Creeping Upward

Figures that Tuesday night, the night I went, was the hiccup for the Mets.

Wednesday afternoon, the Mets shook off the doledrums of Tuesday's debacle of a game. Though the weather conditions were similar, the Mets went out and bombarded the Braves good and proper, hitting 4 Home Runs in support of Steven Matz, who turned in a sterling 7.2 inning effort as the Mets won the series finale 8-0.

As is usually the case with these afternoon games, I'm in the office and therefore can only sporadically keep up with the proceedings. The game had already started by time I remembered that there was a game, and of course when you're watching on MLB.com's Gamecast there's a limit to what you can grok, but really all you need to know is the score and who's winning. On days like this, I have to just check the score in between tasks, so what I saw was the number on the Mets side creep up from 0, to 2, to 6, and then 8, while the Braves stagnated at 0.

It helped that Matz was pitching like a metronome. It was sort of the anti-Harvey performance. After his initial mess, Matz has been nothing short of brilliant in his subsequent outings and really, against the Braves' lineup, this was a case of simply smashing the flea with a sledgehammer. Matz worked quickly, walked nobody, allowed 2 hits and struck out 8, which is just the sort of outing he should have vs. Atlanta.

Matz was backed by a quartet of Home Runs, all of which came off of Jhoulys Chacin, who generally doesn't allow Home Runs, except that today the Mets just had his number. Rene Rivera, who's sort of filling the Taylor Teagarden role here, belted his first as a Met in the 2nd inning. In the 3rd, Asdrubal Cabrera connected, and then Lucas Duda connected, and later on Duda connected again for a second. By the end of the 5th, there wasn't much more to be said on this end, which is just fine considering that coming into the game, the Mets hadn't scored since the 1st inning on Monday. Sometimes, the minimum necessary works. Other times, it's just good to remind everyone who's in charge here. In this series, the Mets did a little bit of both.

So, the Mets are now done with this easy-ish part of the schedule. Now comes a nice challenge: 11 games in 11 days on the West Coast, and that involves 4 games each in San Diego and Los Angeles. Then, there's 3 games in Colorado, where they either win games 14-9 or lose in 15 innings. Get your coffeemakers out, because there's some late nights coming up. The Mets won't see a division opponent for two weeks, when our friends from Washington come to town.

Shoulda Gone Last Night

On Monday night, the Mets bombed 3 Home Runs in the 1st inning and coasted the rest of the way to an easy win over the Atlanta Braves.

Unfortunately, they haven't scored since. In a wet, miserable affair on Tuesday night, the Mets were completely tied in knots by Matt Wisler while on the other side, Matt Harvey battled his way through yet another troublesome outing and ultimately came undone in a hideous 6th inning that he simply couldn't fight his way out of.

As my Father was wont to say after a game like this, "You shoulda gone last night."

My 5th trip to Citi Field this season had all the makings of a bad time. First of all, it was raining basically the entire night. Not really raining so much as misting, but it was wet and annoying and now that I'm getting older, I don't really enjoy this as much as I used to. It doesn't rain hard enough to stop or even slow down the game, they just play right through it, but I'm sure the players find it about as pleasant as I do. To make matters worse, in spite of the fact that I was sitting basically by myself in section 513, some doofy millennials came up sometime in the middle of the 1st inning and one of them, in spite of rows of empty seats and chatter to the effect of "Oh, let's sit wherever," plopped himself directly in front of me, just enough to block my view of home plate. It took about 4 innings before I got fed up and moved over a section, because really, if they weren't going to take advantage of the myriad empty seats, I would.

Harvey started getting cut by the Braves in the 5th, but really, they'd been dinging him all night. He looked uncomfortable and out of sorts from the outset. They were singling and doubling him to death, and it took some crafty fielding to escape from a 2nd inning jam, where a more formidable opponent might have gone for the kill right there. He was surviving, but not much more than that. And finally, when Mallex Smith reached him for a Home Run that was a Home Run, I didn't need a replay to tell me that, I knew things were just going to go downhill from there. The 6th inning was torturous. Braves were basically flying around the bases at will, Harvey was throwing Wild Pitches and eventually he just dissolved into continually making pickoff throws to 1st base with 2 outs when it was clear the runner wasn't going anywhere. After finally allowing another hit to Smith, Harvey was mercifully pulled from the game after 100 pitches, very few of which looked right.

Meanwhile, the Mets couldn't get an inch off of Wisler, who held them to 1 hit over 8 innings and that was the output of the game. A couple of walks and an Asdrubal Cabrera single that was immediately followed by a Kevin Plawecki DP. The Mets have had trouble with Wisler previously so maybe this shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but come on. Not scoring in 17 of 18 innings against an awful team isn't good. I know that the Mets weren't going to go 19-0 against Atlanta this season, and at some point something like this would happen, but at least save the stinkers for a night when I'm not there watching the misery unfold.

I, Bartolo

Last season, in Atlanta, Bartolo Colon was seen parading around the Mets dugout with a giant bucket of chewing gum, passing it around to teammates with a silly grin on his face.

Last night, in New York, Bartolo Colon was seen parading around the Citi Field mound, shutting down the Atlanta Braves with a silly grin on his face.

Life is good for Bartolo.

Bartolo continues to defy age and logic most times he takes the mound, and once again this was on display in spades last night. In tossing 8 shutout innings against the Atlanta Braves, Colon threw 91 pitches, 84 fastballs and 82 strikes. Yes, I'm pulling those numbers out of the air. But if I told you that straight off, you'd probably believe me, wouldn't you?

The Mets didn't need to generate much offense on this night; in general they probably won't need to against Atlanta, but the 4 runs they scored rather loudly off of Mike Foltynewicz in the 1st inning was enough. Of the first 5 batters against Foltynewicz (who boasts one of my favorite names in Baseball), 3 of them, David Wright, Yoenis Cespedes and Lucas Duda, put the ball in the seats. Colon also put a ball in the seats, granted it was a foul ball, but it was a real good shot and whenever Colon can get around on one like that you have to take notice.

Really, everything was pretty easy for Colon last night from start to finish. I don't know if much more than that needs to be said. It's not always like that for him but when it is, he does it with panache. And chewing gum.

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.