The Place To Be!

There was, of course, no better place for any Mets fan to be on Friday afternoon than at Citi Field for the 2016 Home Opener. I was, as promised, there at 11am, and in spite of the fact that I'd left my house later than I would have liked, I was still there on time, which means that had I left when I had intended to, I would have been there, what, 10:30? George was there as well, and in fact beat me by a few minutes, but it seemed a bit of a fruitless exercise because the gates hadn't yet opened when we arrived, and so we were reduced to standing along the perimeter of the masses that had gathered outside the Rotunda, ready to get in and get their slice of Baseball Nirvana.

We did, eventually, make it inside, and of course as per usual, did our lap around the Field Level, just to see what was new since we'd last sojourned to Flushing. Lines had already formed at the usual places, Shake Shack, Pat LaFreida's, and at the new David Chang Fuku outlet, which seems to have either truncated or bumped completely the Lobster Roll stand. I will, I'm sure, have to try this mythical sandwich, but today was not the day; my aptitude for waiting on long lines for food has vanished completely, as opposed to my aptitude for sitting in Arctic conditions at Citi Field in April, which has grown tired but may never evaporate.

Eventually, we did get upstairs, and to our seats, just in time for the Opening Ceremonies and the proverbial blowing of the Shofar. I have, of course, captured everything for you loyal readers who were either unable to attend or wish to relive it, and thanks to an offseason acquisition of a new camera, I bring it to you in eye-popping HD, as opposed to an iPhone video. The difference is stark.

This video ran us through the history of Mets Pantheon years and events leading up to last season, I was late in joining it but nonetheless, you get the idea. I'd already taken note of the most notable new addition to Citi Field:

which I suppose would have been more fitting if it had been unveiled by Matt Harvey, but that's not Harvey standing there by himself in the Excelsior level, and there was already another unveiling planned, but we'll get to that later. Meanwhile, there was the Shea Family presentation of the Opening Day Wreath, which to me is, for all intents and purposes, the Baseball version of the blowing of the Shofar, which was followed by Howie Rose:

For the Baseball purist, which I consider to be just about anyone who truly embraces the National League style of play, I've always been struck by the fact that this is how Howie Rose welcomes Opening Day. It's not just the Baseball season, it's the National League season, and as I've been over many times, that National League style of Baseball is the way it ought to be done. People may not agree, I don't especially care, and the fact that Howie Rose acknowledges it as a thing means he agrees with me. It's straight business after that, of course, as Howie introduces the Phillies roster and lineup, which consisted of the carcass of Ryan Howard and a bunch of rookies and retreads and guys we'll only know because the Mets and Phillies play each other 19 times a season. They are all booed heartily, some more than others. And then, of course, our guys:

For years (and I have the videos to prove it), most of the trainers and staff got booed, with the exception of Yoshi Nishio, the massage therapist, whom everyone seems to love and I've never understood why, other than he always looks really happy to be there. This year, everyone got cheered, even Cortisone Shot Ramirez. When you go to the World Series, everyone loves you. But we'll see how long that lasts. Then, there were the players, and most hearty welcomes were reserved for Wilmer Flores, Steven Matz, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Jeurys Familia, Michael Conforto and, of course, Bartolo Colon.

Then, there was the National Anthem. They had cast members from the musical, Hamilton on hand to perform, which is when I realized that this is now officially a Happening. Citi Field is truly the place to be. Other teams in this town that love to revel in the past seem content to beam out an image of Frank Sinatra, but we're getting guys from the hottest show in town for our party.

And then, finally, the ceremony was capped off by the raising of the Championship Banner, which feels very anticlimactic, perhaps because of the short flagpoles, or perhaps because it's not a banner for something bigger, but regardless, a banner is a banner and the Mets have a long tradition of banner waving, so here's one more:

And finally, with the shofar blown and the ceremony dispensed and the banner raised and the crowd plenty fired up, it was time to play a game:

And play the Mets did.

