Forgotten Altogether

On the heels of barely seeing much of Wednesday's game, I saw literally none of Thursday's game because of a work commitment, to the point of I've been home for some time now and I haven't even seen a highlight. I'm not sure what the Mets did and who did it, but I do know the most important detail, which is that they beat the Mickey Mouse Marlins 6-3, and as such will leave town having won this series in Loriaville and in fact end up going .500 for this particular road trip, which is nice because I think the media, and probably most Mets fans, would have you believe that they went 1-9.

Again, I don't have much to say about the game because I don't know who did what, other than I would assume Seth Lugo pitched well and the Mets offense stuck it to Jose Urena.

The Mets now come home to play the Phillies for the weekend, but then they go on the road again, followed by the All Star Break, which in essence means this weekend's series marks their only home games for the better part of a month, sort of an odd bit of scheduling. If you didn't forget the game—and I'm certain I will because I just don't know what happened beyond the Mets won—you might forget what they look like since they've been on the road for so long.

Better Matz

I didn't see much of Wednesday night's game, which isn't an unusual occurrence, and what I did see wasn't exactly action-packed. I'd missed the Mets come out and attack curly-haired boyfriend Jeff Locke for 3 early runs, 2 of which came on Asdrubal Cabrera's 2-run Home Run, his first since putting his employer on notice. From there, the game was basically the Steven Matz show. In his 4th start of the season, Matz came out and put the Marlins in their rightful place, shutting them out for 7 innings and generally looking very good in leading the Mets to an 8-0 victory.

It's nice to see Matz come out and look really strong as he did, and among other things he was working his slider back into his repertoire. He hadn't been throwing it much, if at all, to this point because of that whole elbow problem that keeps cropping up, so it's understandable. But if he's feeling good enough that he wants to start throwing that 4th pitch, I have no issue with it. Matz's career, which in fact began two years ago today, is known more for the fact that he's constantly missed time with some sort of ailment, but what we tend to forget is that when he pitches, he's generally very good and when he's pitching and he's healthy, he can be really good. Give him a game against a flagging opponent and it could look like a mismatch (the flipside of course being what happened to him against Washington and LA, which probably was the catalyst to get him throwing the slider again in the 1st place). Now, of course, we have to hold our breath and see how he responds to an outing like this, but I would say if nothing else that this is an encouraging performance. I didn't have to watch the whole thing to be able to say that.

Groan

Well, I mean, what would a Mets road trip be without another player going down with an injury that probably could have been avoided with proper conditioning?

The Mets lost to the Mickey Mouse Marlins in the Loria Mystery Machine on Tuesday, 6-3, which is bad enough, but of course they also lost Robert Gsellman to a hamstring injury in the process. This occurred at the end of the 4th inning, at a point in the game where the Mets had gone ahead on a Curtis Granderson Home Run to lead off the game, fallen behind when Gsellman allowed 3 in the bottom of the 1st, and were in the process of trying to claw back into the game. Gsellman hit a slow roller and busted it to try and beat it out, as that would have allowed the tying run to score. But, of course, he was out, the run didn't score, he came up lame and was out of the game, and that kind of screwed the Mets from there. Instead of trying to get Gsellman through 6 innings, they were in the bullpen in the 4th, working forward, and although they did tie the game later, the bullpen eventually did the Mets in again as Neil Ramirez, Jerry Blevins and company decided to abandon all fundamentals in the last of the 7th inning.

The constant string of avoidable injuries was bad enough (the Mets play in Florida in the Summer enough to know to fucking hydrate before a game), but of course their play in the last of the 7th was something to rival the Brooklyn Cyclones or some similar Low-A ball team. Ramirez was summoned to start the inning, which already was a bad sign since nobody trusts Ramirez in anything even resembling a high-leverage situation. Again, Injured pitcher screwing things up. He walked the first batter and right there I knew that the Marlins were going to score multiple runs. I didn't need to see Lucas Duda ole what was probably a double play ball, or Wilmer Flores run away from a ground ball that he would have probably been hard-pressed to field anyway. The damage was already done.

So, the Mets undo all the weekend's good will, lose another Pitcher and look like assholes. Another fine day. You wonder why I'm groaning.

Brief Excitement

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

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

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

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

His Turn Again

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

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

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