12:24am Lightning

Were I still living at home, last night was the kind of game that I would have arrived back at my Father's house to him laughing his ass off at the folly of my sitting out at Shea Stadium for over 5 hours. Even now that I don't live at home, there is still quite a bit of folly to these ridiculous extra-inning games. 

For whatever reason, I seem to have the magic 13-inning touch when it comes to Mets/Diamondbacks affairs. Monday was the 5th time I've attended a 13-inning game, and 3 of those 5 have come against the Diamondbacks. The last one, back in 2008, was well-documented here. The first, in 2006, was a particular classic. Last night was a little gem in its own right, particularly given the way the game played out.  

I've been more and more skeptical about going to these games of late, particularly given the Mets struggles at home and the general banality of the games I've attended this season (except when Matt Harvey was pitching). I didn't particularly relish the opportunity to see this Shaun Marcum/Wade Miley pitching matchup one day after I was out at Citi Field to see the Mets get pummeled so badly that I couldn't stomach to sit around for the bitter ending. 

It appeared that many people agreed with me. After a crowd of 33,000 showed up on Sunday, it appeared that there were barely 10,000 out on Monday night. The weather, miserable all day, might have been a factor. Who knows. At any rate, it appeared there were so few people out, that you could actually hear the sounds of the game and the shouts of the crowd quite clearly. 

Often, in games like this, I have the tendency to sit there, dutifully keeping score as I always do, and lose myself in thoughts of how I might describe this game for you loyal readers. After an inning, I'd figured I had my storyline: Shaun Marcum, who generally seems to look like he's not enjoying himself, looked particularly uncomfortable out on the mound tonight. He kept flexing his arms and kicking at the dirt on the mound, like something just wasn't right. He hit Aaron Hill on a 2-strike pitch, and then threw to first a few times, before again stalling to kick some more dirt. I could tell that this wasn't going to end well, and I was right, because his next pitch to Mount Rushmore-like 1st Baseman Paul Goldschmidt was launched in the general direction of the Whitestone Bridge for a 2-run Home Run. In response, the Mets started off against Wade Miley with Eric Young, Jr working a walk and immediately getting picked off so badly that he didn't even react to Miley's attempt, instead standing there before making a feeble attempt to run away from Goldschmidt. The Mets then loaded the bases on 2 hits and a walk, setting everything up for John Buck to strike out. This, I figured, would be the game right there. The Mets served it up, missed their chance to respond, and Miley was set to throw a 5-hit shutout. 

The 2nd inning proved more of the same. Marcum, who continued to work at an excruciatingly slow pace, pawed at the dirt some more before giving up a 2-out RBI hit, while the Mets again got men on base and left them there. A long, losing night appeared imminent, but to his credit, Marcum eventually settled down and in spite of the fact that he was apparently dealing with a shoulder problem, gutted it out for 6 innings and kept the game at 3-0.  Unfortunately, the Mets continued to get hits off of Miley, only to fail to break through each time. Thus, I figured, the highlight of the game would have been in the 4th inning, when the sky turned a magnificent shade of pink, bathing Citi Field in such a striking shade of light that you could have shut off the stadium lights and kept playing. 

I knew the Mets would probably rue their missed chances as the game continued, particularly when they finally started to break through against a succession of Arizona relievers. In the 7th, the Mets finally broke through when Eric Young, Jr, who was one of several Mets who was on base all night, drew a walk, moved up on a Daniel Murphy groundout and scored on a key hit from the one guy who's usually good for those, David Wright. Marlon Byrd followed with a flare hit, setting up the Mets for more. But, Kirk Gibson, who seemed to be treating pitching changes as though they were some sort of psychological gamesmanship, went to the mound, removed Brad Ziegler and replaced him with old friend Heath Bell. Bell promptly got Satin to hit into a Fielder's Choice before getting Buck to pop out, a small victory in its own right because to that point, Buck hadn't even made contact. 

The 8th inning brought more baserunners for the Mets. Omar Quintanilla hit a gapper with one out that Gerardo Parra appeared to catch, and the groan from the crowd was palpable. But Parra subsequently face-planted into the warning track and when it became obvious that the ball was resting comfortably on the ground, there was an immediate roar of approval. Quintanilla motored all the way around to 3rd, while Parra lay on the ground, which immediately drew some concern. It's tough to tell, at least from my perch in section 512, what happened exactly, but it didn't look good, particularly given the length of time Parra spent on the ground. But after a lengthy delay, Parra did get up and walk off. It appeared another squandered opportunity for the Mets when Valdespin popped out, but Eric Young salvaged the inning with an RBI double, and moved to 3rd on a Wild Pitch. There he stayed when Daniel Murphy flew out. 

