Brief Excitement

Generally, any time the Mets can sweep a series on the West Coast, it's cause for some degree of excitement because as a general rule, these West Coast games are just a difficult proposition. Whether it's games that start at an excessively late hour, or are played under that blazing California sunshine, or the Woody Allen chronic California sickness, the Mets just have a hard time out there. But, at least for three days, the Mets overcame it all and swept the Giants, finishing the weekend off with an 8-2 victory behind, of all people, Rafael Montero.

This was another one of those games that I only saw briefly, and by briefly, I mean out of the corner of my eye at a restaurant during the late innings. If there wasn't enough strange about a West Coast game, this series of course finished off with a 4pm Sunday start time, which can often drag out into the evening hour and as such, this game crept on close to 8pm, clocking in at a creaky 3 hours and 44 minutes.

It was already late in the game when I "saw" what was going on, and the Mets had already built a sizeable lead thanks to a pair of Home Runs from Rene Rivera, off of Matt Moore. Rafael Montero, who I believe was probably the leading cause of the length of this game, was gone, departed after making his way through 5.2 innings that were good, though I feel like they were more a product of the quality of the opponent as opposed to him actually turning the mythical corner that he's probably not capable of turning. But nonetheless he made it through those 5.2 innings allowing just one run over 104 pitches, and the offensive backing was enough to net him his first win in the Majors since 2014.

I can't get too particularly excited over this outing from Montero because, well, the Mets were playing a team that's just caved in on itself. The Mets could be accused of looking the same at many moments this season. It's probably the same reason that I can't get too excited over the Mets sweeping the Giants and "picking up some ground" on the teams they're trailing in whatever meaningful race there is here. It seems like a bit of too little, too late as far as saving the season and what's further is I can't say that we're getting any particular glimpses of the future, because it seems like those guys we're waiting on aren't even on the roster as yet. Perhaps, I guess, this is OK because if nothing else impending Free Agents playing well become more attractive to those teams that are contending and make them more likely to hand over young, cheap, talented players come the end of July. It's something worth considering.

His Turn Again

Saturday, as with many other Saturdays in the past, was one of those days where I was out and about and couldn't watch the game, which was unfortunate because I missed out on another sterling performance from Jacob deGrom, who continued his renaissance period with his 3rd consecutive start in which he threw at least 8 innings. Needless to say, the Mets have won all three, including yesterday evening's 5-2 decision.

Sometimes, when I am out and can only sporadically follow things on my phone, I sort of develop this blind hope of what's going on, and I had visions of deGrom whipping the ball around the yard and Giant hitters stepping in buckets, and Hunter Pence doing Hunter Pence-like things. I'm guessing that's more or less what happened. Wilmer Flores hit an early Home Run off of Johnny Cueto. The Giants did nothing against deGrom until the 7th, when Brandon Belt hit one of his own. Cueto departed in the 8th in favor of Sam Dyson, better known as the beleaguered former Rangers closer whose spectacular late-game implosions earned him a ticket to DFAsville. The change of scenery did not help, clearly, as the Mets quickly scored two runs to go ahead for good and then tacked on two more in the 9th to seal up the win.

I said as the Mets went on this road trip that maybe they could just have 4 days of rain and then pitch deGrom every game. It's always nice when you can look at that day's starter and know you're going to get a good performance, and that's the kind of groove deGrom is in right now. If he keeps pitching like this, I may have to start filing more petitions.

Smile Later

The Mets limped into San Francisco on Friday looking every bit like a team that was primed to fall into the abyss. They'd been swept and really kind of embarrassed by the Dodgers on the heels of once again getting their asses handed to them by Washington, 11 games under .500 and going nowhere fast, and that was before Asdrubal Cabrera opened his mouth and said he was demanding a trade.

These sort of spats tend to be antimatter to me, mostly much ado about stuffing, but in this Twitter/Blogger/Idiot Fan era everything turns into a "thing," and then you can't avoid it. So it's just another case of the "stupid metz bein stupit" as the case may be. My general feeling is that you just play the fucking game and do your best. Terry Collins I think said as much before the game in not so many words.

Friday, the Mets had the good fortune of playing a team that appears to be even worse off than they've been in the Giants, who have had injuries, inconsistency, and general hopelessness, just like the Mets, AND they're stuck in a division with three of the best teams in Baseball thus far. So while the Mets kind of feel buried, the Giants probably actually are buried for this season. And when you watched this game on Friday, well, that's how it felt.

The Giants weren't helped by a late game followed by a cross-country flight the night before and the Mets attacked Ty Blach early and often and the Giants, with most of their regulars resting, didn't fight back very much against Seth Lugo. The Mets had one of those "quietly developing" big innings in the 2nd, and I refer to it as such not because it took a while to come together but because I was cooking and not totally paying attention, so I missed Lugo's double, but did check in in time to see Yoenis Cespedes hit a Home Run, which at that point made the score 5-1, and the Mets then continued on to score two more runs in the inning, centering around Michael Conforto, who may well be pulling himself out of his June slump.

Later, the Mets would tack on more runs against the Giants Bullpen, and if you had any more questions about the Giants season, they were answered when they brought in Steven Okert and Josh Osich in succession. Point being, when you bring in interchangeable middling middle relievers with similar sounding names and they both get wrecked, you're probably having a bad season. The Mets, who at times have a hard time knocking out 5 hits in a game, came up with 20 last night and cruised to an 11-4 win. If you were keeping score (at home I don't), everyone in the starting lineup had a hit (except for Jose Reyes), and in fact 5 players had 3 hits—Cespedes, Wilmer Flores, Conforto, Lucas Duda and Cabrera, even after causing a pregame uproar.  So, I mean, maybe more guys should start demanding trades if they're going to go out and get 3 hits and score 11 runs.

Not Sorry

Wednesday afternoon was one of those "working man's specials," and as such I didn't see any of the game, so I have to subject you to one of my "less informed" summaries.

It was good until it sucked.

That seems about the best way to sum this game up. The Mets had a perfectly good opportunity to steal a win with their Plan H starter Tommy Milone, sweep the Giants and hop over the .500 mark. They slogged their way through against Matt Cain, got a Home Run from Jay Bruce, an RBI single from Milone himself, and a 3-2 lead was handed to Jeurys Familia in the 9th.

Now, of course, I only know what transpired from there on Gamecast, so I don't know just how egregious Wilmer Flores' tide-turning error actually was. But it fucked everything up good and proper. Still, Familia ought to have been game enough to get out of this. We've seen him do it before. Then again, we've seen him come completely unglued against this opponent as well. Instead of getting another ground ball, he gave up a hit to Hunter Pence to tie the game, because, well, Hunter Pence was genetically engineered to get a hit in that spot, and then he gave up a 3 run double to Christian Arroyo to torch the whole thing. Flores then, of course, came within mere feet of atoning for his sins in the bottom of the inning but it was a day late and a bounce short and instead of a sweep, the Mets fell 6-5 and now go on the road once again a game under .500.