After the pomp and circumstance I guess the game itself is almost a sideshow. Once the ceremony is done with and everyone finally settles in to watch a game, things kind of settle down, or at least it settled down plenty this afternoon. That was probably because Jacob deGrom settled in and in spite of not having that pop on his fastball that he had last season, he still shoved aside a mostly overmatched Phillies lineup over his 6 innings of work. There were some hits, mostly singles, but when deGrom needed a strikeout he tended to get one. This, of course, with the specter of impending fatherhood hanging over him, but where such circumstance led to the undoing of other pitchers in prior seasons, deGrom seems to have the uncanny ability to not allow outside things to distract him from the task at hand. Really, the only thing that slowed him down was this nagging lat injury, which knocked him from the game after 6 innings, and while he'd have us believe it was no cause for concern, on a frigid afternoon, there was no need to push anything.

deGrom did depart with a lead in the 6th, because it was in the 6th that his teammates finally figured out Jerad Eickhoff, the young Philly starter whom the Mets saw a few times last year and had a hard time with. Eickhoff ran into some trouble in the second; partially his own doing because he was walking guys, and partially the fault of Freddy Galvis, his Shortstop, who dropped what likely would have been a double play grounder off the bat of Asdrubal Cabrera that set up the Mets first run of the game, an RBI groundout by deGrom. Though Philly did tie the game in the 6th, which seemed somewhat accidental, the Mets then stormed back in the bottom of the inning, as Lucas Duda led off with a double, Neil Walker followed with an RBI single—his "WELCOME TO NEW YORK!!" moment—and Michael Conforto drilled a double to score Walker. That settled Eickhoff.

In the 7th inning, Jim Henderson had his "WELCOME TO NEW YORK!!" moment, coming in and doing what he's done all spring and retiring the side in order, throwing heat and striking out 2 of the 3 batters he faced. For Henderson, this has to be gratifying considering he'd missed the better part of 2 seasons with injuries and basically had to prove himself worthy of a role, which he's done in spades. Sometimes, you take chances on guys like this and they work--at least this has been the case so far with Henderson.

The Mets then put the game away in the bottom of the 7th, against James Russell, who's bounced around a lot and basically fits the mold of a lefty reliever to a tee. He was in there to face the alternating lefty hitters in the Mets lineup, but he didn't do a very good job of it. He walked David Wright with 1 out, gave up a single to Yoenis Cespedes, walked Lucas Duda, and then gave up hits to Neil Walker and Conforto that plated 3 runs between them. Travis d'Arnaud then capped the scoring with his first hit of the season, a single that scored Walker and, with the game now 7-1, sent many of the frozen revelers to the exits--and some warmth.

I, however, stuck around to the finale, which got needlessly hairy in the 8th thanks to Hansel Robles' inability to get anyone out, and might have been hairier when Jerry Blevins entered the game, but after falling behind 3-0 against Odubel Herrera, but he eventually got Herrera to pop up, and this turned into a Double Play when Cesar Hernandez forgot the machinations of the Infield Fly Rule. Antonio Bastardo worked an uneventful 9th, and the Mets wrapped up a fine Opening Day with a 7-2 victory, and at least for one afternoon all was right in the world.

There are, of course, still some complaints about the service on Opening Day, when it often seems like the stadium staff is sometimes ill-prepared for 44,000 people to show up. The scorecard golf pencils were blunted, to the point where I now have an unreadable scorecard (my handwriting is bad to begin with and when I have to write with a horseshit pencil it's even worse). There were no vendors to be found in the seating areas for a majority of the game, until the pretzel guy came by in the 8th inning, which was useless because I didn't want a pretzel. I would have loved to get some pocket schedules, but there were none to be found, which happens every season.

Fortunately, I have more complaints about the ballpark than I do about the team, which is a good thing. deGrom's line was, for him, pretty standard stuff so there's not much to write about. Neil Walker had himself a nice afternoon and was in the thick of all the Mets rallies, as was Michael Conforto, who is supposed to sit against lefties, but I have a suspicion he's going to force Terry Collins to reconsider this before too long because he's hitting everyone right now. We'll see how this goes. The Mets aren't scheduled to face a lefty pitcher until I believe Tuesday.

So, the Mets have dispensed with the ceremonial portion of their schedule, and can now get back to the business of the day-to-day life of the season. It was a Happening at Citi Field, though, and I suppose it is what happens when you go to the World Series. Those days of 10-15,000 people out there on a Tuesday night are probably over. When you're winning, every game can be a Happening.