So, the Mets had chipped away enough to make a 3-run game into a 1-run game, and maybe they had built up enough of a groundswell to get one more run across against another old friend, J.J. Putz in the 9th. Hopefully, 2 more runs, so we could all get out of there, since the game had stretched well over 3 hours. Marlon Byrd, another Met who spent most of the night getting on base, very nearly tied the game on his own, but his drive to left landed mere inches shy of a Home Run. Or was it? Terry Collins came out to challenge it, and why the hell not? What's a few more minutes? Plus, at worst, there's still a runner on 2nd. The umpires upheld the double, so Byrd stayed put. It would take at least one more hit. Josh Satin, who's surprised everyone with his performance of late, followed with a flare hit into left. This resulted in one of those moments where everything seems to slow down, as Byrd dashed for home, just as the throw was coming in to the plate. It appeared Byrd was dead to rights, and this game would end with the Mets a dollar short once again. But, somehow, the ball shorthopped the plate and Miguel Montero couldn't handle it. And even if he did, his tag on Byrd was late. Byrd scored to tie the game. The Mets were now in prime position to steal a victory, particularly after John Buck walked. But after a Lagares fly out, Buck, who couldn't catch a break, got thrown out trying to move up on a passed ball. 

So, after the Mets had bumbled their way through much of the evening, they managed to scrape out 3 runs and earn themselves extra innings, as the game rocketed towards 4 hours and beyond. The crowd, thin to begin with, was now dwindling down to a few hearty souls who probably either could survive on little sleep or just didn't have to be up early in the morning. I took this opportunity to move down, into the 400 level, as Bobby Parnell came in for the 10th. As Carlos Torres and LaTroy Hawkins had done before him, Parnell stopped the D'Backs cold. So, the Mets had yet another chance to keep this momentum going. 

Chaz Roe kicked off the bottom of the 10th by giving up a hit to Omar Quintanilla. Quintanilla scooted up a base on a pair of ground outs, but got no further. Parnell repeated himself in the 11th, including netting a strikeout of Roe, who I'd automatically assumed would be pinch hit for and even went so far as to write in his line in my scorecard. But, noooo. Roe handed the Mets even more baserunners in the 11th, walking Wright, intentionally walking Buck (which was sort of silly considering how poor he'd looked at the plate), and then unintentionally walking Anthony Recker. The sight of Anthony Recker confirmed a mild fear of mine; that the Mets had run out of players. But, with a golden opportunity to finish things off, here was Gibson again, interrupting things with a 2-out pitching change, pulling Roe for Tony Sipp, his 7th pitcher of the night, two more than the Mets scorecard allows space for. I was now reduced to writing in margins, which meant things were starting to get out of hand. Quintanilla hit a shot. Unfortunately, it was right at Goldschmidt. 3 more runners left on base for the Mets, 4 and a half hours in the books, and more game to be played.

David Aardsma entered for the Mets in the 12th. With the bench now bereft of position players, I began to think about what the plan was going forward. The Mets now only had Scott Rice and Brandon Lyon left in the bullpen. Rice had pitched about a week in a row and needed a day off. Lyon was coming off getting embarrassed by Washington, so nobody was blaming Collins for staying away. If they needed a starter, their most likely candidate to eat innings, Shaun Marcum, wasn't available because he'd started the game, though that was long enough ago that one couldn't be blamed for forgetting that. Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler certainly weren't options. Jeremy Hefner was scheduled for Tuesday. Bottom line was, hopefully this was all unnecessary thinking. Aardsma did his job in the 12th, and the bottom half of the inning mirrored several others, as Young got a hit, Gibson changed pitchers with 2 out, and the Mets didn't score.

Cody Ross, a Marlins reject who nobody likes, led off the 13th with a Home Run off Aardsma and styled as he did it. Of Course he did. Of course, after 5 hours and 13 innings and 33 runners left on base, that's how it's going to go down. Another stupid night with the stupid Mets. 

But for as stupid as the Mets often looked in this game, they somehow managed to wise up at the right moment. Or maybe Kirk Gibson just got stupid himself after sitting through this mess of a game. With one out, Josh Satin nailed a double to right, his 2nd double and 3rd hit of the game, and his second 3-hit game in a row. Think about this for a second. Josh Satin has had two cups of coffee with the Mets over the past two seasons and did nothing in particular other than being an honorable Landsman and have bushy eyebrows. But, here he is, getting a chance to play because his fellow Landsman, Ike Davis, stunk for 2 months, and all of a sudden he's hitting .380. Where did this come from? He's looked so good at the plate recently that when he was up in the 9th, I actually felt confident that he'd come through. And here in the 13th, he did it again. Kirk Gibson then ordered John Buck intentionally walked. Again, think about this for a second. John Buck struck out each of his first 3 at bats, and looked progressively more and more clueless each time. After his hot start, he's fallen back to earth and I believe he went 3-for-June. And yet not only did Gibson order him intentionally walked in the 11th, he did it again in the 13th, when Buck was the potential winning run! 