These do happen sometimes, irritating as it may be. If the Mets weren't so undermanned right now maybe they wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place but such are the vicissitudes of Baseball. It's still irksome. I'm not sorry I missed it.

More Relevant Action

I was back at Citi Field last night to see the Mets move on from the gobble gobble turkey that is the Matt Harvey saga and cruise—cruise—to an easy 6-1 victory over the Giants on the strength of a wonderful outing by onetime Harvey undercard Zack Wheeler.

It seems rather odd that here, on May 9th, I was attending only my 4th game of this season. April seems to have been a bit of a blur and in my whisened age I've decided against going to games in April simply for the sake of going to games and ultimately freezing my ass off in hopeless situations. It wasn't exactly warm out at Citi Field for May 9th regardless. But at least the Mets won the game and got me back on in the win column. It was also the second time this season I'd been to a Zack Wheeler start, which of course means I have now seen him as many times this season as Julio Teheran.

But at any rate, I was slightly on the late side in arriving, which can happen on these Tuesday nights, and so I was on line getting food while Wheeler was carving up the top of the Giants batting order in the 1st. The Giants still have these names in their lineup that can cause some irritation (that means you, Hunter Pence), but for the most part they've played rather poorly and haven't been helped by a rash of injuries of their own. So it's not just us if that makes you feel better. Wheeler struck out the aforementioned Pence, as well as Horshoe Dunkley in the 1st, but that seemed to be a mirage; those two early Ks represented half of his ultimate total for the night. The remainder of his evening wasn't necessarily a thing of beauty, but it accomplished what it needed to. Though he still threw too many pitches too early in the game, Wheeler managed to make it through 6 very solid innings, allowing the Giants a Buster Posey Home Run, a single by opposing Pitcher Jeff Samardzija, and not much else as he picked up a well-earned win in what was probably as good a game as he's pitched this season to date.

Wheeler was helped, of course, by the fact that the Mets attacked Samardzija early and often, to the point where they'd ran out to a 4-0 lead before I'd even finished eating. Neil Walker drove in the first two runs with what was charitably scored a triple after Eduardo Nunez (duh yankee prospect) butchered a sinking line drive, and later Jose Reyes and Rene Rivera drove home runs of their own. In the second, the Mets continued their onslaught when Michael Conforto and T.J. Rivera hit back-to-back doubles to extend the lead. Rivera, who's been hitting basically everything in sight of late, had 3 hits by the 4th inning. Conforto capped off his night with a long Home Run in the 7th, and the game basically sailed home from there, on a night when for whatever reason Terry Collins managed a 5-run lead as though it were a 1-run lead and burned through Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia in the 8th and 9th innings.

The win, of course, brings the Mets back to .500, which doesn't seem like much but, again, when half the team is injured, including the two players considered to be most critical to the team's success, and when they've been written off as tired and old and skidding back to irrelevance, it's sort of a leaping off point. You can write the Mets off all you want, and continue to kick them, but as some point you need to own up to the fact that you're kicking a team that's won 8 of their last 11 playing 2nd and 3rd string guys after most of the same group roared back from the dead to run into the Wildcard game last year. So, again, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the team just yet. Even if they appear to be a total shit show off the field.

The Mets Are Falling! The Mets Are Falling!

I didn't actually see any of Monday night's game against the Giants. A work engagement had me preoccupied as things do from time to time. But, you know, after an entire day of being subjected to some of the most venomous, gloom and doom stories about Matt Harvey and the demise of the supposedly-but-never-actually-mighty Mets, I suppose most Mets fans couldn't be blamed at all if they'd decided to start showing up to Citi Field with paper bags on their heads or simply lock themselves in a closet with the lights off for the next five years. That's basically what everyone would have you believe. On a team with no leadership, no direction and an atmosphere where the inmates are running the asylum. 25 guys, 25 cabs. And yet another instance of Mets fans being sold a bill of goods and being left holding their cocks while talent and opportunity passes them by and the other team steals their thunder.

So, I mean, why even pay attention, right? If they're just going to annoy me and break my heart again...Oh. Wait. You mean they came from behind twice on Monday night, Jacob deGrom struck out 11 batters and the Mets won the game on a Neil Walker hit in the bottom of the 9th?

Someone, somewhere dropped a "That's why they play the games" last week on the Mets to prove that they were overrated. I think another "That's why they play the games" could be used now to prove that you can't count the Mets out, no matter how terrible things may seem.

Static and Silence

Sometimes, all the superstitions, and good karma, and good omens and signs that you try to build up prior to a Baseball game can be no match for the irrepressible talent of the participants in the game itself. We got a bitter taste of this first hand last night as the Mets fell to Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants 3-0, losing the Wildcard game and rather abruptly ending their season for 2016.

I've been to more than plenty Postseason games over my years with the team, but I'm not sure I'd ever been to a game quite like this. I am, generally, nervous before these games, and I know I'm not the only one. But going in to Citi Field last night, I was a different kind of nervous. Generally, it's more like the need to jump around and release energy and scream a lot. Like last season against the Dodgers. Last night...I'm not sure. It was pretty close to legitimate fear, and probably because the Mets were going into a win-or-go-home game against a guy whose raison d'être is coming up big in these kind of games.

That was the mood in the audience all night. At introductions, they were roaring. As the game progressed and Noah Syndergaard matched Bumgarner zero for zero, everyone was with it. Fans were standing and jumping from the player introductions straight through the middle of the 1st inning. Up on every 2-strike pitch. Up for entire innings. I know. I have the knots in my calves to prove it.

This was a crowd of 44,747 that literally had their assholes tighten up every time a pitch was delivered, and I mean this was legitimate. Whether it was Syndergaard or Bumgarner, each time they wound up, 44,000 sphincters collectively went SHOONK! The entire stadium would go silent to the point where you could hear Noah's heat crack into Rene Rivera's glove all the way up in Section 509, row 16.

There is no shame in how this game played out. Bumgarner's track record speaks for itself and while the Mets approach early in the game—to be aggressive and try to attack him early—was well-intentioned, in execution it ultimately spelled disaster. Bumgarner sliced through the Mets on a paltry 21 pitches through the first 3 innings, and though the Mets did what they could to wait him out from there, they'd already played into his hands.

