, and nothing else, bridging the 12th, 13th and 14th innings. He had to, because the Mets were doing just as much bupkis against Junichi Tazawa and Nick Wittgren.

By the 15th, it had become spaghetti-at-the-wall time. Jacob deGrom took an at bat hitting for Smoker, which meant that on-fumes Hansel Robles was coming in the game. Full-strength Robles is already a dicey proposition, so you know what this meant. However, to his credit, Robles didn't cave after giving up a leadoff single that probably shouldn't have been a single but for the official scorer acting like a Marlin. And that sent the game to the 16th inning, where d'Arnaud connected off tonight's starter Adam Conley's second pitch and put it out in the seats, giving the Mets the lead. For d'Arnaud, who's really one of those "crossroads" guys this season, this hot start he's gotten off to has been major. Both to solidify his place on the team but moreso to simply remind everyone that he can do it. But of course he's now got to keep it up.

Meanwhile, Robles now had to protect a lead against the meat of the Marlins lineup, and so of course he walked Hamburgers Yelich to start the last of the 16th, to bring up Stanton and cause every Mets fan that was still awake at 12:45am to cover their eyes. And Stanton connected, but only managed to line out to right. Nickleback followed, and after a back-and-forth battle, Robles finally struck him out on what has to be one of the ugliest-looking changeups I've ever seen, just a dying quail of a pitch that wasn't particularly close to being a strike, but was waved at anyway. Ozuna followed and almost anticlimactically swung at the first pitch and flied out, ending this game and giving the Mets their 5th win in a row.

Phew. These kind of games are very mettle-testing both for fans and players and really, I'm glad I was home watching this one on TV and listening to Keith get progressively crankier as the game went on. Keith clearly isn't made for extra innings like this, but that's OK. At least the Mets won and at least I wasn't in the ballpark for it. By the 14th, I was thinking "one more inning, then I'll go to bed," but of course I kept on watching until things finished. And, well, if there was ever a game to do that, I suppose this was it.

Beyond The 162

The primary objective for the Mets going into the final weekend of the regular season was pretty simple: Win 1 and guarantee they'll play past Sunday. Win 2, and they'll play on Wednesday, at Home. They've accomplished 50% of this goal.

The Phillies, in spite of basically playing out the string and in spite of the fact that the Mets bombarded their pitching staff rather mercilessly last weekend, were a team that made me kind of nervous, because they're just the team that would like nothing more than to kick the Mets in the nuts and screw up their season. Fortunately, the desire of the Mets was enough to offset the spoiler aspirations of the Phillies, as they rode more hot hitting from Jay Bruce and more clutch pitching from Robert Gsellman to a 5-1 victory. They might have been able to clinch outright, but for the Cardinals winning. So the Mets will just have to try to wrap it up themselves tomorrow.

It being a Friday night game, I missed a large swath of the proceedings because I'd fallen asleep. So I didn't see the Phillies take an early lead, I didn't see the Mets again have a tough time with Alec Asher early on, and I didn't see the Mets tie the game on a Bruce single and take the lead for good on a subsequent T.J. Rivera single in the 4th. I also didn't see Bruce hit his 4th Home Run in 6 games in the 7th inning. Hey, it was a long week and I was tired!

The downside of course was that I ended up missing Gsellman's fine outing altogether. Though he wasn't as sparkling as he was last Sunday in his 7 shutout innings, he still pitched well enough, holding the Phillies to 1 run over 6 and, well, being another one of "those guys" who've sort of just appeared here over the last two months and wound up playing a major role in getting the Mets to this point. You can't plan on these things—hell, outside of him getting a small headshot and bio buried in the recesses of the Mets yearbook which you haven't picked up since April, you probably had no idea who Gsellman even was—but this is what happens in Baseball sometimes. You get contributions from guys you've never heard of and find yourself after 160 games now guaranteed of playing no less than 163 for the season.

So, now, the Mets have a chance to spare themselves of any weird tiebreaker scenario with one more victory tomorrow. Unfortunately, this game somehow got co-opted by FOX and moved to 1pm, which is kind of a turd in everyone's punchbowl, but the Mets will just have to make the best of it, and so will we, even though I'd rather the Mets clinching call not be screeched by Matt Vasgersian or whoever is doing the game.

Asking For More

The Mets 2016 Home Finale fell upon me much quicker than I'd anticipated this season. I mentioned it at the beginning of this homestand and it seems much more prescient a thought today because now the Mets are done at home for the regular season...but none of us have any idea whether or not there's more to be said at Citi Field for 2016. If Sunday is to be it, well, the Mets went out with a bang, as they hit continually, and Philadelphia's horrible bullpen seemed all too happy to hand them baserunners and once things got rolling, they couldn't stop and so the final score wound up at 17-0, which is quite an accomplishment for a team that spent 4 months of the season looking like they were hard pressed to score 17 runs in a week.