The logic, I suppose, was that the pitcher's spot was up next, and the Mets were out of players. The Mets do, however, have one pitcher who can handle the bat rather well, and that would be Matt Harvey. Harvey, who draws a fanfare at the mere mention of his name these days, was now called upon in an unscheduled appearance to lay down a bunt. This in and of itself was controversial, since Collins was giving away an out, but realistically, as good as Harvey looks at the plate, he still hits like a pitcher. A ground ball at someone would have been certain disaster. The safe play was the sacrifice, which Harvey laid down with ease, and allowed Gibson to order yet another intentional walk to Omar Quintanilla. The strategy behind this, I'm again not quite sure. At this late hour, I was only able to come up with one of two reasons: 1) Gibson didn't have a pitcher warming up. Every time the Mets had two outs and men on base, and were ready to go in for the kill, Gibson broke up the rhythm with a pitching change. 2) Gibson really wanted the Mets to set a record for leaving men on base. Whatever the reason, it ended up not working, because Andrew Brown, after falling behind 0-2, got a hold of a high fastball and shot it into the gap in Left Field, scoring Satin and Buck to win the game and earn himself a sunflower seed shower in lieu of the Justin Turner pie. 

Of course, it was Andrew Brown with the winning hit. 2 weeks ago, I had derided Brown as a useless placeholder who wouldn't be around by this point. So, since that point, all Andrew Brown has done is come up with meaningful hits, and none quite as meaningful as this one, at 12:24am, after 5 hours and 13 minutes and 13 innings and 13 pitchers in soupy conditions and mysterious managerial moves,  so that the Mets could peck and scrape and claw and eventually be rewarded with a 5-4 win that defied all logic. Sometimes, you win games like this.

This was not the longest game I had attended in terms of innings, as I do have 4 14-inning games on my ledger. However, it did end up being my longest in elapsed time, and believe me, I felt every bit of those 5 hours and 13 minutes this morning. I'm always happy to see the Mets win, particularly since I'd been working on a miserable 4-game losing streak. But as I've gotten older, I think I'm beginning to appreciate the quicker, 2 hour, 40 minute games much more than these marathons. I'm all for good drama and good stories, but all things considered, this was slightly ridiculous.

Of Course He Did!

After a tough loss last night, the Mets responded by throwing what has, to this point, been the weakest link in their rotation at the White Sox in Shaun Marcum. Though not entirely his fault, Marcum hasn't found any kind of consistency or success in his short time with the Mets, and has sort of earned a place in everyone's doghouse, primarily because he doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the team concept (whatever that is). Though he certainly earned some acclaim for his time in Toronto and Milwaukee, Marcum has seemed to find disaster at every corner this year. He's taken losses in games where he pitched decently, but got no run support. He's had games where he just simply came unraveled for one inning and dug himself an insurmountable hole. He's even lost in games he didn't even start, but found himself eating innings in an emergency situation that bordered on the heroic. The end result has always ended up with Marcum walking off the mound with this miserable puss on his face, and the losses amounted to a hideous 0-9 record and were Jonathon Niese not hurt, a likely demotion to the Bullpen.

The point is, Marcum hasn't inspired any sort of confidence to this point this season, so, of course, when everyone expected the absolute worst, and with the ignominy of being the first pitcher to start a season 0-10 staring him in the face, Marcum went out and threw 8 shutout innings at the White Sox, and the Mets responded with a 3-run rally to back him up and ultimately get him off the schneid with his first victory of the season.

An odd bit of circumstances had me listening to this game on the radio at home. This is a rarity for me, for sure, but my other half, who freelances as a makeup artist, had scheduled a session in our living room that started sometime around the 4th inning. Accommodating man that I am, and knowing that she probably would rather not work with a baseball game on in the background, I shut off the TV and went in the bedroom, where there is no TV, but there is a radio and an Air Conditioner. So, I listened to the game and cooled off, and in the shuffle of things I manged to miss the Mets 3-run rally in the 5th. I then distracted myself with some documentaries about strange, forgotten New York Neighborhoods, while Marcum continued to mow the White Sox down. Then, of course, I fell asleep, which I wasn't planning on, and was only awakened by Howie Rose yelling "Put it in the Books!"

So, what I was able to grok from the recap and the postgame show is that Marcum was quite efficient tonight, and did so in such mundane fashion that he not only bored me into some alternate forms of entertainment, he also lulled me to sleep. But, if that's what it takes for him to win a game, I suppose I shouldn't complain.

Addition By Subtraction

Following the enthusiasm generated by what is now being referred to in Mets circles as "Super Tuesday," the Mets went back out on Wednesday and looked like the same old annoying Mets.

Tuesday's pair of wins were punctuated by a number of roster moves, designed to get rid of a lot of the flotsam that hadn't proved useful at all to this point. Gone was Collin McHugh, who nobody will miss. After being designated for assignment on Sunday, McHugh was traded away altogether, gone to the Colorados for Eric Young, Jr. This may be because all the Colorados remember of McHugh is his ML Debut last year, but in reality, that Alderson was able to net a can of beans in return for McHugh is a victory in and of itself. McHugh had a great first game and was patently awful from there, culminating with his spending a few weeks either rotting on the bench or getting shelled by the Marlins before being deemed expendable.