I'm not sure I could properly put into words just how good Noah Syndergaard was in this game. You can anoint guys, and give them a persona just based on potential, but as a capper to his first full season in the Majors, I'm not sure you could throw a much better game than Syndergaard did short of going the full 9 innings. There were days I'd watched Harvey go out and pitch like he had smoke coming out of his ears, and that's how Syndergaard looked in this game. Everything was working from the 1st inning. By the 6th, he still hadn't allowed a hit, but I don't know if anyone was cognizant or even cared about that—we just wanted him to keep striking guys out and keep the Giants scoreless. Only when Denard Span singled with 2 out in the 6th did the Giants notch one in the H column, and that went nowhere as Brandon Belt's horrifically scary-looking fly ball was run down by Curtis Granderson at the Center Field fence, sending everyone into a frenzy and eliciting screams of "Endy Chavez, JR!" from me, among others.

Syndergaard ended up with 10 strikeouts against a lineup that doesn't strike out all that much, which only illustrates just how on he was...but also illustrates the fragility of Pitching in this day and age, because by time he hit the 7th inning—and cracked 100 pitches—he was out of steam, and it wasn't really up for much debate. We'd already gone through sending the guy back out there and the ensuing chaos, but there wasn't any particular good use in sending Syndergaard back out there if he was starting to tire out. Particularly when you have Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia specifically to work these innings. Reed did his job, in spite of getting hosed by Mike Winters' erratic strike zone. Familia came in for the 9th and there was no reason to think he wouldn't do his job as well...

And that, of course, is where the clock struck midnight on the Mets for 2016. The Mets normally reliable closer had a bad night where he couldn't find the plate. He left a pitch up to a 8th-place hitting journeyman. The air was sucked right out of the building. Bumgarner came back out and finished what he started. And that, my friends, was that.

These Postseason games at Citi Field have sort of turned into a total Shit Show as far as egress is concerned, but maybe that's not a bad thing. It is helpful for me, at least, and George as well, to slowly exit the stadium after a game like this, process it all, and then start to get over it. Most people, I'd like to think, used this time to do that, but I think a game like this brought out some of the best, but also some of the worst in Mets fans. Some were anointing Familia as the new Benitez. Some blamed Terry Collins for not leaving Syndergaard in, or not taking Familia out, or using Eric Campbell and Ty Kelly as pinch hitters in the 8th inning. Or because they stepped in gum. Or Yoenis Cespedes for not hitting. Or whatever. I can understand that just making it to this Postseason Arena is enough to make you greedy, because if the Mets could overcome what they had to overcome just to get to this point, well, hell, let's see how far we can go. Especially on the heels of 2015. It makes it very easy to lose the perspective of just how miraculous it was to get her altogether. If 2015 was amazing because the team had a young core that gelled really quickly and sort of overachieved, I think 2016 is just as amazing because all the young core guys (and several other not-so-young guys) got hurt and the team basically had to rebuild itself on the fly...and still managed to make it to a Wildcard game. Blame blame whoever you want, everyone involved deserves some credit for keeping this thing going to this point.

But I am disappointed. By the 9th inning, I had visions of a walkoff, and pulling my hood over my head, wrinkling my face into a scowl and in my best Bill Belichick voice mutter "On to Chicago." And I was looking forward to having the opportunity to watch the Mets ruin the Cubs' Dream Season. But that's not going to happen, and that's really a shame. I know the Mets were undermanned and overmatched, but they managed to carry on.

There's ultimately a lot of pride that Mets fans should take away from a loss like this. First of all, as I said, the fact that they got to a Wildcard game in the first place is incredible given that they were trotting out 4th options in many places most games down the stretch. But these guys play, and more importantly they've now had that crucible. I said it before but the depth the Mets have developed in certain areas is pretty impressive all things considered. It's a privilege to be able to play in this Postseason arena and teams that make it every year might take this for granted, but this is only the second time the Mets have made it this far in consecutive years, and really, if you look at everything that's gone on this past season, between injuries and bad luck and more injuries, just think about what would have happened if the Mets were healthy all year. Hearsay, yes, but the way this roster is put together right now, is it so outlandish to think about 3 Postseason years in a row? Overly optimistic, perhaps, and it's very much a long way away from now, but that's how this team has been set up.

So, that's it for the Mets in 2016, about a month sooner than I would have liked. But, that's life on the Lower East Side. This year, I gave Citi Field my traditional farewell pound and said to the old joint that I'll see you again on April 3rd, 2017. When we'll start this story over. And hopefully, we'll get it right.

Fight Test

I realize I've promised Part II of my season report card but those take a long time and the Mets have a game now. So it will have to wait, win or lose.

I've been to 11 Postseason games (of which I consider a separate entity from the 400 Regular Season games I attended), 6 of which came just last year--the benefits of being a ticket plan holder--and of those 11, 4 of those had the potential to be series-ending games, and 3 of them ended actually being series-ending games. Wednesday night will be #12, and of course the first time that I'll be attending a game where one team's season is guaranteed to be over.

I find it interesting to look back on these numbers and figures and potential results of things to see if there's some sort of pattern going forward. There really isn't any that I can look at here. Especially when you consider tonight's game is, for all intents and purposes, a 1-game Series, winner take all. 

The only way to look at this game, I suppose, is the same way teams have a tendency to play out most Playoff games, which is to do everything that's absolutely necessary to win that game and then worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. In this case, I suppose it's do whatever you can and then a little bit more, because unlike losing the first game of a Division Series or Championship Series if this one slips by, it's see you next April.

But that's the fragility of the Postseason and in particular the fragility of being in a Wildcard situation. It's not like 1999 and 2000 when the Mets won the Wildcard and got to hop right in to the NLDS. Now, they have to get through the Giants and Madison Bumgarner who you might have heard has a decent track record in the Postseason. This hasn't been shoved down our throats at all. Nor has the fact that the Giants have a whole Even Year thing going.

This is mostly antimatter for me; the Mets have plenty working for them, too. For one, the team as a whole was the hottest team in Baseball over the last 6 weeks of the season, a skein that started while the Mets were playing the Giants out in San Francisco. The Mets also have their answer to Bumgarner pitching in Noah Syndergaard. True, Syndergaard doesn't have the track record of his counterpart, but it's not as though he hasn't been in this arena before.

These are two pitchers you really don't want to fuck around with. Last time Bumgarner was seen in the Postseason he was pitching 5 innings of shutout relief in the 7th game of the World Series on 2-days' rest. Syndergaard's last dance saw him buzz Alcides Escobar with a 97-MPH fastball under his chin before leading the Mets to a win. And yet, both could be had on the wrong day. The Giants had a game earlier this year where they ran him to death. The Mets ambushed Bumgarner one night in San Francisco.

The focus lies on the starting pitchers here so much so that we're not paying attention to the other players in this game. The Giants would do well to try and make contact, get on base and distract Syndergaard. The Mets best shot is to try and make Bumgarner waste a lot of pitches early in the game and get into the Giants' awful bullpen. Neither may happen. Both could happen. That's Baseball.

