I have at times felt like I'm the last Mets fan in Matt Harvey's corner. I know that we all want him to do well, and I also know that he's brought some of his issues on himself for one reason or another, but I've seen no reason why Harvey couldn't persevere, shake off his issues and regain some of the luster that he'd lost over the past year. He's already proven that he can come back from a major injury and be successful. In reality, and I've said this before, people seem to just have a problem with Matt Harvey being Matt Harvey. This Spring, while every time he took the mound seemed to be scrutinized, most people were up in arms over the fact that he was seen cavorting around Miami with a model, drinking and smoking and generally having a nice little date for himself. And because he's Matt Harvey, this gives everyone free license to point and yell about what a jerk he is, and how the Mets need to trade him because he's a distraction and a cancer.
Does not compute. We've all been on dates with models and drank and smoked, and nobody's following us around with cameras and posting photos on the internet, and people at our jobs aren't yelling about how we need to be traded. So I say baloney. I think people's dislike of Harvey is based mostly on jealousy. He projects an aura of arrogance but in reality is probably just as insecure as anyone else. The difference is he pitches for the Mets and most people do not.
So that all lines up for this evening's game at Citi Field, which was Harvey's first start since he got run off the mound last July and then went under the knife for the second time in 3 years. It was hard to know what to expect, since his Florida outings were kind of a mixed bag and he wasn't throwing with quite the same pop as he used to. And he was facing the Braves, who'd cuffed him around more than once last year. But out of the darkness, Harvey re-emerged as a pitcher, and rather than trying to blow everyone away instead used what he had, working with a fastball in the mid-90s instead of the high 90s, and dropping curves and sliders and changeups and generally inducing weak contact. He shot through the 1st inning on 6 pitches, entered the 7th having thrown only 67, and by time he departed after 6.2 innings, he'd allowed 3 hits, no walks and 4 strikeouts, while only being touched up for a pair of solo Home Runs from Matt Kemp. More importantly, by time the 7th inning started, and Harvey kicked things off by striking out Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman, you actually started to hear those "HAR-VEY! HAR-VEY!" chants once again.
Offensively, the Mets again started slow, facing Jaime Garcia, the ex-Cardinal who seems oddly out of place on this Braves team. It took until the 5th for the Mets to finally break through, when Neil Walker singled, and Jay Bruce walked, and then Travis d'Arnaud doubled both of them home, a good sign since d'Arnaud hit something like .035 with runners in scoring position last year. In the 6th, the Mets extended their lead when Wilmer Flores did what he usually does against left handed pitchers and hit a 2-run Home Run, and in the 7th, the Mets put the game away with two more runs. Fernando Salas and Addison Reed then salted away the final innings of this 6-2 victory.
The story, however, will be Harvey, who embarked on a bit of a redemption of sorts and proved that although he might not be the pitcher he was two years ago, and may never again be the pitcher he was four years ago, he's still a good pitcher and he still is capable of being someone we can count on to deliver a good performance.
I know that the Mets weren't actually going to go 162-0 for the 2017 season, but still, you watch games in the early going of the season, particularly when they win on Opening Day, and you sort of hope they can just postpone that inevitable first loss of the season. But, it's going to happen whether you like it or not, so you may as well just get it out of the way quick. So, after a rousing start on Monday, the Mets came back on Wednesday, got a solid start from Jacob deGrom, had a hard time with our old friend Bartolo Colon, went deep into Extra Innings, couldn't capitalize on some opportunities and ultimately lost in the 12th inning when Rafael Montero couldn't get out of his own jam.
These games are bound to happen and in fact, I think I've seen this game before. It's an April Wednesday night. It might not have been a cool day during the day but at Citi Field it probably feels about 40˚ at game time and only gets worse as the evening goes on. The #2 starters for each team throw zeroes at each other. Maybe each team scores a run. Both teams threaten in late innings but some steely bullpen work keeps the game tied. And then it goes into Extra Innings and the Mets just kind of run out of steam and the opponent scores multiple times and the Mets can't get off the mat. That was this game. Fortunately, I wasn't there. It sort of sounds like the kind of game I might be at but it wasn't on my plan and I've sort of learned my lesson about going to extra April Night Games.
Instead, I was home, trying out this newfangled internet radio that my other half bought me during the offseason (and required me purchasing an MLB At Bat subscription). I don't particularly mind this, given how used I am to listening to games on the radio, and also since I am in the habit of getting home and conking out for a spell. I'm not quite in midseason form just yet. It'll come. But so here I am with this "radio," and there's Howie and Josh and deGrom is on the mound looking like his old self, and Bartolo Colon is incongruously pitching for the Braves and everyone is going bonkers. Jay Bruce hit a Home Run in the 5th inning—and after 3 walks on Opening Day perhaps he's the one off to the hot start out of the gate—but otherwise there wasn't much in the way of action.