Also gone was Collin Cowgill, who went from the outhouse to the doghouse pretty quickly. After his Grand Slam on Opening Day, Cowgill basically didn't hit anything to the point where he was sent to AAA. After a few middling weeks in Las Vegas, Cowgill returned and showed that his time in the minors made little impression, since he still couldn't hit. Unfortunately, the Mets already have a full stash of Outfielders who can't hit, so Cowgill was similarly designated for assignment, where he will either be sent back to the minors for the duration or released outright, remembered fondly if only for that Grand Slam. Andrew Brown replaces Cowgill, although I can't imagine this is anything more than a temporary move to have a warm body around, since Brown, like Cowgill, was already here and didn't impress anyone. I figure he will stick around for a week or two before the Mets finally decide they've had enough of him too, and move on to Plan Q (whatever that is).

Scott Atchison, who up to yesterday was only known as the oldest-looking Met in team history, was placed on the DL after not actually throwing a pitch since being removed from the DL. Atchison was set to start the 7th inning of the nightcap before coming up with a groin pull, and was last seen grousing and grumbling as he was led off the field. Had there not been a baseball game going on, one might have seen that scene and assumed he'd misplaced his bifocals somewhere. Replacing him, I'm not quite sure yet because I didn't bother do to my due diligence. Rest assured he will probably do something to draw my ire at some point, since this is a prerequisite for being a Met relief pitcher.

Shaun Marcum is still around, however, and the fact that he has tenure and a contract may be the only thing working in his favor right now. Wednesday night's start against the Braves was pretty similar to several of his other starts, in which he somehow allowed a 2-out rally to snowball into multiple runs, gave up a boatload of hits, looked sweaty and uncomfortable and took another loss, falling to 0-9 on the season, which is almost unconscionable for a pitcher of some reasonable acclaim. With Zack Wheeler now in the fold and immediately one of the top 3 pitchers on the staff (anointing him this status really isn't so much of a stretch), Marcum is on thin ice once the Mets finally wise up and drop this asinine 6-man rotation idea. Jeremy Hefner is as well, and since Hefner has relieved and is similarly inconsistent without Marcum's service time, he is, perhaps, the odd man out. I won't argue, but in his defense, Hefner has pitched better than Marcum a majority of the time, and even has a win to show for it. Though when he's bad, he may also be worse than Marcum. Dillon Gee has righted his ship and removed his name from any such jeopardy.

Point is, the wheels are in motion. It's too late to save this season, but everyone still wants to do the best they can and spout cliches win ballgames. The dispensation of McHugh and Cowgill are a nice start in the right direction of clearing out some of the crap and giving some new faces a chance. They may not be better than the guys they're replacing, but to this point they can't possibly be much worse.

Jaws Of Defeat

The Mets and Cubs played 27 innings over the weekend (paltry compared to the 30 the Mets and Marlins played over two games last weekend), and for 26 and a half of those innings, the Mets appeared as they have pretty much every day for the past month: lifeless, directionless and hopeless.

Friday, Shaun Marcum put them in a hole ostensibly by stepping on the mound, giving up 5 runs before the Mets took the field and left them unable to respond, as they usually have been unable to, in a 6-3 loss.

Saturday, Jonathon Niese did just about everything that could have logically been expected of him, giving up only 2 runs, but, again, the Mets didn't back him up, and by the time Brandon Lyon barfed up 3 more runs, the game was basically out of reach, as Scott Feldman pretty much served as a one-man wrecking crew in yet another 5-2 loss.

Sunday, it was more of the same. Matt Garza basically bullied the Mets, although they didn't need his assistance since they did a pretty good job of looking skittish on their own. After Jeremy Hefner gave up a run in the first, the Mets decided to stage their own version of the Stateroom Scene in the 5th inning, making a perfectly Metsian 3 errors on one play (but only charged with two), allowing the Cubs a pair of runs that basically put the game out of reach, because the Mets have basically proved themselves incapable of scoring more than 3 runs in a situation where 3 runs would make a difference. Matt Garza threw at Mets batters at will, Mets pitchers offered nothing in the way of a response, and the Mets were staring at going 1-7 on a homestand that saw them lose in just about every way conceivable, from the humdrum to the excruciating, to the comical. The season continued to spiral out of control, with no hope and no help to be found.

I don't think I or anyone else has any logical explanation, then, to the results of the final half of that 27th inning. Though, I don't think anyone on or rooting for the Mets has any complaints, either.

The Cubs decided, for whatever reason, to use deposed closer Carlos Marmol as opposed to their regular closer Kevin Gregg, I suppose because Gregg had pitched two days in a row. Perhaps Dale Sveum was thinking that that the Mets hadn't hit any other pitcher, maybe it would serve Marmol good to give him an inning against the Mets. What damage could they do?