The only sure thing is I won't sleep much tonight and I'll be at Citi Field around 8pm to watch this all unfold.

Suck It, ESPN

The Mets have a long and storied history of being treated as a punchline whenever they appear on a Nationally Televised game. Generally, they seem to be all too happy to oblige the ridicule, as they often do stupid things, or lose in stupid fashion, and thus are branded as a general laughingstock. As such, when they do appear on these National TV games, they're generally scoffed at as the undercard to their opponent, and when the fluff-filled broadcast goes on the air, the game mostly becomes sideshow to whatever idiotic ADD-induced features the network feels they can shove in our faces. Because, you know, who cares about the game?

ESPN used to be good at covering Baseball. I know that everyone hated cranky old Joe Morgan and crotchety Jon Miller but they were legitimate, good announcers that made me feel like I was actually watching a game. Now, I have no idea who the hell is announcing the game for ESPN, but they have Aaron Boone in the booth for comedy relief and then they stuck a woman in the booth. Now, I have no problem with a woman announcer. But much like I have a strong disdain for stupid male announcers, well, you get the picture. I get the impression that she's there as a pawn in some dumb PR game.

But then again, maybe this is their trick. They want me to get so irritated by their half-assed coverage that I spend more time talking about that than I do about the game itself. If that's the case, well-played, ESPN. You've sucked me in again. Also, fuck you. That's not what I'm here for.

There was a game underneath all the crap and it was actually pretty good. See, FOX and ESPN love to kick the Mets around, I know, and most Baseball fans love to kick the Mets around too. It's my impression that everyone wants the Mets to lose. Even Dodgers fans that hate the Giants want the Mets to lose to the Giants. Hell, I'm not convinced that there aren't some Mets fans that want the Mets to lose (You know, the BACKMAN BABY crowd). But sometimes, the Mets fight back and win these games, and I find it particularly gratifying. My sense is that the networks and Joey Bagodonuts in St. Louis, and Goombah Vinnie in South Jersey, and the 4 Marlins Fans in Miami have put up so much time and effort into hating the Mets, that a Mets victory just ruined their night. Or, at least, I hope that's the case (the flipside of this is that a Marlins victory can ruin my night, but ESPN hasn't deemed the Marlins relevant enough to put on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy, and rightfully so).

At least for part of the night, though, things were going everyone else's way. While Noah Syndergaard looked like April Noah Syndergaard and efficiently mowed down the Giants, his opponent, Jeff Samardzija, was even better, and had a no-hit bid going through the middle innings. You could feel the erections forming in the pants of the announcers as Samardzija kept the Mets out of the hit column through the 5th and 6th innings. Wouldn't that be the perfect storm? Put the Mets on Sunday Night at their low water mark of the season with the intent on humiliating them, and they oblige by getting no-hit?

But the Mets refused to cooperate as the game turned to the 7th. Curtis Granderson led off the 7th with an opposite-field double that Gregor Blanco probably took a bad route to, but sucks for him. Two pitches later, not only was the no-hitter gone, but the shutout was gone and the Mets, gasp, had the lead when Yoenis Cespedes tucked a bomb of a Home Run just inside the Left Field foul pole.

So, to the abject horror of ESPN, they actually had to stoop to the Mets, and stoop to Syndergaard, who continued to shove the bats up the asses of Giants batters through the 7th and 8th, in the process allowing 2 hits and striking out 6. So, instead of brushing the Mets under the rug, they had to show some respect for Syndergaard. He made them have to do it. Good for him.

And for good measure, Syndergaard showed the kind of temperance rare for a pitcher of his age and did not feel he needed to push himself and be a hero, ostensibly removing himself from the game after 8 innings and turning the ball over to Jeurys Familia, who allowed a measly single and nothing else in finishing off a crisp, gratifying 2-0 victory.

So, yes. After all that, the Mets come away from San Francisco with a split, they've inspired a shred of optimism among Mets fans as they go into St. Louis, and, perhaps most importantly, they kicked all the haters in the nuts, at least for one night. And isn't kicking the haters in the nuts one of the most important things you can do in Baseball?

Those Missing Guys

Lost, I suppose, in Friday's quagmire was the return to the lineup of Yoenis Cespedes and AsdrubAl Cabrera. Cespedes, of course, probably should have been on the DL 6 weeks ago but for the Mets insistent crotch-grabbing. Cabrera was last seen awkwardly spiraling his way around 3rd base and I was certain he'd be done for the season, but it seems he fortunately is not.

Whether or not their presence makes a bit of difference from here on out I'm not sure. However, on Saturday afternoon, at least Cespedes proved no worse for wear by hitting a pair of Home Runs, one off of Matt Moore and the other off of hapless, banished-to-the-bullpen veteran Jake Peavy, and in a sudden turn of events, the Mets actually relatively cruised to a 9-5 victory over the Giants in the name of Bartolo Colon.

This was another one of those Saturday games that I didn't see, only that it was just about over as I arrived home after being out all afternoon. So once again, that seems to be the recipe for success with the Mets, since I watched games on Monday and Thursday, and sort of on Wednesday, and at no point did that go well. Of course, I did see part of the game on Tuesday, and they won, so maybe this is just a weekend thing. Or maybe it's just another one of my cockamamie theories that makes no sense.

Regardless, it seems like lately a Mets victory is met with mass rejoicing, because it seems like they've been so few and far between over the past month. One more, and they'd actually be able to leave San Francisco with a split in this series, which seems like a real moral victory. I think. Of course, it's a Sunday Night game, so you'll have to put up with the sideshow and it's debatable as to whether or not you'll actually get to see a game.

Toe Tag

I didn't see any of Friday night's game, and this sort of thing seems to be happening more and more as the Mets spiral into irrelevance. The game was totally forgettable, to the point where all I know about the game was that Steven Matz couldn't start, Seth Lugo started instead, and although he pitched well, nobody else on the Mets did and the end result was a listless 8-1 loss that put the Mets deeper into the hole.

I received an e-mail during the afternoon from the fellow that is kind of the ringleader of the e-mail string I belong to, wondering why nobody had anything to say about the Mets since May. The truth is, there just hasn't been much to talk about. I've had a hard time figuring out things to write about the Mets for several weeks, to the point where I'm now consistently a day or two behind when it comes to writing about games (is that cheating? Does anyone really care?).

There are seasons not like this where the Mets have had no expectations and you have to watch a lot of really bad baseball over the course of the year. Pick a year from 2009 to 2014 and you'll get what I mean. But if there's a plan in place at work and there's signs of life, as there were in 2013 and 2014, there's at least something interesting to write about.