Then, deGrom departed in the 7th and things went haywire. Hansel Robles, who you'd think would be past this after two seasons, came in, immediately gave up a triple to Nick Markakis, walked another guy, gave up a game-tying double and was right on the precipice of disaster when Terry Collins mercifully removed him. And this is why nobody's every totally comfortable with Hansel Robles, because for every time he has a lockdown inning like he did on Monday, he's just as likely to come back the next night and leave a giant turd on the mound. Fortunately, Jerry Blevins came in and cleaned up the mess.
The game then turned over to the bullpens and not much of consequence happened after that. Fernando Salas, Addison Reed and Josh Edgin were all just fine, but the Mets couldn't capitalize on in the 8th and 10th when the game seemed to be right there for the taking. The 10th was particularly irritating, when after Bruce doubled and Lucas Duda was given a mulligan (still processing this new intentional walk rule), Travis d'Arnaud, who along with Robles seems to be an early candidate for The Ballclub's Flog of the Year, then struck out watching a pair of pitches that might as well have been sitting on a tee for him, and Ty Kelly, batting probably because Collins was playing matchups in a spot where T.J. Rivera probably should have hit, struck out as well.
So, it came down to Rafael Montero. After a few seasons that at best could be considered iffy, he had a strong spring and worked himself back into everyone's good graces. But he's still not showing what I'd consider decent command and he got himself into trouble in the 11th and again in the 12th. The difference was that in the 11th, he was able to get out of it. In the 12th, he got a necessary 2nd out with men on 1st and 2nd. Freddie Freeman was then rightfully punted to 1st Base so Montero could pitch to Matt Kemp. Given that Montero's stuff had been lively and Kemp was looking fastball on the first pitch, the smart thing to do would have been to either bury a changeup in the dirt or throw a slider 3 feet outside and let him wave at it. But nooooooo. Montero had to be a hero and fire a fastball on the inside corner, right where Kemp was looking to whack it into the Left Field corner for a 2-run double.
That was the end of the meaningful portion of the night. Jay Bruce hit with 2 out in the last of the 12th but Lucas Duda was subsequently pretzelized by Jim Johnson and thus, the Mets got their first loss of the season hung on them, and I suppose it's fitting it's to Atlanta. They were a pain in the ass last year and I suspect this will be the case again this year. Meanwhile, the same guys who looked so good down in Florida and got our hopes up all turned back into pumpkins the first opportunity they were given. So Robles, d'Arnaud and Montero need to get their asses in gear. I know it's two games in but teams with World Series aspirations can't have the same dumb guys doing the same dumb shit day after day.
Sigh. The lone upside I can see to all this was that I was not there to freeze my ass off for this one. I suspect I would have gotten fed up and left after the 11th but who knows. Sometimes, I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to this stuff.
Monday's season lid-lifter at Citi Field was about everything you could ask for as far as the results of the first game of the season. The weather, which had heretofore been kind of dicey and in April at Citi Field can be downright brutal, suddenly turned bright and sunny and warm at around 11am, right around the time I arrived at Citi Field. George was with me as per usual, marking what I believe is 11 of the last 13 Opening Day games we've been present for. Howie Rose was on the field by 12:40 to blow the Shofar and welcome us to the 2017 National League season in New York, fans warmly welcomed back our team, as well as some fondly-remembered players on the opposing side, and then it was business time. Noah Syndergaard hit the mound and pitched, well, basically the way you'd expect him to pitch, mixing things up, getting out of jams and keeping the Braves off the scoreboard until a blister forced him from the game after 6 innings. The Mets had a hard time with Julio Teheran—because they always have a hard time with Julio Teheran—until he departed in the 7th, where the Mets capitalized on a replay reversal and then bombed the Atlanta bullpen into submission and cruised home with a 6-0 victory to start their season.
It had been some time since I'd seen George; this offseason has been somewhat checkered for me and certainly from a mental standpoint, though I might not have been especially prepared for it, I was more than ready to get back to the sanctuary of Citi Field. But at any rate I spent most of the pregame discussing with him reasons why I believe now that the Mets are going to win the World Series this season, and really, what it boils down to more than anything is that it's simply their time in the arc of this era, if this era of the Mets is going to be what we want it to be. They had the near-miss, they had the regression and somehow turned it into another near-miss, so now, it's time to strike.