Perhaps the real question should have been what damage could Marmol do, because he basically gave the Mets life, and ultimately allowed them to steal a victory out of nowhere. Of course, the Mets still had to go out there and hit the ball. I was skeptical, particularly since they hadn't been able to do that very much to that point. Even after Marlon Byrd's Home Run, I figured that was only nice from the cosmetic standpoint of they won't get shut out. Lucas Duda walked and John Buck singled, which made it slightly more interesting, but I still wasn't allowing myself to be fooled. Quintanilla sacrificed, which meant that the stage was set for a pair of guys who hadn't inspired much confidence in anyone, being Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Collin Cowgill. Nieuwenhuis, after a great first month in the Majors last year, hadn't done anything noteworthy except for striking out a lot and picking up a season-ending injury in AAA last year. I didn't see either him or Cowgill getting the job done. But Nieuwenhuis shut me, Dale Sveum and pretty much everyone else up by launching a 3-run Home Run off the Pepsi Porch. The quintessential "Holy Shit!" moment, because who the hell thought Nieuwenhuis was going to do that? But somehow, he ran into a Marmol slider at the right moment and somehow hit it out, snatching victory from the Jaws of Defeat that appeared ready to swallow the Mets whole and spit out the bones.

This probably won't save the season and I'm pretty sure it won't spur the Mets on to a hot streak, but it might. Victories like this can juice up a team a little bit, although so can beating the Yankees 4 in a row and that didn't do anyone any good. But the Mets are off on a 11-game, 4 city road trip now and this, plus the added juice of Zack Wheeler's debut on Tuesday might actually give the Mets a little spring in their step for the next day or two. Of course, this could all go the other way if they fall on their face tonight in Atlanty.

This Crap Again?!

Man, talk about the highs of winning and the lows of losing. After reaching the apex of their season this week by sweeping the Subway Series from the Yankees, the Mets went down to Miami to play the horrible Mickey Mouse Marlins and apparently turned back into a pumpkin en route, because their display tonight was pretty much indistinguishable from every other performance they had from about April 20th through last Sunday. No offense, no hope.

I know that Keith and Gary were talking about maybe the long plane ride after the late finish of last nights' game taking the wind out of their sails, but let's be realistic here. The Mets are playing the Marlins. The Marlins right now are drawing comparisons to the 1962 Mets for utter ineptitude and hopelessness. If such a thing is possible as to have looked worse than the Mets this season, the Marlins have done it, and done it in spades. And yet, for reasons I'm clearly just not meant to understand, the Mets turn into complete assholes every time they see the Marlins. The Marlins have a winning record against one team this season: The Mets, with 4 wins in 7 games. And these aren't just wins, these are usually exercises in torture.

Tonight, it was Jacob Turner who did it to the Mets. Remember Jacob Turner? Yeah, neither do I. But here he was, making his season's debut and sticking the bats up the Mets asses. Shaun Marcum actually held the line just fine, at least until he didn't in the 7th inning, when his luck ran out and he had a Jon Niese inning, where the Marlins get one solid hit and then 4 dying quails, and the whole thing snowballs out of control and 1 run is all of a sudden 4 runs, and the game is out of reach.

Conveniently, Marcum had a Jon Niese inning tonight, because the bitch of all of this is that Niese is missing his start tomorrow. Instead, the Mets will try to break this Marlins hex with Collin McHugh, who was last seen putting forth the kind of performances that make Jeremy Hefner look good. The Marlins will counter with Jose Fernandez, who might be the only reason a Marlins fan might pay attention at all. This doesn't bode well for the Mets. You know, I was really starting to believe that the Mets might be past this. Even though they weren't hitting a ton against the Yankees, they were hitting enough, and if they were hitting enough against the Yankees, why, then, do they go back in the tank against the awful Marlins? This should have been a springboard. Think about it. Yankees/Marlins, Marlins/Yankees...Does not compute.

No Cigar

Monday night's game against the Cincinnati Reds was my 8th of the year, and the second in a row in which I only went to the game simply because I had the tickets. Once again, I wasn't particularly aggressive in finding someone to take my extra ticket, primarily because I didn't exactly remember I'd had these tickets until last Friday, and so I was stuck with an extra ticket. Fortuitously, the Reds appear to be somewhat of a draw for whatever reason, and I was able to find some hearty soul outside the subway who was looking for a ticket. This has happened to me before. Usually, if there's one person looking for a ticket, it's probably someone who is trying to get in and meet someone else, so at least I don't have to sit and feign discussion with someone I don't know. Particularly if they're not a Mets fan.