The problem with the Mets in 2016 is that the expectations were high at the start of the season, but the way the year has played out has just been so demoralizing and frustrating that there's not much to say. I mean, I know a lot of fans of other teams like to point and laugh and say that last year was a fluke, but the Mets are better than that. The fact that they've had the volume of injuries that they've had to deal with and still manage to hover around .500 does say something about the future of the team. The pitching, by and large, hasn't been the issue. The talent is still there. But it's hard for the pitchers to win games when they get no run support, and it's tough to score runs when your offense is either injured or regressed. Curtis Granderson is a shell of what he was last year, to the point where I wonder what he has left. Michael Conforto just fell into so many bad habits, and was probably mishandled, that what he needs more than anything else is for this year to end and to come back next year with a clean mind.

What the Mets need more than anything else for next season isn't a series of reactionary trades to rebuild a slumping offense. That would be tantamount to undoing everything that was done to get to this year. I think what they need more than anything else is a Sports Psychiatrist. I'm sure that would help Conforto and it would definitely help guys like Matt Harvey and Steven Matz, and probably other guys who get into bad habits and start pressing too much. The Mets never had a stretch where they could just relax and get on a roll like they did last year. But to call last year an outlier isn't giving this team enough credit for the talent they have. Then again, nobody wants to give the Mets any kind of credit anyway, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the #LOLMets-ers and the BACKMAN BABY morons are crawling back out of the woodwork now that times have gotten tough.

That Won't Work Either

For three innings on Thursday night, the Mets and Giants played the game that we expected them to play. Jacob deGrom and Madison Bumgarner were throwing darts, and throwing zeroes at each other. This was not at all of a surprise, seeing as how they've both placed themselves among the NL's most elite pitchers.

Then, the game hit the 4th inning and turned into something else entirely. What it was was definitely still baseball, but it was kind of a mockery of what you'd expect to see out of these two pitchers.

It started innocently enough, T.J. Rivera singled to start the inning, followed by a Jay Bruce strikeout. Bumgarner then walked Wilmer Flores and Travis d'Arnaud, and Justin Ruggiano followed.  Ruggiano is, in fact, a Met, in case you'd forgotten because he was signed out of nowhere, appeared here and then got hurt within the span of 3 days, but now he's back, and there he was hitting a Grand Slam off of Bumgarner to stake the Mets to a 4-0 lead. And when you can take a 4-0 lead off of Bumgarner and a Giants team that's been kind of reeling, well, you have to be feeling pretty good about yourself.

Of course, as good as you feel with a 4-0 lead is equal to how bad you feel when deGrom subsequently has a total meltdown in the bottom of the 4th inning and allows the Giants to first come back, and then ultimately take the lead when he gives up a Home Run to Bumgarner himself. It's not exactly a head-hanging shame to give up a Home Run to Bumgarner, who's clearly one of, if not the, best hitting pitcher in the game. But to have that come at the tail end of a 5-run inning is pretty bad. To make matters worse, deGrom came back for the 5th and allowed another 3 runs on top of it to turn his night into an utter bloodbath.

I know that the Mets came back and got it to 8-7, but unlike the Giants, they couldn't finish the deal, which sort of typifies everything that the Mets have done in the past 29 years. They get to within a run, against a weary Giants bullpen, they can't tie the game in spite of opportunities, and then Hansel Robles had one of those games where he has a Hamburger on the mound and instead of keeping the game where it is in the 8th, he gave up a 2-run double to Buster Posey which gave the Giants a 3-run lead.

By this point, I'd already thrown in the towel, because it was after 1am and I'd had enough, and really, if I was going to hang around and watch the Mets lose anyway, or I was going to get a little extra sleep, I'd go for the extra sleep. I kind of have the feeling that most Mets fans must feel the same way.

Bound To Happen At Some Point

The Mets lost for the first time in over a week on Sunday afternoon, which was kind of jarring on several levels, but I suppose there isn't too much you can realistically complain about. As always, the law of averages dictates that the Mets will probably lose at least 1/3rd of their games, and certainly given the fact that they were facing one of the more vicious lefthanders in the league in Madison Bumgarner, this seemed as likely a day as any for one of those games. But, of course, every time the Mets lose, it seems to be for some weird, troublesome reason.

Today, of course, the issue was Noah Syndergaard's inability to hold runners on base very well. This was apparently exploited by Cincinnati on Monday night and the Giants did this again on Sunday, swiping 4 bases, 3 of them during Syndergaard's 5.2 innings of work. Ron Darling made some mention during the game of Syndergaard tipping when he's delivering a pitch home that allows a baserunner to get a good jump. I suppose this is a correctable thing, but of course, correctable at what cost? Is it really worth taking Syndergaard out of a comfortable rhythm? Many top-flight pitchers have had difficulty holding runners on base, and the overarching reason tends to be that it's because they just don't work with that many runners on base.

Even then, the Giants weren't torching Syndergaard, but they took him out of his rhythm in the 4th inning, thanks to Matt Duffy running, and a Buster Posey hit that found a hole, and then Posey running on a 3-2 pitch that resulted in a RBI groundout by Brandon Belt instead of a potential inning-ending DP, and of course awkward Hunter Pence delivered the coup de grace, nailing a 2-run Home Run to Right Field, turning a 1-run inning into a 3-run inning and sort of turding the punchbowl of the whole afternoon.

On the other hand, 1 run might have been enough for Madison Bumgarner anyway. Bumgarner's been a little hit-or-miss so far this season but in general he's usually Hit against the Mets, and they weren't doing much with him other than a few scattered hits. In particular, Michael Conforto, who's been on a raging hot streak, was stopped cold by Bumgarner, striking out twice in his first start against a real tough Lefty. I'd suspect there will be better days against pitchers of this ilk for Conforto, but you have to start somewhere and there was no good reason to sit him on this particular day.

The rest of the game was about as mucky as the weather, which looked pretty bad and I'm sure felt even worse if you were one of the hearty souls that trekked out to Citi Field on this day. The Mets fell to 0-2 wearing their Sunday Throwback 1986 jerseys, which if you're at all superstitious means that though they're nice and nostalgic and all, but they gotta go. Save them for a special occasion but wear the regular uniforms instead. Don't mess with karma.

So, OK. Let's make sure we got this. What slows the Mets down at this point is the perfect storm of shitty weather, throwback uniforms, tipping pitches, eager baserunners, Hunter Pence and really tough lefty pitchers. When that happens, we're screwed. At least until the next time the Mets lose and we're grasping at straws as to why they looked so out of sorts.

