Everything Is Terrible

I haven't read or heard any reaction to last night's debacle in Miami, but I would suppose that the prevailing thought across the board is that when Matt Harvey pitches and the Mets still can't win a game, then things are probably worse than we thought.

To his credit, Harvey hasn't ever actually pitched poorly this season. Last night he again minimized damage, but his one mistake, which was surprisingly enough not that he gave up, but that he wasn't economical enough with his 6 innings of work. It's something he's alternately good and bad with, but that's the travails of a young pitcher. But for his efforts, he deserved a win. In fact, he always deserves a win.

But the remainder of the game still had to be played, and the Mets, who only managed to score on a John Buck Home Run, just couldn't be bothered to squeeze an insurance run across. That's not to say that multiple opportunities didn't present themselves. It appears to me that pretty much every Mets inning that the Mets came to bat from the 7th on played out something like this:

1. Single to Right
2. Sacrifice Bunt, runner moves to 2nd
3. Ground out to the right side, runner moves to 3rd
4. Line out to the Shortstop. Runner stranded.

And so on, and so forth.

Nonetheless, the Mets were in position to beat the miserable Marlins, who appeared to be just as offensively challenged. I didn't like the Mets inability to build on their lead, but surely, the bullpen ought to have been able to hold the lead. Come the 9th inning, my other half, who was waiting to watch a program that was recording on the DVR, asked when the game was ending. I said it was the 9th inning. She said, "Oh good, so it'll be over soon." I replied, "Yes, unless some unforeseen disaster happens. Of course, this is the Mets we're talking about, so who knows..."

Of course. I seemed prophetic a few minutes later when Bobby Parnell blew the lead. It wasn't entirely Parnell's fault. He probably should have gotten Rob Brantly out, but for Collin Cowgill making the True Met play and breaking back on a fly ball when he should have broken in, allowing the ball to fall in for a hit and giving the Marlins the opportunity to scrape the tying run across.

The 10th inning began, and my other half came back into the room. "What!? 10th Inning!?" she yelled.

"Well, the Mets turned back into the Mets," was the only reply I could muster.

The game continued. A stream of Mets continued to either strike out or ground out to the second baseman with runners on base, while Met relievers continued to plow through punchless Marlin bats.  My other half came back in the room some time later.

"12th inning!?" she yelled, "That doesn't happen!"

I had no good answer. For all I could tell, this game could go on for weeks, or until someone ran out of pitchers.

Finally, in the 13th, I relented. The game appeared both endless and hopeless, and I'd basically lost patience. "This game isn't ever going to end," I said to my now-weary other half. "You may as well watch your show now."

So, she did. I figured someone ought to have figured out how to get a hit with a runner in scoring position in the meantime. But by time she watched her show and put the game back on, the score remained 2-2, now in the 15th inning. This prompted her to ask a question about the longest game ever. On cue, Ruben Tejada singled home a run. Miracle of miracles, the Mets actually scored another run after striking out 33 times and going 0-for-27 with men in scoring position. Surely, Shaun Marcum, voluntarily pressed into an emergency relief outing, could navigate his way through 3 more outs.

Unfortunately, surely appears to be a dicey proposition for the Mets these days. Marcum managed one of those 3 outs before the Marlins tied the game, and then one batter later won the game, leaving Marcum to walk off the field with a well-deserved puss on his face.

Fortunately, the Marlins don't have notorious Met-haters like Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla on the team anymore, so their walk-off celebrations against the Mets don't have quite the same oomph they once did. With this incarnation of the Marlins, they appear to simply be happy to have won a game, opponent be damned. That doesn't, however, make the situation any more palatable.

This ended up not being the longest game of the night, but that's pretty much immaterial. Everything about the Mets is terrible right now, and the fact that they're now losing games when Matt Harvey pitches and pitches well is a pretty good example of this. Nobody hits except for John Buck and David Wright (and occasionally Daniel Murphy). The Outfield is so bad that Lucas Duda's middling start is greeted with joy because he's drawing a lot of walks. The bullpen is completely schizophrenic. Usually, the Mets seem to play competitive ball in the first half before they fall apart, but the way things look right now, they stand a very good chance of being irrelevant by Memorial Day. If it wasn't for Harvey and Buck, they could very well be 5-18 right now. Surely a shakeup is needed, but who goes, and how much is it really going to help this bunch?

Bleh

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

At least the weather was nicer on Friday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Got Your Back!

Matt Harvey for once proved he was mortal earlier tonight, although even his worst outing of the season only left the Mets down 3-1 after his 6 innings. Harvey wasn't his usual unhittable self, but then again, the law of averages was bound to catch up with him at some point. And even then, this supposedly bad outing still yielded only 4 hits, 3 runs and 7 strikeouts. But, considering those 3 runs ballooned his ERA to 1.54, that's just a testament to how well he's pitched this far. The Dodgers also didn't exactly knock him around; they scored a run in the 1st on a fielder's choice, and Matt Kemp's 6th inning Home Run was an opposite field flick job that was simply a great hitter hitting a great pitch in the right spot. Aside from that, Harvey was basically doing what he usually does: mow down the opposition with a quickness.