I don't especially mind going to games by myself. Citi Field (and Shea Stadium, in its time) is a bit of a sanctuary for me, so going by myself and drinking in a nice ballgame on a pleasant night is just fine by me, whether someone comes with me or not. But I usually have to hustle a little bit to make it on time; I leave work at 6 and with a 7:10 start time and two trains to take, I try not to waste any time getting out there. Usually it takes about 40 minutes to get there. But today, I just wasn't moving with my normal sense of urgency. Sure, I left work at 6, but there wasn't really the same spring in my step there usually is. Even when I got out there and battled my way through an abnormally long security checkpoint, I didn't really feel like I had to rush, lest I miss the ceremonial first nose picking or whatnot. See, I know when I'm heading into a bad situation. The Cincinnati Reds were my preseason pick to win the National League Pennant and go to the World Series. The Mets have been terrible, and really haven't shown any signs of being anything otherwise except when Matt Harvey pitches. Monday night, Matt Harvey was not pitching. Shaun Marcum was pitching, and the last time I saw Shaun Marcum pitch, he was, to put it kindly, awful. This just didn't seem like the kind of game I really had to rush to catch every minute of.

Though the end result wasn't as bad as I might have thought, my pregame premonition was pretty much on point. Shaun Marcum had a miserable first inning, which was partially due cause of a Joey Votto hit that a) Bounced off 1st Base before Ike Davis could field it and b) put Ike Davis in position for Joey Votto to clip him passing 1st base and draw a bit of a cheap interference call. This set off a chain reaction of events that led to 3 Reds Runs and Shaun Marcum looking like he was about to unravel into utter Jeremy Hefnerness (and while we're on the subject of comparing Marcum to some awful Mets Pitchers, how about the fact that Marcum works at a pace that rivals Steve Trachsel. Whether there's a runner on base or not, he just works at a miserably slow pace, so much so that by time he departed after 6 innings, the game was nearing 2 and a half hours long and ultimately ended at a horrendous 3 hours, 22 minutes). But oddly, after slogging his way through that first inning, Marcum settled down and actually retired 10 batters in a row at one point, and later worked his way out of a Daniel Murphy-induced jam in the 5th.

Meanwhile, Johnny Cueto, who I suppose fancies himself a Luis Tiant-type, did pretty much everything he could to hand the lead back to the Mets. But, fortunately for him, he was facing the Mets and so although he walked 2 and loaded the bases in the 1st, he only managed to bring up Ike Davis, who Josh Thole'd to get Cueto out of the jam. He walked another in the 2nd and in the 3rd, he again allowed 2 men on base. But there's only so many times you can walk that kind of a tightrope, and finally, Marlon Byrd was able to reach Cueto for the 3-run Home Run that tied the game. Unfortunately for the Mets, that Home Run appeared to be the shock to the system that Cueto needed, since he pretty much went on lockdown from there.

Byrd's Home Run actually kind of picked up my spirits a little bit and got me thinking maybe the Mets might shock me and win the game. Even after Jay Bruce's lightning-like Home Run in the 6th, I figured the Mets might pluck their way through the game and scrape across another run somewhere. But I was mistaken. A succession of 5 Reds relievers combined to stop the Mets in their tracks. I guess I should have known better.

So in situations like this, I guess you have to look for the silver lining, which would be that LaTroy Hawkins, Brandon Lyon and Greg Burke all combined to keep the Reds off the board; Hawkins doing so in spite of the fact that he probably got rooked on the Brandon Phillips HBP/foul ball call, which led to both he and Terry Collins getting ejected. Mostly, I give Hawkins credit for waiting until he got out of the inning before letting Tom Hallion have it.

But, in the end, none of it amounted to anything more than another loss. My feelings were right. Ultimately, after 27 seasons and 331 games, I guess I've developed some sort of demented sixth sense about these things. But at least they kept it close.

Circle of Vultures

St. Louis is just another House of Horrors for the Mets, but then again, that's not saying much, since pretty much every place they go nowadays has become a House of Horrors. But seeing as how what generally happens when the Mets visit St. Louis is that the Cardinals basically circle around the Mets like vultures, pecking away and pecking away until there's nothing left but a corpse. Doesn't matter who's on the team, whether it's been Pujols, or Holliday, or David Eckstein, or Ratso Molina, or Alfred Molina, or Jon Jay, or John Mabry, or John Mabry, Jr., it's usually one of those annoying little "scrappy" guys who does it to the Mets.

It begs the question of why the "scrappy" guys the Cardinals get always seem to come through with clutch hits and heady plays, while the supposedly "scrappy" gamer types the Mets always get end up going the way of Collin Cowgill. But that's another question for another day, because no amount of scrap seems to be able to help the Mets right now.