A Popular Attraction

I was not on hand at Citi Field on Saturday, which I've been hearing was probably a good idea. That's not to say I didn't make an attempt to do so. See, I had a pair of seats from a game late last season that was rained out, and usually, the rain check policy is that rainout tickets are good for one year. So I hung on to them thinking I basically had time to exchange them out. But earlier this month, I'd heard somewhere that these tickets could only be exchanged in April, and so I contacted my account representative (Yes, I actually have one of those) and she confirmed that yes, because the game had been made up as a day-night doubleheader, they made the rain check good in April only.

This created some trouble for me, because I could only attend certain games, and there were only certain home dates, and as it turned out, I'd had tickets on every possible April date I could attend except for April 30th. So I mailed the tickets back to the Mets, Byzantine as that may seem, and requested April 30th. I figured that shouldn't be a problem.

A few days later, I received a call from someone with Ticket Services (not my account rep), telling me that they "were out of inventory" for April 30th, and would I like to pick another date. I asked if there was anything available, and they told me that the only available seats started at $108 per ticket. I passed on that, since the only time in my life I've ever paid over $100 for a ticket was a World Series game. Instead, I exchanged the tickets for Friday night, the 29th, and shrewdly exchanged the tickets I'd originally had for that night to another game later in the season. As a result, I got two free shirts and a 12-run inning.

The reason, of course, that April 30th was so popular was the allure of the Noah Syndergaard Garden Gnome. I've talked in the past about how I, and many other Mets fans, have this bizarre attraction to some of the kitsch they pass out at games. I have, over time, acquired a host of Bobbleheads, rally towels, beach towels, calendars, fandinis and the like, and most of it has either been sold or sits in a closet collecting dust. I've developed a distaste for these promotion dates in recent years because for whatever reason, they've been limited in quantity and only doled out on weekends, when I don't usually go to games anyway. Because the Mets had been lousy for so many years, I was able to collect on some limited-amount giveaways when I was on hand, even if I was slightly on the late side of arriving.

I've heard grumblings that this is now no longer the case.

In watching the game yesterday afternoon, I heard Gary Cohen make mention of the fact that people were lining up as early as 9 or 10AM to be one of the first 15,000 people in the building and receive the Syndergaard Gnome. If I'd gone to this game, I can assure you there was no way in hell I was arriving at 9am and for a 4pm start time, it wasn't likely that I would have been there any earlier than 3pm. Had I done that, of course, I would have probably been stuck on line indeterminately, and shit outta luck when it came to getting a Gnome. And had I plonked down upwards of $100 a ticket with the intention of getting a Gnome and not received one, I would have been livid, to say the least.

So in this case, the joke isn't on me, but I have to say I wholeheartedly agree with Metstradamus' assessment of the situation. This is, of course, "the way things are done" now in the sense that any sort of business practice can't be done without in some way fleecing your customers, but it's really not proper or fair to the people that pay enough money for tickets and are probably going to spend even more on concessions no matter when they get in the building to get shut out on the promotion because they didn't show up ass-early. Complaining about these things in general is more or less like talking to a wall sometimes, but I wonder if this is one of those things where if enough people make enough of a stink, the Mets might start to listen and not limit these giveaways so much. I have so many Bobbleheads because when this whole thing started, it was given out to everyone who came to the game. But then, at some point, everyone turned into the first 25,000. Then 20,000. Now it's 15,000. At the rate we're going, they're just going to turn it into door prizes for the first 100 people and it's going to be some demented version of a Black Friday sale. I'm not sure how else that can be described when you're holding an event when you expect 44,000 people to show up and you're giving something special away to only the first 15,000. I'm sure some people were more than just a little upset about this. I can only imagine Ratso Wilpon is behind this crap. This seems like the sort of thing only a jackass like him could cook up.

But I digress. I played no part in this particular michigas and as such my only concern about the game was the game, and that went well enough, at least early on, when Jacob deGrom was cooking and the Mets jumped Matt Cain for 4 early runs, thanks to the usual suspects, Neil Walker and Michael Conforto. Conforto later hit a Home Run, because I guess he was getting tired of all those RBI doubles, or maybe because he's the hottest hitter on the planet right now, as did Wilmer Flores, and things seemed perfectly under control. deGrom had a 1-inning hiccup as a result of an ill-timed Flores error but for the most part things were fine, the Mets had a 3-run lead and everything was hunky dory.

Then, Addison Reed had a hard time of things in the 8th inning, and all of a sudden the Giants had come to life and appeared primed to steal the game away when they loaded the bases with no outs and the always irritating, always awkward Hunter Pence coming to the plate. Reed departed for Hansel Robles, who gave up a pair of fly balls that were a bit too deep for comfort, but not deep enough to accomplish anything further than a Sacrifice Fly, and thus the score sat at 6-5, and the Giants would ultimately get no closer than that as Jerry Blevins finished the 8th and Jeurys Familia, unavailable on Wednesday and unnecessary on Friday, worked a clean 9th inning.

So, the Mets have now won 8 in a row and that's 8 games where they've really controlled the proceedings from beginning to end. This is really how you expect a first place team to play, and yes, I know the Mets aren't actually in 1st place, but at half a game back they're close enough and they're playing the way we expected them to play. They totally wasted Atlanta and Cincinnati and they've stuck it to the Giants in the first two games in this series. So if they're not getting slowed down by the really good teams either, then you know things are going really well.

In fact, things might be going so well right now that you don't need to give away limited Garden Gnomes to the first 15,000 fans as some hackneyed ploy to get people to show up early.

Turnabout's Fair Play

I mentioned this to George, and basically everyone who would listen to me after Friday night's Mets bombarding of the San Francisco Giants: Last season, I went to a Mets/Giants game and watched the Mets get No Hit by Chris Heston. I watched the 9th inning of that game stewing in silence as the true horror unfolded.

Last night was the exact opposite of that. Rather than not hitting, the Mets hit, and hit, and hit some more in a 3rd inning that just kept on steamrolling until the Mets had plated 12 runs, something they had never before accomplished in team history.

These games usually begin innocuously, as most games tend to do. It was, of course, Friday, which means I got a Free Shirt and as I was coming off the train before going inside I passed the WOR tent, where they were giving out free shirts for answering trivia questions. I'd planned not to stop, except that I knew the answer to the question that was asked, so essentially, I shouted it out as I passed by and got a second free shirt, which appears to be a leftover from last season. Inside, it was crowded, as you'd expect on a Friday night against a contending team like the Giants and a team with a fan base that travels well like the Giants. I expected to see large swaths of Black and Orange and I certainly did, and the Finnerty's crowd was in full force out in Left Field. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

Steven Matz was on the mound for the Mets, against Jake Peavy for the Giants. The discussion that spurred involved things like George not knowing that Peavy was still in the league, twice confusing him with Brad Penny by assuming he'd pitched for the Marlins and the Dodgers, and neither of us being able to remember which teams he'd actually pitched for outside of the Padres and Red Sox. It was raining at the start of the game, kind of lightly, intermittently, but then somewhere around the 2nd inning, it started raining a little harder. My scorecard was getting wet and I had to pause and put it away as several people ran for cover outright. Someone several rows down from me put up an umbrella and blocked my view of home plate, which was just lovely. It was turning into one of those nights.