The only real downside to all this was that the Mets offense didn't back him up the way they usually do. Wimpy Ted Lilly pretty much stifled the Mets through the early part of the game, only bending slightly when Harvey himself made a strong bid for his first career Home Run, instead just clanging the ball off the wall for a double. Ruben Tejada followed with a double of his own, scoring Harvey and, at that point, tying the game 1-1.

But down 3-1 and looking rather anemic offensively, things appeared somewhat grim for the Mets. That's not to say they didn't have opportunities against the Dodgers bullpen. Jay J.P. Howell did his best to hand the Mets some runs by walking the first two batters he faced, but Antonio Alfonseca Ronald Bellisario came in to bail him out, allowing only a Sacrifice Fly to Justin Turner before stopping the Mets cold for the remainder of his 1.2 innings. So Harvey still found himself on the short end of the stick, looking at having his 4-0 record blemished by the slimmest of margins unless the offense could scrape across another run.

It took them until the 9th inning, but they finally managed to scrape that run across. Mike Baxter got it started with a flare hit to left that Carl Crawford neither caught nor managed to pick up in a timely fashion, allowing Baxter to hustle out a leadoff double that more or less changed the scope of the game. Tejada sacrificed Bax to 3rd, leaving Daniel Murphy in prime position to tie the game. And perhaps he would have, but for a brilliant catch by Jerry Hairston, Jr, who basically showed little regard for his body in smashing into a dugout railing. Buzzkill. That was going to seal the Mets fate. Except that David Wright nailed the game-tying hit on the next pitch. Game tied, Harvey off the hook, joy in Metville.

This, of course, all would have been moot had the Mets had one of those games where they immediately melt down in the 10th inning, but behind Bobby Parnell, who's pitched rather well even if he hasn't exactly had save opportunities, the Dodgers were turned aside (this after fine jobs from Scott Rice, Scott Atchison and the rejuvenated LaTroy Hawkins), so the Mets had a chance to do some damage of their own in the 10th against this Josh Wall fellow who I guess is the Dodgers answer to Kevin McGlinchy since he came in and immediately started giving up hits and walks and sacrifice bunts, and then Don Mattingly was holding court on the mound, but it was really delaying the inevitable. The only thing left to chance with Jordany Valdespin up was whether he was going to keep control of himself with the bases loaded, or was he going to try to hit the 6-run Homer and ground out to first. The answer, fortunately, was the former; Valdespin put a nice, level, controlled swing on a 2-1 fastball and, oddly enough, ended up being the Home Run Hero because his fly ball that would have won the game regardless ended up sailing over the wall in Right, ensuring that Jordany could back-flip his way around the bases with his first career Grand Slam, sealing a hair-raising 7-3 victory.

So, yes, Matt Harvey has in fact proved himself to be human, just like every other pitcher in the Major Leagues, and sometimes he has to rely on his teammates to pull a game out of the fire for him. Tonight, his teammates, particularly Baxter, Wright and Valdespin, all had his back.

Out In The Cold

I left early.

I'm not proud of this fact, and I don't like admitting that I did it, but I left tonight's game early.

Josh Edgin had just surrendered a 2-run double to A.J. Ellis. Mark Ellis had already done his best Mark McGwire impression. The game, which had been moving at a snail's pace even without the Jonathon Niese injury delay, had stretched past 3 hours. The Mets had, to this point, mustered 2 runs and 3 hits in spite of the fact that they cajoled Clayton Kershaw into a sweaty 110-pitch effort over 5 innings, but had surprisingly little to show for it.

The temperature, cold for the standards of any game, was starting to make my legs stiff. For the second time this season, I was wearing a winter coat at Citi Field, which I already said shouldn't be done. The Weather Channel app on my phone said it was 51º, which was absolute, unadulterated bullshit. I've been out in January in Binghamton and it might have felt warmer than it did tonight at Citi Field.

There were no more than 10,000 people at the game, and they were abandoning in droves.

I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't see a miracle comeback on the horizon and I was fucking freezing. Neither my colleague nor I could deal with another pitching change. So, we left. I realize this is a blow to my Mets fan street cred, but I can't say I particularly care. I wasn't really itching to sit out at Citi Field until close to 11pm, then spend another hour on the subway getting home. 

Up until the Ellises struck, this was actually shaping up like a marginally decent game. Jonathon Niese didn't particularly have his best stuff, and had an Oliver Perez-like 2nd inning where he walked the ballpark before Kershaw bailed him out by hitting into a DP. Then, of course, he took the Mark Ellis comebacker off his leg and was out of the game, day-to-day just like the rest of us. He was fortunate to only be down 1-0.

But Kershaw, who appears to be right out of the Tim Lincecum school of unorthodox pitching mechanics, didn't have his best stuff either. Known for his great control, Kershaw nonetheless ran the count full on pretty much every Met that came to bat against him. Hell, Kershaw managed to walk Robert Carson of all people, who came to bat for the first time in the 3rd and looked like he was ready to pull a Dae Sung Koo act had Kershaw simply been able to find the plate (and as an aside, after walking Carson, Kershaw then made a pickoff attempt on him, which I assume he did just to be a dick). Somehow, that innocuous 2-out walk to the emergency relief pitcher keyed a 2-run rally that put the Mets ahead, and when Carson acquitted himself splendidly over 2 innings, I was beginning to write a blog post in my head anointing Robert Carson as the unsung hero of a steely victory...