Break Out The Bunting

George and I were discussing what the plan was for Opening Day tomorrow, as we usually do since we've attended Opening Day I believe 10 out of the past 12 seasons, and he asked me what time to meet out at Citi Field. I thought about it for a few minutes, and this was the answer I gave him:

"You know, every year, I say let's meet at 11:30, and every year I go dashing out there and show up at 11, so why kid myself anymore? Let's meet at 11."

I suppose, in my advancing age, I've become wiser about my own particular patterns, if not so much my aptitude to sit out in freezing temperatures at April Games at Citi Field.

Regardless, as if it were a surprise to anyone, I'll be at Citi Field tomorrow for my 12th consecutive Opening Day or Home Opener as the case may be. I've got the Shofar polished, I have a brand new Game Hat for 2016 (Classic Blue, 2015 World Series patch), and now all we need is Howie Rose, the Bill Shea Good Luck Wreath, the Ceremonial First Car Fire and a whole mess of Bunting and we're ready to go.

Things will be a bit different this year as opposed to prior seasons, for obvious reasons. The usual blind hope that everyone enters Opening Day with has been replaced by actual Hope, and there's going to be a banner-raising ceremony to prove it. I've never actually been to a Mets banner-raising ceremony, and the scuttlebutt I'm hearing is that Rusty Staub, John Franco and Edgardo Alfonzo will be there to perform the banner-raising, so this should be a rollicking good time.

It's going to be a festive day—Opening Day usually is—but with a bit more of a purpose. Usually, when I leave Citi Field at the final game of the season, which more often than not has been the final game of the regular season, I'll detour myself to walk down through the Rotunda and smack a pillar on my way out, as if I were patting an old friend on the back and saying, "See you next year!" This didn't happen last season. On the final day of the regular season last year, I knew I'd be back, and I ended up being back 6 times subsequent to that date of October 4th. I didn't say my traditional farewell after Game 4 of the Dodgers series—that was too depressing an evening and too jammed a crowd. After Game 1 of the Cubs series everyone was too busy reveling. And then, there was the final game against Kansas City, at around 12:30 in the morning on November 2nd. And on that night, saying farewell for the offseason wasn't really on my mind and I'm sure it wasn't on the mind of anyone else who was silently and sullenly streaming out of the building. This hasn't sat well with me, not so much the lack of farewell, but the way it all ended—I'm sure that holds true for most fans—the ending kind of undoes the great vibes of the journey to get to that point—but now we get to start over again. The crowd will probably be as full and as fired up as it was last October, albeit with much lower stakes, but that doesn't matter. It's a festive occasion no matter how you look at it.

Come on! Opening Day has it all! The Shofar, the Wreath, the Bunting, the 11:30am Beer, the Car Fire...Can't wait. Howie Rose at 12:40, First pitch 1:10. Who's Drinkin'!?

The Thor You Know

In the bottom of the 1st inning this afternoon, Alcides Escobar took a Noah Syndergaard offering and deposited it well in the gap in Right Center field, resulting in a leadoff triple. This wasn't really the start that anyone wanted to see. The Royals seemed hell bent on continuing to peck the Mets to death and if anything, it seemed a mere continuation of Sunday night and then the five meaningful games prior to that.

Syndergaard, however, had other ideas, and after being outwardly mocked by the Royals, and rather than engage in the petulant war of words that the Royals prefer, he used his right arm to make his particular statement, which more or less was "Enough of this fuckery." Syndergaard struck out Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer in quick succession, kept Escobar glued to 3rd base and thus we went.

It appears to me, just based on the way Syndergaard developed last season and the way he kicked off his 2016 campaign, that Syndergaard is well on his way to being the 1B to Harvey's #1 and deGrom's 1A, which is to say that there's going to be quite a bit of hell to pay for anyone who gets in his way. He's displayed some healthy arrogance; not quite Harvey-level arrogance, and he doesn't have that visible anger when he's pitching, but when you look at the results—which today involved no runs, 3 hits, 1 walk and 9 strikeouts in 6 innings—well, you draw your own conclusions.

Other contributions on this afternoon included Neil Walker, who had his Official Joe Buck "WELCOME TO NEW YORK!!" in the 4th inning when he launched a 2-run Home Run off of the suddenly-irritatingly-tough Chris Young that held up as the only scoring of the game, Jim Henderson, whose first appearance in the Major Leagues in nearly 2 years was deceptively good, and Jeurys Familia, who showed no ill effects from his own Royals problems by setting them down in order in the 9th and capping off the Mets' initial victory of the season.