In other words, nobody knew what was about to ensue.

The Giants had been dinging Matz around over the first few innings, picking up 5 hits, but nothing of consequence. Peavy didn't allow the Mets much over the first two innings. That, of course changed rather quickly.

Peavy's control hadn't been great to begin with and of course when he walked Curtis Granderson and David Wright to start the 3rd inning, he was asking for trouble. Michael Conforto followed, and generally Conforto with men on base has been a winning proposition for the Mets. So it wasn't surprising that Conforo smashed a double to the left-center field gap to score Granderson with the first run of the game. Yoenis Cespedes followed with a single that scored both Wright and Conforto and got the Mets out 3-0.

At this point, George and I were discussing clichés to describe Peavy's situation. At this point, we felt he needed to minimize the damage and let the game come back to him, but instead he only made things worse by walking Lucas Duda and giving up a long double into the Right Field corner to Neil Walker to score Cespedes. At this point, Bruce Bochy had had enough of this and removed Peavy from the game, I suppose in an effort to stop the madness, but his choice of pitcher, Mike Broadway, only managed to make things worse.

Broadway was greeted by Asdrubal Cabrera drilling another double up the alley in Left Center, the Mets 3rd double of the inning, that plated Duda and Walker to make the score 6-0 and officially close the book on Peavy's forgettable evening. Kevin Plawecki walked. Matz followed and at this point, with 6 runs home, George and I were wondering whether or not he should be bunting, or what the protocol for proper sportsmanship was in this place. Surely, Matz has proven himself capable of swinging the bat, but it seems bunting isn't quite his bailiwick and he struck out on 3 attempts.

That's the first out of the inning, after 9 batters, if you're keeping score.

Here's where the inning began to get completely out of hand. Granderson followed by smoking a Broadway offering deep to Right Field, into the dopey alcove where nobody can hit Home Runs. It looked for a brief moment like it might land in the Pepsi Coca-Cola Porch, but it didn't, and Hunter Pence I guess was distracted by whatever signs were prepared for him because he got a glove on it but didn't hold on, and instead the ball fell, Cabrera scored and Granderson was aboard on what was charitably called a very long single. At this point, any sort of wheels that remained on the Giants had come off, and the Mets were either just going to keep on hitting forever. The inning was by this point well over half an hour long and the Mets had tied my personal best inning with 7 runs. So I just wanted to see how much further they could take this. Wright dunked a single in to load the bases. Conforto did his part by lining a single to right to score Plawecki and make it 8-0, and then Cespedes followed, and basically the thought in everyone's mind at this point was that he was either going to swing like he was trying to hit a grand slam, or that he was actually going to hit a grand slam, and really, that was the only result of that at bat. And, of course, he launched the 1st pitch into the seats in the Left Field corner for said grand slam and capped off the first 12-run inning in Mets History.

So at this point, everyone was bouncing off the walls with joy, George and I are both dumbstruck by what we've just witnessed and, of course, there's still a whole rest of a game to be played with the score 12-0. And there was still only one out in the inning. But as these things tend to do, Cespedes' grand slam killed the momentum and the next two batters grounded out. That didn't take anything away from the 13 batters that came to the plate before that and the crowd responded with a standing ovation.

But as I said, there was still 6 innings left to play, and by this point, after an inning that took close to 45 minutes and an unheard of 67 pitches, 30 from Peavy and 37 from Broadway, the clock was nearing 9pm...and the game started at 7:10. Also, Matz had to sit around through that long inning. But for the most part, both teams played like they wanted to get out of there quick. Matz didn't help himself by coming out a bit wild in the middle innings, probably because it's not especially easy to

pitch with a big lead like that, and he kept walking guys and giving up hits, but again, the Giants didn't cash in, Matz finished out his 6 innings, and Jerry Blevins, Logan Verrett and Antonio Bastardo each pitched sloppy innings to finish out the night. I could expound on how messy the Mets were on the pitching side of things, but that really isn't the story of this game.

The 3rd inning of this game is of course what everyone will remember, because never mind that the Mets have never done it, but you just don't see 12-run innings very often altogether. It takes a rare combination of contact and momentum steamrolling out of control, combined with a pitcher who has the poor fortune of just having to suck it all up, which is the case of Mike Broadway, who aside from being subjected to a litany of Broadway Musical jokes had to just do his best to navigate his way through a completely hopeless situation. I'll remember it because after Matz came to the plate, I turned to George and said "The Mets have officially broken the scorecard," as you'll see here. It's not often I have to run an inning across two columns and then shove each subsequent inning down the list, but that's what happened here.

The Giants and I are now even, I believe. This sort of a game seems proper retribution for what they made me witness last season. I suppose watching Matz throw a No Hitter might have been nice, but History is History and all the better that I was there to witness it.

The Brightest Spot

The Mets are sending but one player to the All Star Game in 2015, at least at the moment, and said All Star celebrated his selection by delivering perhaps his best outing of the season, pimp-slapping the Giants over 8 innings to the tune of no runs, 2 hits, 1 walk and 10 Strikeouts.

Yes, Jacob deGrom certainly proved himself worthy of the selection.

deGrom has, at least since early May, been the most consistent pitcher in a very good Mets rotation. Any thoughts that he might regress following his out-of-nowhere Rookie of the Year campaign in 2014, or that he might suffer from the fabled Sophomore Jinx can, I believe, be thrown out the window. Yes, deGrom's record sits at a mere 9-6—the same record he posted last season—but considering how often the Mets offense has backed him with no runs or 1 run, 9 wins is pretty good by itself. Imagine if this team actually could hit? He could be 12-3, 13-3?

But I digress. The offensive woes of this team are nothing new. Eric Campbell started in Left Field for the Mets on Wednesday afternoon and at this point we're so used to the mediocrity that we barely bat an eyelash. Michael Cuddyer's knee is still bothering him, so given that Terry Collins was assumedly advised by Cortisone Shot Ramirez that he just needs a few days, I think we can assume Cuddyer's season is done. You would think, then, that a move should be made but it's becoming more and more obvious that one or two bats, with what the Mets are likely to give on their end, isn't going to fix the problem. We're just going to have to suck up the rest of this season and hope for the best with what we've got. It's been pretty bad. But then again, sometimes it's been OK. But just OK. Like today, when Eric Campbell started in Left Field. He hit a Home Run. It was the first time a Mets player hit a Home Run since May 19th June 27th. Campbell's Home Run helped to extend a 2-0 Mets lead into a 4-0 Mets lead (Giants errors conspired to plate the first two Met runs) and spared everyone from a Bobby Parnell-induced Heart Attack in the last of the 9th. Parnell, who very quietly hadn't allowed a run since returning to the bullpen, finally got a taste of life without teeth on his fastball and the Giants reached him for a run on 3 hits, before Jeurys Familia rescued him.