But that was preamble and there was still the matter of seats and ceremonies and concessions and hordes of people to work through. I'd mentioned I upgraded my seats; after four years of bouncing between sections 512 and 513, I've moved down to 418, because it's just time for a change. However, the Mets for whatever reason decided to get cute and put me in different seats for Opening Day. Different seats being Section 106, sure, it's the Field level, but it's jammed down in the Right Field Corner. Not exactly where I would have preferred to sit. For one, you can't see the field directly in front of you. Two, you can't see the scoreboard above Right Field, which is where important things like pitch count and scoring calls are generally displayed. Three, because it's the Field Level, and because of the assorted "entertainment" options down there, it seems to be more crowded than the Promenade, and for whatever reason it seems there are substantially fewer restrooms, which is problematic...
...and as you can see in this video, you're kind of displaced from the action. But on the upside I got a real good view of Syndergaard's pregame routine.
Also a lovely view of Bartolo Colon's backside as he was introduced to a roaring ovation.
And then it was time to introduce our guys...
...and get hyped...
...And, finally, get on with the show!
The game from that point was a little bit of a blur, for a few reasons. For one, I, and this should illustrate how ill-prepared I was for Opening Day, didn't eat anything before the game. I almost always get something to eat before the game but for whatever reason, I waited. At the end of the 1st inning, I got up to use the restroom, thinking it would be quick and painless. WRONG. I attempted to use the restroom by Section 103 only to find the line stretching across the concourse and in fact splitting into two lines because everyone stopped caring. So that was already a clusterfuck. Then, I decided to get something to eat while I was up, and found the most palatable line to be at the Sausage stand by Section 105. Only I got on line somewhere in the bottom of the 2nd inning and didn't return to my seat until the top of the 4th. That's a bad job by me. It's a bad job by everyone, really, because there were rumblings of credit card terminals down, but really, it was a bad job by me. That's the kind of rookie move I don't usually make.
Fortunately, in this digital age, I was able to look at my phone and catch up on my scorecard. Of course, I sat down just in time for Freddie Freeman to bang one off the Right Field fence and after Jay Bruce mangled the carom, what should have been a double was a triple and the Braves were primed to strike first. Except that Syndergaard is unmoved by these kind of things and responded by putting the Baseball version of a sleeperhold on the Braves, striking out Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis to end the threat. More trouble unfolded in the 6th when Dansby Swanson and Freeman singled and Atlanta had runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out, but, again, Syndergaard brushed this aside by striking out Kemp again and getting Markakis to fly out, ending the threat and, of course, thanks to the infamous blister, ending his afternoon.
Still, the Mets offense was stagnant against Teheran, which as I said wasn't terribly surprising since the Mets always have trouble with him. But he too departed after 6 and the Mets attacked the Braves patently awful bullpen right away. Ian Krol was first up and he allowed a hit to Rene Rivera. Wilmer Flores followed, pinch hitting for Hansel Robles, and after being greeted with his usual standing ovation, grounded into a Fielder's choice. He then stole 2nd Base, which I suppose was his way of taking advantage of the Braves kind of falling asleep on him. Jose Reyes walked and then Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a clean single to center for his 3rd hit of the day. Flores was sent home, which if you'll recall is the play that finished his season last year, and although it seemed close he was called out at the plate. However, were I sitting in my normal seats, high up and behind Home Plate, I would have seen that Flores snuck his foot in ahead of the tag. Replay, of course, reversed the call, Flores had the first run of the season for the Mets, and the gates opened up from there. There were pitching changes, walks, more pitching changes, more walks and finally the carcass of Eric O'Flaherty was on the mound and Lucas Duda clanged one off the Center Field fence for a 3-run double that made the score 6-0 and removed any particular drama from the afternoon. Fernando Salas for the 8th, a surprise cameo by Robert Gsellman in the 9th, easy enough and off we go!
Certainly, there will be plenty of bad/irritating/exasperating things to happen to the Mets over the course of the subsequent 161 games. That's Baseball. The goal, really, is to minimize the issues and keep putting forth games like this when you are clearly better than your opponent. One of the Mets larger issues in 2016, besides the fact that everyone was hurt and the replacements stopped hitting for 3 months, was their inability to handle inferior teams. I'm pulling numbers out of my ass but I believe they were something like 7-12 against Atlanta and an equivalent of bad against other non-division lousy teams, and those 7 wins were difficult wins. By and large the Mets should win more of these games this season. Yesterday was a good start.