The game of course began with the horrible Jose Fernandez news. There isn't much I could say on the matter that hasn't already been said more eloquently than I ever would, and of course rooting for a rival team of his I viewed him with trepidation because I knew he was lurking in the shadows every time the Mets and Marlins met. I had the good fortune to see him pitch in person twice during the 2016 season, but sadly I won't get to see him again.

That seemed to be hanging over Baseball as a whole on Sunday, and in tribute Yoenis Cespedes was seen hanging a Fernandez Mets jersey in the dugout prior to the game. But then the bell sounded and it was time to get back to work, as much as possible. George and I were once again present, I for my 21st game of the season, and oddly enough my 400th Mets game overall, and just trying to salvage this finale and finish out an uneven year on a winning note.

The Mets, of course, were kind enough to commemorate the occasion by plating 17 runs, which was not only a personal best for me but also tied a club record for runs in a home game and largest shutout victory. For the shutout part, we have to thank Robert Gsellman, who after three days in which the bullpen was utilized early and often, stabilized everything by tossing 7 shutout innings and not really breaking much of a sweat in the process. This gave everybody key involved another day off; neither Reed nor Familia has pitched since Thursday and at this late part of the season, getting them some extra rest could be as crucial as anything.

Gsellman also added to his exploits by picking up his first Major League hit, a 3rd inning bunt single that neither Ryan Howard or Jake Thompson seemed to want to pick up until it was too late. I didn't realize this until after the fact, but it seems Gsellman has a rotator cuff injury in his non-throwing shoulder and can't swing a bat, so all he can do is bunt. And the Phillies still couldn't do anything about it. Gsellman didn't score, but he was one of the few Met baserunners on this day that managed to not do that.

Thompson and a succession of other pitchers once again had a really hard time. I mean, that goes without saying when you allow 17 runs in a game, but those 17 runs came on only 14 hits. The Phillies pitchers threw 201 pitches, and in the process hit 4 batters, walked another 9 batters and threw 3 wild pitches in a performance so embarrassing that a kinder blogger might spare them from having their names associated with this mess, but in case you were wondering, Thompson was succeeded by Phil Klein, then Colton Murray, Frank Herrmann, Patrick Schuster and finally Luis Garcia.

When this happens, well, everyone has a good day at the plate. Jose Reyes for one managed to bat with the bases loaded 4 times, and ended up walking twice and hitting a 2-run double in the 8th that probably should have only been a single except that he kept running and forced Brandon Nimmo to 3rd. Asdrubal Cabrera hit a Grand Slam in the 7th. Curtis Granderson hit his 30th Home Run of the season in the 4th. Rene Rivera, T.J. Rivera and even Jay Bruce chipped in with 2 hits each. But when you get to 17 runs, you sort of have to just keep going, and that's what happened in the 8th inning. The Mets already led 11-0 and Schuster had in fact managed to get two outs before the inning caved in on him, and it seemed as though once Rivera reached he just lost his bearings and things spiraled out of control from there. Reyes hit his double, Eric Campbell hit a 2-run single and after Schuster was mercifully removed, Michael Conforto finished out the scoring with a 2-run double of his own.

And, so, it was down to that wistful final half inning of the afternoon, and with a chant of "WE WANT PLAYOFFS!" echoing throughout Citi Field, Jerry Blevins finished off the day and the home season with a scoreless 9th inning.

So...now what? Now comes another week of games, beginning with what's going to be a really emotionally charged series in Miami on Monday, and then a visit to Philadelphia where they'll get to see this pitching staff again. Fortunately, there's an off day in there, too, so the Mets will only have to use 4 starters from here on out. Colon, Syndergaard, Lugo, Gsellman...and that's what we're riding with. However it may fall, it falls.

For the 2016 regular season, I am done. For the second season in a row, I managed to make it to 21 games, although not necessarily in the way my plan intended me to. I took liberal advantage of the ticket exchange policies and that's what made this possible. The Mets were not as cooperative this season as they were in past years, as my record for the year was 10-11, marking my first losing season since 2009. But, the 10 wins mark three years in a row that I've seen 10 wins. I can thank teams like Atlanta (0-3) and Washington (2-2) for their contributions to this losing season. The Phillies (3-0) were much easier for me, to the point where I am now on a 9-game winning streak against Philadelphia. Far as milestones, yes, I'd mentioned that today was my 400th game (this does not include Postseason games). This season, I saw the Mets win two extra inning games on Walkoff Home Runs, I saw them score 12 runs in an inning and 17 runs in a game, both personal bests. I didn't see any one starting pitcher more than most others, the count ends up with Harvey, Syndergaard and Matz 4 times each, Colon 3 times, deGrom twice, and Montero, Verrett, Lugo and Gsellman once.