The silver lining to tonight's game, if such a thing could possibly be had, would be that Shaun Marcum sort of redeemed himself after an embarrassing outing last Friday against Ye Pirates. While the Mets have primarily not hit and been sunk by their awful starting pitching on Monday and Tuesday, on Wednesday they still didn't hit, but the starting pitching amazingly kept them in the game long enough for Rick Ankiel's 7th inning Home Run to actually tie the game, instead of simply putting a couple of token runs on the board so they lose 7-2 instead of 7-0. Then again, maybe those were just token runs, because the Mets didn't sniff any more runs before or after Ankiel's HR. But I digress. Marcum actually pitched a pretty damn good game tonight, although nobody's going to remember it. It's the kind of outing the Mets have really desperately been counting on him to put forth; only now did he seem to look right enough to get the results. He still looked kind of pissy on the mound, but that may simply be how he is (I am not especially familiar with Marcum's mannerisms. All I knew of him was that he pitched reasonably well while with the Blue Jays and Brewers, had some injury problems and also had kind of a weird, boxy pitching motion). The results were there for him tonight, for the most part, until he kind of ran out of gas in the 7th inning and the bullpen coughed up the losing run on his ledger.

Of course, Marcum's outing was no match for his teammates, who currently appear as though they'd have a tough time facing an A-Ball pitcher right now. Cardinals Wunderkind Shelby Miller didn't appear especially sharp, but any time he got in trouble, the trusty Mets were there to let him off the hook. Yes, the bullpen couldn't hold his lead because Rick Ankiel ran into a fastball, but it was only a matter of pushing another run across and the Mets would be sunk. But, you know, since this is the Cardinals, the game wouldn't be complete without Ratso Molina coming up in the 8th and driving in another run, thereby removing any actual drama from the game. Not that there was much drama to begin with.

The Mets have proven themselves to be so bad it's comical. I actually thought they might be reasonably competitive this season, even if they ultimately ended up losing most of their games, but they're proving themselves to be almost Astros-level bad right now. I just can't imagine, for their own pride, that they'd want to let this happen, but perhaps the stink on the team is just too great.

Nice Grouping

It seems that 3 is the magic number for the Mets. They can only seem to muster 3 runs a game of late. Sometimes, it's good enough to get them a win. Tonight (and probably most nights), it was not.

My presence at Friday Night's game seemed a mistake from the get-go. I mean, I picked the game on my 15-game plan, so I had the tickets, but it just didn't seem like the kind of game I should have been going to. I had a rather rigorous work week, I already went to a game on Tuesday night (that turned out much better), and in the general meshugas of life, I didn't try very hard and ultimately couldn't find anyone to go to the game with me. So, there I was, out at Citi Field on a Friday night by myself. In fact, this was my 3rd Friday night game of the season. Most of you loyal readers (and many who don't read but know me well enough) know that I generally don't go to the Friday-Saturday-Sunday games very often. This year, I have. In the future, I may think better of it. In fact, I'm going to think better about a number of things when I build my future ticket plans (ie Fewer April night games, fewer weeks where I go to multiple games, etc). Though I got one very good Friday Night this season, the others I've been to have been pretty miserable as far as the game was concerned. In fact, were I not in a relationship, this would have been the kind of game that probably would have made me question my self-worth and wonder what the hell I'm doing. Games like tonight still make me wonder what the hell I'm doing, but at least I don't feel like I'm missing out on something of greater importance.

So, yes, there was a game going on, and I was there to see it, reluctant as I may have been. I knew that after witnessing probably the best single game pitching performance I'd ever seen on Tuesday, there was probably going to be a bit of a letdown. I didn't, however, think I'd witness Shaun Marcum put forth one of the more gutless performances I'd seen this side of Tom Glavine. Yes, Marcum did have 3 innings where he set down the Pirates in order, but when he didn't, the result was a complete and total meltdown. I was under the impression that Marcum was a reasonably good pitcher and he'd be a big help to the Mets rotation, but so far he's been nothing but injured and ineffective. It's hard for me to actually see his expressions from my perch in the Promenade, but I sort of got the impression Marcum wanted to be out on the mound about as much as I wanted to be at the game at that particular point in time.

The Pirates, who are building one of the more pesky teams in the league, started pinging Marcum to death in the 2nd inning. There were doubles, and hitting and running, and a big inning seemed imminent. Marcum eventually became unglued enough that after hitting a guy batting .077, he reared back and kicked the mound. That ought to tell you right there where he was at. He then got in the way of a potential double play ball, where he may or may not have hurt himself. When Andrew McCutchen made it to the plate with the bases loaded, I figured the situation rife for the Grand Slam and immediate departure of Marcum. But, amazingly, McCutchen flew out, buying Marcum another 3 innings before he fell apart again in the 5th. This rally started more or less the same as the one in the 2nd, except that Garrett Jones decided it best to pick up the pace and just hit the 3-run Home Run instead (and from where I was sitting, it was unquestionably a Home Run, no replay necessary. Sorry, Joe West).