It is, however, all mere sideline to Syndergaard, as well it should be when Thor is on the mound. He was the only pitcher who truly stifled the Royals last season and if the Mets could have kept things going long enough maybe he would have had a chance to do it again on the grandest of stages. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but within the perspective of a new season and a clean slate, I'll obviously take today's results, and I'll take a split of this asinine 2-game series where the deck seemed completely stacked against the Mets.

And now, the Mets return home, where they'll get to sit on their hands for two days thanks to whatever clown drew up the schedule and gave the Mets two days off in a row three days into the season. The real party, of course, is Friday, whence I make my first trip of the year to Flushing and we blow the Shofar to signal the beginning of the 2016 National League Season in New York.

An Untenable Situation

For as much as I wanted to deny it, I had a really bad feeling about the Mets opening their season in Kansas City. It was bad enough that the Royals wiped the Mets out last October, but now they'd be having their coronation party right in the Mets faces, and then going out with their crowd of kazoo-blowing fans and throwing the same looks at the Mets. It seemed an untenable situation. The Royals predictably made the Mets stand around for an hour while they patted themselves on the back (I'm sure what I heard about them showing a consolation video for the Mets was little more than a token gesture) and damned if it took less than an inning for that Royals Mojo to rear its ugly head once again.

The World Series started with Matt Harvey on the mound and Yoenis Cespedes botching a fly ball leading to an early Kansas City run. The 2016 season started the same way. Harvey got Mike Moustakas to hit an eminently playable line drive to left with 1 out that clanked off of Cespedes' glove for an error. 3 batters later, Moustakas had scored and thus started a game that may as well have been Game 6 of last year's World Series. The majority of the game followed suit. The Royals created breaks, got close calls, made solid contact and ultimately knocked Harvey from the game in the 6th inning, while the Mets could make no breaks, advance no runners, and didn't make much of a peep against Edinson Volquez.

This wasn't a pretty outing for Harvey, and his final line would indicate that, but I can't say I thought he pitched badly by any stretch. But if anyone needed to be reminded—and I don't think any Mets fan actually needed to be reminded—about just why the Royals are the defending World Series Champions, they went out and did it. In a game where, against basically any other team, Harvey likely would have been pitching shutout ball or 1-run ball and cruising through 6 innings, the Royals just singled him to death, taking extra bases, forcing the issue, you know, the same annoying stuff we had to live through last year, and slowly that 1-0 deficit turned into a 4-0 deficit and the game seemed pretty much nuked. But, as I've recently mentioned, and of course as the media will dictate, you're remembered by the final result, and, well, Harvey lost. So that's the endgame.

Offensively, there wasn't much to say about the Mets. They couldn't take advantage of the limited opportunities they had against Volquez, and until they managed to rally against Joakim Soria in the 8th inning it seemed pretty certain that they wouldn't push anything across. But they did have a spirited rally in that 8th, as Soria lost the plate and the Mets finally managed to catch a couple of breaks when flair hits by Lucas Duda and Michael Conforto landed safely, and suddenly that 4-0 deficit became 4-3...but they got no closer. Wade Davis looked ripe for the taking in the 9th inning, and certainly the Mets had the opportunity to tie the game after a great AB by Travis d'Arnaud and some clutch hitting from Curtis Granderson, but David Wright struck out, and Yoenis Cespedes struck out and that was the end of that.

I did like what I saw from Conforto, in particular, and also from Granderson and Duda, who put up some nice ABs and Conforto ended up finding himself on base every time he came up, something that might be lost in the overall effort. But it was overshadowed by Cespedes, who whiffed in the field and whiffed at the plate, and by David Wright, whose 9th inning strikeout seemed almost predictable. For as much as I hate to say it, Wright batting 2nd in this lineup might end up becoming a liability before all is said and done. He didn't get the necessary game action in Spring Training and it showed, as Davis made him look silly on 3 pitches and the only way he could have looked sillier would have been if Davis had thrown a slider 10 feet off the plate so David could have flailed away at it.

So, not the world's most encouraging start for the Mets, but again, the Mets aren't going to play the Royals 162 times this year, and they also don't have to play any more games in the home stadium of the defending World Series Champions anymore after Tuesday. It's easy to lose perspective because it's one game and because the Mets looked like a bunch of idiots on National TV (once again), but again, consider all the circumstances surrounding the game before jumping to conclusions. It almost seemed predestined that the breaks weren't going to go the Mets way on this night. They'll have plenty of days where they'll get the breaks they need.