Now, as I keep saying...when am I back? Will it be October 5th? Will it be October 10th? It could be April 3rd, 2017 for all I know. But it will be at some point. Stay tuned.

Not Just Me?

I guess it's not just me that has a thing with the Braves this season. Though my record in Mets/Braves games this season is done at 0-3, I feel like that's the record of most Mets fans against the Braves this year. The Braves have already lost 90 games this season, the Mets have 80 wins and sit at the top of the Wildcard race, and yet when these two teams have met, the Braves have had the upper hand basically every time out, and especially at Citi Field. The Mets won 2 of 3 against the Braves here in April, and they haven't beaten the Braves here since.

Tuesday night was a bit more of a jarring loss than Monday, which was a debacle from the get-go. The Mets had a lead early against Julio Teheran, who they never seem to hit, but the Braves tied it after the Mets abandoned fundamentals in the 6th inning, and then put the game effectively out of reach in the 7th when Adonis Garcia hit a 3-run Home Run off of Jerry Blevins, who for some bizarre reason was left in to face the righty who's killed the Mets on multiple occasions.

The Mets rallied gamely late, but could get no closer than 5-4, and sure, you can take the moral victory of this being the first time the Mets have scored more than 3 runs in a game in a week, but it didn't do them a damn bit of good. They had Yoenis Cespedes up with a chance to win the game in the last of the 9th, but he got frozen by a Jim Johnson curveball, struck out, and the Mets ended up once again falling to the Braves.

I know there's a whole shitstorm over Terry Collins hitting for Jay Bruce in the 8th inning but let's be serious here. That's scenery. It's backstory. It's not important. There's a lot of eerie symbolism at work here between a series of curious managerial moves, and stagnating in the crisis point of a pennant race, and running out of logical things to say.

One more chance to get this right.

Done With You, Finally

The Mets finished out their season series with the Washington Nationals yesterday in one of those weird 4pm games, where the field is half-bathed in shadows and Pitchers tend to have an easy time of things. Not surprisingly, the final score of the game was 1-0. Unfortunately, it was the Nationals who came up with the 1, thanks to a Home Run by Fire Hydrant Head, of course, off of Fernando Salas in the last of the 7th inning.

There is, like many games I had no opportunity to see, not much to say about the game itself, so instead I have to think larger picture here. The Mets lost two of three in this series, which isn't great, but also hasn't been ruinous to their chances, because it seems like every time they lose, the Cardinals and Giants also lose, and when they win, both of them also win, and so the Mets now head into their final homestand of the year half a game ahead of the Cardinals for the 2nd Wildcard, and half a game behind the Giants for the 1st Wildcard.

That the Mets remain in this heated position of contention given everything that's gone on is amazing in and of itself and of course it makes you think what if all these guys were healthy, but then again, the Mets may get some of their wounded back shortly, as I keep hearing bandied about. That being said, it's one thing to have these guys back, but they need to come back and be effective. Robert Gsellman on Wednesday was effective. Seth Lugo has been effective. Rafael Montero...not so much.

There's 16 games left in the season now, and the Mets will have 10 of them at home and none of them against a team with a +.500 record. The Mets are absolutely battered and look nothing like the team that took the field all the way back in April. If they can pull this off, it's going to be a minor miracle, but I'm hard-pressed to see how this translates in the Postseason. They'll probably have to take on 1 game against Madison Bumgarner or some similarly intimidating pitcher for the entire season, and of course if they parse their way through that, they face America's Darlings, the Cubs, in the NLDS. That, of course, is a whole other beast and I'd rather not go too much into that unless I have to.

Of larger import, the Mets are done with Washington, done with Daniel Murphy for the regular season. The Mets were 7-12 for their 19 games (all 19 of which involved a hit from Murphy), which actually is better than I thought it was, but still not especially great. It's certainly better than when Washington used to annihilate the Mets to the tune of 4-15, but not as great as last year, when the Mets went 11-8, and 6-0 when the games really counted. It's also been enough to give Washington a rather insurmountable lead in the division and more than likely the 2nd best record in the NL going into the Postseason. But that's not our issue at this point. I'm just glad I don't have to think about them anymore for this year. I think...

History For History

This weekend, of course, marks the final series the Mets will ever play in Turner Field, and I know there's some blithe sentimentality, and I'm being kind by calling it that, about these last three games. Most Mets fans have few to no good memories of the Mets playing in Turner Field; the meager games they did win there over the past 20 years seem paltry compared to the irritating, frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking or soul-crushing losses the Mets have suffered there. So, then, may I say that I'm happy to see Turner Field go and glad that the Mets will never have to play there again after this weekend.