...Then Mark Ellis tied the game.

...Then the rest of the Mets bullpen struck.

The bullpen was going to have to do some heavy lifting if the Mets were going to win this game, and after Carson's 2.1 solid innings, Atchison held as well. Brandon Lyon, who has pitched reasonably well to this point, came next, and of course that's when the game started to get as frigid as the temperature. I'm willing to give Lyon one of those "somedays, the bear gets you" passes, even though just about every Mets reliever ever has been on thin ice with me. But Josh Edgin has just been putrid lately, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who seems to think he's just about pitched himself off the team. A 5-2 deficit, the way the Mets have been known to strike, wasn't necessarily insurmountable. All Edgin had to do was get through the inning without doing any damage, but it appears he's incapable of doing that. He killed the last game in Colorado, he gave up the HR to Harper on Saturday, and tonight, he basically drove me to leave the game an inning and a half early. That, right there, ought to be a serious indictment of Josh Edgin's travails this season.

Although if it were June or July, I might have felt more inclined to stick around, even if I knew how the ending was going to turn out.

Owner Of The Moment

The Mets played a game earlier today of lesser note and less fortunate outcome than the one they played on Friday night, and since I barely saw any of Saturday's game and was in attendance at Citi Field on Friday, that makes for a much more interesting blog, even if it's a day late. In a pitching matchup that earned all the hype of a prize fight or a line of video games, Matt Harvey outdueled Stephen Strasburg and the Mets emerged with a resounding 7-1 victory.

It's safe to say at this point that if you're a Mets fan who isn't excited about what Matt Harvey has done so far this season, you either need to check your pulse or root for another team because it's clear that he's not only arrived, he's arrived with authority. Harvey's 4th start of this season basically mirrored his first three, and against a powerful Nationals lineup, that's a pretty clear sign that on most nights, this is how it's going to be. Harvey will come out, hit his spots, strike guys out, maybe struggle through an inning or two but eventually work out of it, and leave with the Mets in position to win. Or he'll start to economize more and begin finishing off games. It's not simply a hot streak, it's the norm. And everyone is starting to take notice.

By no means was Citi Field full on Friday Night; the attendance of 26,675 certainly felt accurate as far as the ratio of fans to empty seats. But the demeanor of the crowd felt different. Somehow, the 26,675 generated the energy of 55,777 at Shea Stadium in the midst of a pennant race or a Playoff game, and it's been a long time since I've felt that kind of a vibe from the crowd at a Mets game.

Usually, most attendees at Mets games who aren't me and don't sit there obsessively keeping score or running through whatever obsessive/compulsive machinations that we go through in the course of a game are up and milling around, or standing on line at Shake Shack or whatever concession stand of their choice rather than paying attention to the game. This wasn't the case on Friday. For the majority of the game, fans seemed glued to their seats, eyes on the field. This was can't miss Baseball, a rarity for an April 19th game.

Case in point: Security at the stadium was heightened, which was to be expected after the events in Boston earlier in the week, and it took me much longer to get inside. So long, in fact, that I had to forego my usual pregame meal. I figured, at some point, I'd be able to steal away long enough to grab a bite on the promenade. But, when I did try to get something to eat, I found the lines far too slow-moving (I was later to find out that the concessionaire purposely short-staffed the Promenade on Vendors because it was an April game, not anticipating a larger-than-normal crowd). There wasn't an especially large amount of people waiting on concession lines, but when there's one cashier working it can create a backup. And when the inning break ends and Matt Harvey gives up a hit to the leadoff batter, I don't feel like standing around watching on a screen, I want to be back in my seat. So, I ended up not eating anything, which might not have been the brightest idea in the world, although it certainly saved money.

Who could blame anyone from not wanting to go anywhere during the game? For a good chunk of the night, it appeared that the anticipated pitcher's duel had unfolded as expected. Strasburg gave up 2 in the 1st, but both were unearned; the result of an error, a Wild Pitch and a 2-out single, and after that, he'd settled in, but he wasn't matching Harvey. Not on this night. Harvey appeared too determined to let this moment get the better of him. Strasburg wasn't off his game, but the Mets sort of nickel-and-dimed him to death, working deep counts and making him throw more pitches than he probably would have liked. Harvey stepped on the Nationals' throats all night; though he's had sharper games—his 3 Walks a season-high—he worked out of every jam the Nationals threw at him, culminating with a Houdini act of the highest order to escape a Bases Loaded, 0 out situation in the 7th inning. By that point, Strasburg had already melted down and allowed a pair of truly monstrous Home Runs to Ike Davis and Lucas Duda, and the fans, whipped into a veritable frenzy by these longballs, began catcalling him with chants of "OVERRATED!!!" and "HARVEY'S BETTER!!!"

For this night, at least, the fans were right. Harvey was simply better. He was better than Strasburg last night, and so far, he's been better than just about everyone else in the league.