So, now down 6 runs, I knew that the 3-run-a-game-Mets were sunk, even if they were facing Shrimpy Wanda Rodriguez and his garbage pail of pitches. So all I could do was stew about it for a while. Anthony Recker came to bat in the 5th inning, and it got me to thinking about Anthony Recker, because it's something that neither I, nor probably any Mets fan, has done much of. I don't know where he came from, but he's done very little good in his time with the Mets, and seeing as how John Buck has been so good so far, Recker has barely even had a chance to play. In fact, I was sort of surprised to see him playing in this game, because he tends to only spell Buck on Sundays and random weekday afternoon games. I didn't actually think I'd ever see Recker play in a game this season. He strikes me as kind of a prettyboy Mike Nickeas type, which I suppose is fine for a backup except that his defense has failed him at some pretty glaring moments. If John Buck was supposed to be the placeholder for Travis d'Arnaud, then Recker is what exactly...Oh. How quaint. Anthony Recker hit a Home Run. Now I can add him to the list of people like Nickeas, Valentino Pascucci, Armando Reynoso, Nick Evans, Roberto Petagine and Ruben Gotay as weird, random Mets players who I have happened to see hit Home Runs in person.

The rest of the game basically fell into the blah blah blah category. By the 9th, pretty much everyone who wasn't like me had cleared out or maybe found something else at Citi Field to entertain themselves. The Mets began to stage a sort-of-cosmetic rally in the last of the 9th off of Jose Contreras who for some bizarre reason still holds a spot on a Major League roster. Jordany Valdespin added his name to the Nickeas list (although I'd think it likely that I will see more Home Runs from Valdespin in the future) and Andrew Brown, who's playing more often than he probably should be playing, extended things with an RBI single, which prompted Clint Hurdle to remove Contreras in favor of his closer, Jason Grilli. Hurdle's scouts clearly were not doing their jobs, because if they had, they would have told him that changing pitchers there wasn't necessary. The Mets had officially reached their 3-run-a-game quota, so they could stop now. Or maybe Hurdle knew and just wanted to get Grilli the cheap Save. Either way, Ruben Tejada's fly out to end the game was fait accompli, ending the game and sending me steaming off to the 7 train that I was ready to get on 2 hours prior.

Another fine night at Citi Field. But at least it's better than 2009, where I felt like leaving pretty much every game I went to before the game ever started, before the Mets usually gave up 4 runs in the 1st inning.

Bleh

Friday night was my 5th game of the season at Citi Field and my second that week. My first, on Tuesday, was a miserably cold affair with an equally miserable result.

At least the weather was nicer on Friday.

I probably should have known things weren't going to go the Mets way. I attended the game with my other half, who I met at the Apple, and we went inside and more or less made a beeline to the Pat LaFreida stand in the Promenade Level. We first had this sandwich at my final game of the year last year, and it was a bit of a talking point when we discussed going to games together this season. Suffice it to say, she might have been looking forward to the sandwich more than the game itself, so in a display of loyalty, I promised I wouldn't have one until we went to a game together this season. Of course, I nearly broke that promise on Opening Day, but the long lines and poor service that day were, perhaps, a sign that I should wait. So Friday, we had our first game of the year together and our first Pat LaFreida of the season. That being said, the stand appeared to be about as ill-prepared on Friday as it was on Opening Day, since they appeared to not have any sandwiches ready despite the game being about to start and people on line waiting.

Long story short, we got our sandwiches, but we missed the top of the first inning, and had there not been a bizarre, extended umpire illness delay, we might have missed more of the game. However, the delay did give us a chance to enjoy our meal.

This, then, was the highlight of the evening. Though Dillon Gee was gamely, Kyle Kendrick, who has been perfectly middling for years, was gamelier, and when the Phillies broke through for 4 runs in the 6th inning, the game may as well have ended right there because the Mets appeared to have forgotten the times they fed Kyle Kendrick his own Pat LaFreida sandwich. My other half also wasn't pleased; though she liked the sandwich, she complained that it was too cold out.

Saturday, we were on the road and neither heard nor saw any of the game. I had actually been operating under the assumption that the game was starting at 3:15, but when I checked my phone around 3:30, I saw that the game was already in the 7th inning, carnage complete. The Mets and Phillies no longer carries the gravitas worthy of National TV coverage, it seems. Shaun Marcum, I can't say much about, since I didn't actually see him pitch, but based on the numbers it appears he wasn't especially good, but Robert Carson, who pitched so well in emergency on Tuesday, was even worse, thus sealing another sound defeat.

Sunday was no better. I once again engrossed myself cleaning my apartment with the game in the background. Jonathon Niese appeared up to the task of matching everyone's favorite D-Bag Cole Hamels. I had some laundry running, and when I went down to put it in the dryer, the score was 1-1, with 2 out in the 7th. When I got back upstairs, Niese was gone and the score was 4-1 Phillies. That was my cue to switch over to the Knicks game. That didn't end well, either.

So, things appear to be dissolving nicely for the Mets, who now sit on a 4-game losing streak, 5 out of 6. Matt Harvey started the game they won, except that the Mets had to hit to get that win. Fortunately, Harvey is starting tomorrow when the Mets pay their first visit to Mickey Mouse Stadium. Unfortunately, the Mets still have to start everyone else before he can go again.