All that being said, though the past can't be undone, the Mets could if nothing else do their part to shovel some dirt on the grave of this unrepentant Hell Hole by taking out the Barves a few more times and further entrench themselves in the middle of this Wildcard chase. Coming into Friday's game, the Mets had 22 games remaining and for the first time since who can remember they actually began the day in a pole position for the Playoffs if the season ended right now. But I just said there were 22 games left so whether or not they qualify on September 9th doesn't amount to a hill of beans. It's not quite Idiot Time just yet but if the Mets regressed into Idiot mode here against a team they've had a particularly annoying hard time with all season, well, wouldn't that be a fitting end to Turner Field.

Fortunately, the Mets didn't succumb to Turner Field, although for a while things didn't look especially good. We, as fans, have simply become conditioned to bad things happening in Atlanta (I demand actual proof that the Mets have won 65 games there—€”as far as I know, the Mets' record is 20-150, and one of those games was the McKay Christensen game so it really shouldn't count) and for most of this game it played that way. The Mets didn't hit Julio Teheran, who remains a Brave despite any common logic dictating that he should have been traded months ago. Robert Gsellman had his first legitimately "Blah" outing, giving up 4 runs and slogging through a miserable 3-run 5th inning where he was essentially Dansby Swanson-ed to death. Basically, this was another night in Atlanta. The Mets were dazed and on the wrong end of a 4-0 score, facing a pitcher they generally don't hit.

Then, in the 6th they hit him. Or, at least, Yoenis Cespedes hit him in the literal sense, with a shot off his shoulder, and then Curtis Granderson hit him in the Baseball sense by hitting a 2-run Home Run to bring the Mets to within 4-2. In the last of the 6th, Jim Henderson appeared primed to hand those runs back, as he got Swanson'ed as well and departed in a 1st and 3rd, no out mess and was later seen screaming and slamming his glove around. Josh Smoker, who's been kind of the stealth bomber out of the Mets bullpen in recent weeks, then came in, and rather quickly undid the damage, getting A.J. Pierzynski to strike out and then Ender Inciarte to hit into a Double Play, and punctuated the inning with one of his pirouette fist pumps. However he chose to celebrate is immaterial to me, so long as he gets the job done, and lately he's been doing that regularly.

Of greater import of course was that Smoker kept the score 4-2 and in the 8th, the Mets finally had one of their rallies. Mauricio Cabrera, who reeks of "September Callup," came in, and immediately Keith and Gary started talking about how he regularly throws 100+, which is impressive, but in this day and age, just throwing 100+ does not a successful relief pitcher make. Because although Cabrera threw 100+ plenty of times to the Mets, he wasn't fooling anyone. First, he walked Alejandro De Aza. He got Jose Reyes to hit a ground ball, but instead of the Mets getting Swanson'ed, Dansby Swanson'ed himself, booting the ball for an error. Asdrubal Cabrera walked. So, basically, Cabrera had 100+'ed himself into a giant hole, bases loaded, no out and Cespedes coming up. And, well, at this point you were thinking that Cespedes was either going to hit one to the new Barves stadium in Cobb County, or hit into a Double Play. He came closer to the former, but his fly ball was caught. Irregardless, it was a productive enough fly to score De Aza and move Reyes to 3rd. Granderson followed by corkscrewing a blooper into shallow Left that Matt Kemp did not catch, allowing Reyes to score and Asdrubal to move to 3rd. And then Kelly Johnson delivered the coup de grace, the RBI double to give the Mets a 5-4 lead, because that's what Kelly Johnson has been doing ever since he came back to the Mets. By this point, Cabrera had now covered himself in 100+ of mud and he capped his night by hitting Michael Conforto with the bases loaded to force home another run.

The Mets then had to get themselves through the rest of the night without incident, which is easier said than done in Atlanta. Addison Reed got Swanson'ed in the 8th, but was bailed out by a fine pair of fielding plays by, of all people, Eric Campbell at 1st, and, of course, when that starts happening, you're living a charmed life. Jeurys Familia also had kind of a hairy 9th, giving up a double to Adonis Garcia in front of Freddie Freeman, who of course handed Familia the Grey Poupon last season, but this time, Familia struck out Freeman, got around Nick Markakis and struck out Tyler Flowers to finish off this 6-4 victory, the Mets 6th win in a row.

6 wins!? There was a point in time, not long ago, where I thought the Mets might be hard-pressed to win 6 games for the remainder of the season. But, now, here they are, still tied for the 2nd Wildcard (or are they ahead of the Cardinals? I forget), half a game out of the 1st Wildcard, and now they've got all of us keyed up and in Pennant Race mode. Sure, it feels more fun this time around, perhaps because it didn't seem like there would be a Pennant Race this year. But I think I like the easy coast to the finish more. Just saying.