Familia, like deGrom, has been one of the main reasons the Mets have made it to this point still afloat. He deserves to be an All-Star, like deGrom. Unfortunately, he wasn't elected, in spite of 24 Saves in 26 opportunities and a 1.12 ERA, and was instead relegated to the "Final Five" ballot, where he's currently going down in flames, in spite of the Mets and Twins forming an alliance to get both he and Brian Dozier elected. Familia's problem here is simply the poor fortune of being on a ballot with players named Kershaw, Cueto and Tulowitzki...and what's the use. Maybe one of the relievers on the squad will sprain a giblet this weekend and he'll make it anyway. Or maybe he'll get 4 much-needed days off.

So, yeah. Not much to report about the game; as an oddly-placed 3:45pm start prevented me from seeing anything. But for all their foibles, the Mets actually won both series on this road trip and return home 4-2. A week ago, we might have been happy with 1-5. At this point, you take what you can get.

The Exact Opposite

After the Mets played what was for them a veritable thriller on Monday night, where they played a good sound game and got wonderful pitching and defense, they came back the next night and played an abject snoozer of a ballgame on Tuesday. Daniel Murphy had one of his trademark Daniel Murphy Tics, made an error that led to a pair of Giants runs, and ended up sinking Bartolo Colon and his teammates, who could make no particular comeback effort against Matt Cain and a quadruped of Giants relievers as they fell 3-0.

The 3rd inning of this game pretty much typified everything that's wrong with Daniel Murphy as a ballplayer. Not surprisingly, it's also the inning that decided the game so there's not much point in discussing anything else. After being set down in order by Cain in the first two innings, the Mets strung together a little rally. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, who mysteriously was starting again, struck out to start the inning to nobody's surprise, but then Kevin Plawecki doubled. Colon followed by flying out but he did get a good piece of the ball, or at least he did by his own standards. Granderson and Tejada then both walked and all of a sudden the Mets have the Bases loaded and Cain on the ropes...and then Daniel Murphy struck out to end the inning. No runs, no score for the game.

Last of the 3rd, and Gregor Blanco turned the Mets into a bug by reaching on a bunt, and then moved up on a Joe Panik (and by the way, it may be time to start tossing Panik in among noted Mets killers like Chipper Jones, Wilson Ramos, Greg Dobbs and others) hit. This brought up Matt Duffy, who hit an infield chopper towards Daniel Murphy at 3rd. Murphy gloved the ball and I guess he decided he'd go for the Grand Slam right there and turned to throw the ball to second, except he wasn't in anything resembling a good position to do that. So, instead, he did what was, I suppose, the most natural thing for him to do and juggle the ball in the air, then catch it and throw to 1st, too late to get Duffy. Then Hunter Pence drove in a run, and then Brandon Crawford drove in another run and that was pretty much the game right there.

So, you can't really pin this one on anyone other than Murphy. Colon pitched fine for his 6 innings, the Mets as usual didn't hit so how worked up can you get about that, and Daniel Murphy had a case of himself. That all together adds up to a Mets disaster.

Believe What You See

If you stayed up past midnight here in New York to watch the opener of the Mets series in San Francisco, you probably saw enough odd things to make you think you might have fallen asleep and woken up in some weird alternate dimension, but it's true. These things actually happened.

First, Jon Niese, who's been at or near the top of The Ballclub's shitlist all season for his general lack of consistency, his constant moping around and his inability to perform to the level of his talent, had what was easily his best outing of the season. Niese worked 8 innings against the Giants and basically tied them up in knots all night. I know that the Giants were featured on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy last night and then had to fly cross country and play tonight, but you still have to go out there and make good pitches, and Niese did that. Sure, he had his moments, the Giants had him on the ropes in the 6th inning, but he was able to worm his way out of a bases loaded jam (no thanks to Daniel Murphy, who lollipopped a throw to 1st on Posey's 2-out ground ball that Posey nearly beat out, and if I were Niese, or basically anyone on the Mets roster, I might have had to restrain myself from choking Murphy at that particular moment) to keep his shutout intact. For the night, Niese threw 8 innings, gave up 3 hits, 2 walks and struck out 4, and as strange as it seems, for as lousy as Niese has looked at times, his ERA sits at a reasonable 3.58. So perhaps he'll pull a Lucas Duda in the second half and shut me up.

This was all well and good, but the Mets still were unable to solve Chris Heston. At least this time around, the Mets managed to get a hit off of him, which Ruben Tejada took care of with a 1st inning single. So there's that. But when it came down to a key hit, the Mets did nothing. The Giants even handed the Mets three Errors, two of which were by Heston, but the Mets wouldn't take the bait. Johnny Monell hit into a Double Play, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, who mysteriously resurfaced on the roster, also did nothing of note, and Juan Lagares misjudged a Granderson pop fly that was misjudged by the entire left side of the Giants defense and was thrown out at 2nd base in a key spot.

But then, in the 9th inning of this 0-0 game, something really weird happened. First, Michael Cuddyer got a hit off of Sergio Romo after falling behind in the count 0-2. Kirk Nieuwenhuis followed, and he attempted to bunt and didn't look very good in doing so, and after falling behind 0-2, did not attempt any more bunts. But Romo couldn't throw a strike and on a 3-2 pitch, with Cuddyer running, Nieuwenhuis slapped a double past B Belt at 1st and down the right field line, giving the Mets runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs. This was good, but then again the Mets seem to always managed to screw up in this situation. The next man up was Johnny Monell, who's done nothing of particular consequence in the opportunities he's had. He fell behind 0-2 against Santiago Casilla. But then he connected for a double to right to score both runs and give the Mets the lead. Two batters later, Juan Lagares singled home Monell and the Mets somehow had plated 3 in the 9th. This, in Jeurys Familia's hands was pretty much a done deal and the Mets somehow not only won this game 3-0, but also assured themselves of no worse than a .500 record on this West Coast trip.

Cuddyer! Nieuwenhuis! Monell! How do you explain that? The Mets win a game thanks to a stick in the mud, a 4-A spare part and a backup's backup. Sometimes, it's hard to believe it when the Mets pull a game out of their ass like this, but this actually did happen.