The Fighter Still Remains

Usually on Opening Day, I kind of reflect on how the Mets sit in front of me and what they'd need to do in order to move themselves forward. Most seasons it seemed like kind of a fruitless exercise because even if everything went right, and it usually didn't, the Mets were still a long way from getting to where they needed to be. It's obviously different this year, because at some point in 2015 the Mets turned into a legitimate team and rode the wave all the way down to the World Series.

We, of course, know what happened from there.

But in some odd juxtaposition that could only happen in a Baseball World, a season that extended so late into the year that it created the shortest Offseason in Mets history probably felt like the longest, or at least it did for me, and probably because I keep reflecting on that final night of the season, on November 1st. Mere 5 months ago feels like ages, I guess because of how that evening keeps running through my head.

I tend to come back to Matt Harvey, and how he's kind of become a punching bag in the media. Sure, some of this he brings upon himself, but in reality, what is Matt Harvey's fault other than being talented, handsome and arrogant? The point is, would some of the stories about Matt Harvey even be stories if it didn't involve him? But Harvey off the field is of little interest to me. So long as he doesn't end up doing something stupid and really getting himself in serious trouble, it's not my business. When he's on the field, pitching for my team, then it is my business.

And that's what brings me back to the first and only time the Mets played Baseball in November. Because on that night, Harvey stood out intent to pitch the game of games and stamp his name in Baseball lore. Because for 8 innings, Harvey pitched with the kind of ferocity I'd never seen out of him, to the point where he stomped off the mound screaming after striking out the side.

In the 7th inning, I was quite certain that Harvey was finishing the game, win or lose, because at that point, he was pitching so well and his level of intensity was so high that I figured him likely to put Terry Collins through the dugout wall if he attempted to pull him from the game. Of course, that led to the now-infamous 8th inning discussion in which Harvey talked himself back into the game, failed to seal the deal, and instead of being a hero, he became this offseason's punchline.

But again, why should Matt Harvey be laughed at for trying to will his way through the game? It seems to me that if he'd come out, and Jeurys Familia ended up blowing the game, then Harvey's a jerk for coming out. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, but I'll never blame Matt Harvey for demanding to finish out the game. Far as I'm concerned, he deserved the opportunity to do so. It didn't work out, the Mets lost the lead, lost the game, lost the World Series. And for 5 months now, he's had to carry that around just as much as all of us fans have had to, and it sucks.

It did, however, lead to this scene, which I still find incredible so I'm going to show it to you again:

I talked, after that game, about how the Mets had to remember the feeling. Remember how the season ended. But there's two ways this can go. Some teams have had painful ends to a season and ended up carrying it around as baggage that took all the starch out of the team the following season. As though so much emotion had been built up on that game that the loss was too catastrophic to recover from. Other teams use the feeling as springboard to drive them through the following season.

Certainly, the Mets appear like a team primed to do the latter. Most of these guys on the team are too young to have the baggage of so many losing seasons and none of them were around the last time the franchise was coming off a horrible Postseason loss. But you really don't know until you see it in action. The fact that they'll be starting things off with their World Series opponent throwing a celebration in their faces might be a good thing for them. Certainly, giving Matt Harvey the Opening Night start on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy is a good opportunity for him to make the a statement that people ought to just focus on his pitching. That's all that should matter about him for the next 6-7 months.

It's a long way back to get to where the Mets were last season, and of course not many get the opportunity to play in that arena in back-to-back seasons. But the Mets certainly appear capable of doing so. It becomes a matter of using everything that went on last season as a means to springboard them forward. It goes beyond whatever stats and numbers might tell you about a player or a team. The Mets didn't have that look at times last year, but what they did have was a whole that felt greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, they had guys like Harvey, or Jacob deGrom, or Noah Syndergaard, or Yoenis Cespedes who got most of the ink, but ultimately, none of them felt themselves above the team, which is key. The Mets developed a fighter's spirit last season that held across the roster and appears to still be there as they get ready to try and better the results of 2015. This starts with Matt Harvey but it's going to be on display every time the Mets take the field this season.

Hopefully, the ending will turn out right this time.