On October 5th of 2016, the Mets season ended with a loss to the San Francisco Giants in the Wildcard Game. Instead of "On to Chicago" for the Mets, it was off into obscurity and another year of watching someone else celebrating a World Series Championship.
As a fan I'm still stewing over the way that whole thing ended and I think I've taken quite a bit of heat about it. I don't necessarily care because this is my blog and I can say whatever the hell I want. Plus, if you disagreed, then you sort of missed the whole point. But that's immaterial here as we finally approach the dawn of a new season.
I haven't written anything here in a good 5 months. Really, there hasn't been much to say. The Mets had one move that had to be made this offseason—resign Yoenis Cespedes—and they did that. Otherwise, this afternoon, when Howie Rose comes out, blows the Shofar, welcomes the congregants to the National League Season in New York and announces the Mets roster, there won't be an opportunity to give anyone a Joe Buck "WELCOME TO NEW YORK!!" Nobody's new. Everyone will have been here before.
I wouldn't call it so much addition by subtraction, even though some faces are gone. Maybe it's addition by attrition. The Mets managed to win a Wildcard last season with a team that was mostly decimated with injuries. Of the five that began the year in the starting rotation, only two were still standing come October. Now that we're back in April, one is gone, two are back, one replacement has emerged, and a face almost long forgotten has resurfaced. And, of course, one still sits in injury-prone limbo.
Mostly, the Mets flew under the radar during the offseason. That flurry of offseason activity really didn't produce anything beyond idle talk. Other teams got all the ink, and moving through Spring training, other teams continued to get all the ink. If you believe what you read, the Mets are probably somewhere between the 9th and 12th best team in the Majors, hardly enough to hang with the Big Boys when it comes time for October.
Of course, two years ago, nobody expected much out of them either.
Oh, but those names, those names, and the potential they hold. We're still waiting for the day when all of the "Big 5" are together at last, and really, that day may never come. But when you look at the Mets and see a rotation that's 7 pitchers deep, you realize that they might not necessarily have to be. Or at least not in the order you might have intended for them to be. Certainly, this afternoon's starter, Noah Syndergaard will lead the charge, much as he did last year, and a rejuvenated Jacob deGrom follows. Matt Harvey continues to have a giant bullseye on his back in the court of fan opinion, but we shall see whether his competitive spirit will once again win the day over the haters. Then, we have Robert Gsellman, who impressed last season in an emergency role and continued to do so this Spring. Finally, the return of Zack Wheeler, last seen in 2014, which may as well be a lifetime ago. What we'll get out of him, who knows, but he's back and he's ready to roll, even if he's going to be under the strictest of innings limits.
Offensively, you won't see flash beyond Cespedes, but that was the case last year too. Much like the pitchers, you just want everyone to stay away from Ray Ramirez. And maybe for Michael Conforto to hit so much he forces a move to be made. Otherwise, you sort of have a good idea what to expect from this group. Occasional line-moving, lots of Home Runs, some streakiness. Some days where they bomb an opponent into submission and others where they hit 4 double plays and leave 13 men on base.
But what I said at the end of last year still feels relevant now: the Mets, and even moreso their fans, need to approach this season with some degree of Arrogance. The Mets fan has been generally conditioned to fear the worst, and with good reason. But look at those guys that won last year. They were the saddest of the sad sacks and for some reason spent the entire 2016 season with their chests puffed out and look where they are now. Odds-on favorite to do it again. So, let's go out and knock them down a peg, shall we? The Mets have done this before. It's nothing new.
I've been thinking a lot about the Big Red Machine in the 1970s and how their arc sort of parallels this era of the Mets. They took some time to come together and made it to the cusp a pair of times, only to lose the World Series in 1970 and 1972, and get bounced by the Mets in the NLCS in 1973. But they persevered and ultimately won World Series Championships in 1975 and 1976 and remain one of the enduring Great Teams of their era. The Mets too have been on the edge twice now only to be turned away at the altar. Granted, the nature of the game is different now than it was then and more needs to align in order to make it but you need to continue to persevere. Those guys were probably murderous come '75 and, really, the Mets should feel that way this year.
Get Angry. Play Angry. Be Arrogant. I don't know if I'm the only one who truly feels that way or not but that's what this season needs to be about. Being on the edge has gone on too long and too many times the Mets have come this far only to stagnate and regress. There's no good reason for anything like that to happen to this group.
As is tradition, I will be on hand for Howie Rose, the Ceremonial Shea Wreath, The Blowing of the Shofar and the Ceremonial Opening Day Car Fire this afternoon with George, marking the 13th consecutive season I'll have done so. I've renewed my tickets—even sprung for better seats this season—so I'll be around, snarling from the Promenade level all year. 20 games the past couple of seasons has turned into 28 or 22 by the time the curtain finally falls on the season and I expect the number this year will approach the former.
And so it was the Cubs that won the 2016 World Series. Just as everyone told you they would. The team that was foisted on society ended up winning the ultimate prize, beating the Cleveland Indians in a classic and harrowing 7th Game to take home the crown for the first time in 108 years.
And, quite honestly, it made me sick.
People seem to have this impression of the Cubs as these loveable losers, but there wasn't much I found loveable about them or their fans. Sure, the same could be said about the fans of most teams, but rooting for the 2016 Cubs seemed to be about as chic as rooting for that other New York team between 1996-2001. You didn't know why you were supposed to other than it seemed like the "cool thing to do."
So I was hoping that some team would be able to step up and stop the Cubs freight train, but nobody did. The Indians pushed them to the limit, going ahead 3 games to 1 and on Sunday night it certainly looked like they were primed to seal the deal, and I was certainly enjoying that, but their luck ran out. The Cubs got it together, rose up and outwilled the Indians in one of those games where neither team wanted to fade quietly into the night.
But for most of the night, this game was headed the way of most of the rest of the series, which wasn't great on a game-to-game basis. Friday's Game 3 was close and so was Sunday's Game 5. Otherwise, none of the games were particularly dramatic. Neither was Game 7, at least not early. Corey Kluber, who'd been heroic in two starts prior, ran out of gas and got hit hard. At 5-1, it seemed like the Cubs were going to coast home. But Aroldis Chapman, himself overworked, also looked spent and out of nowhere, the Indians managed to fight back, tie the game at 6-6 on a Rajai Davis Home Run, and send the game into Twilight Zone Territory. Rain fell, a tarp was pulled on as the game moved to Extra Innings, and then the whole thing turned into a Buzzfeed article. The 2016 World Series is going to be remembered by everyone as this great, classic series, with the underdog Cubs storming back to win it all. You know, basically ignoring the fact that the Cubs were such enormous favorites going back to Opening Day, and the fact that everyone essentially basically spent the entire season patting them on the back and congratulating them over a World Series Championship that they hadn't won. They'd kind of done this last year too, until the Mets punched them in the mouth and put them in their place.
But, this year, they sealed the deal. And if you want to call me bitter, go right ahead, because, you know what, I am. I believed that the Mets, if they'd been given another shot at the Cubs, would absolutely have taken them out. They stoned them last year, and when they played each other during the regular season, a partially-neutered version of the Mets still took them out. Another Armageddon could have gone one way or another, but as I said about a month ago, I wanted to see the Mets have that chance. But it didn't happen. Instead, we had to sit on our hands and watch as the Cubs managed to finish their deal behind one of the major players that prevented the Mets from reaching the goal last year, and if you weren't sick of Ben Zobrist already, well...
And, you know, seeing the Cubs celebrating, and seeing their fans peeing themselves, and seeing hipster idiots running around New York City today wearing Cubs hats kind of got me thinking. Maybe we've been going about this all wrong. Mets fans have by and large been conditioned to approach the season with the old Crash Davis term of Fear and Arrogance. More Fear than Arrogance, to be sure, but a little arrogance. This hasn't worked, since the Mets are now 30 years removed from their last World Series Championship. But the Cubs, who hadn't won a thing since Teddy Roosevelt was President, spent the entire year with their chests puffed out, celebrating the title they believed they'd already won, and though it was enough to make you laugh at them then, you can't do that anymore because they went and did it.
So, yeah, I think we need to start having a different attitude here. If the Fans believe it, let's make the team believe it to. Perhaps all Mets fans need to start acting like we've already won something. Let's be the arrogant pricks walking around, thumbing our noses at every other team. Let's take over opposing team's ballparks and shit-talk their fans. This isn't so crazy. As it's composed now, the Mets are going to have 5 Starting Pitchers that can pistolwhip an opponent at any given time. Noah Syndergaard's just getting warmed up, Matt Harvey's got his head back on straight, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz are healthy again, Zack Wheeler's gonna be back and that's not even getting to guys like Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo and, of course, Bartolo Colon. Who's going to stop these Mets? The Mets have already proven what they can do when everything clicks, so I think we should just proclaim it now. It's gonna click in 2017. Sing it loud and proud. #MetsIn2017.
