Not What You Were Looking For

Too many things happened too early in this game that are worth mentioning, simply as thoughts and coincidences. As has happened on many an occasion, I was late in getting home and when I finally did arrive and put the game on, I was greeted with a line that read OAK 6, NYM 0 in the bottom of the 2nd inning, Zack Wheeler already removed from the game.

My first thought: Well, I'm glad I went last night instead of tonight.

My second thought: Well, so much for Zack Wheeler going out and using his brilliant shutout performance in Miami as a springboard to bigger and better things, because he just regressed right back to his usual inconsistent dreck.

I didn't actually see any of what Wheeler did, but it seems he basically had nothing from the get-go. Brandon Moss, the former castoff-turned-#3-hitter reached him for a Home Run in the 1st, and the 2nd inning consisted of some bloops and blasts and Oakland players circling the bases. So, basically, by time I got home and put the game on, there really wasn't much of a game worth watching.

Games like this are terrible, not just because the Mets are hopelessly out of the game before the entire audience has reached their seats, but because after a day of work, I often look forward to coming home and putting the game on, and when I get home and put on a game where the Mets are behind 6-0 in the 2nd inning, it's like why even bother? I don't want to see Dana Eveland come in and work mop-up, I don't want to see the Mets just swing through Brad Mills' array of slop, I just want to shut the game off and go find something else to do with myself. This, of course, is complicated since there's a limited amount of things I can bear to watch on TV, and none of them are on on Wednesday nights. Thus, I ceded things to my other half, who happily put on a reality show of insidious nature, which didn't make me feel any better.

I missed, by giving up on the proceedings, something of a cosmetic comeback by the Mets. Down 8-0, Lucas Duda hit a Lucas Duda—a 3-run Home Run that had absolutely no consequence except to prevent the Mets from being shut out altogether—and Chris Young also hit a Home Run in the 8th, so instead, when you look back at this game and see the Mets lost 8-5, you might thing, "Hey, Barnburner!" instead of knowing the truth about this shit show. In the present, it might have actually kidded a few hearty souls into thinking comeback, although given the Mets propensity for 8-run comebacks is more or less non-existent, thoughts like that are born out of wishful thinking more than actual intuition. But, then again, when you have a game like this, wishful thinking is more or less all you've got. At least I went the night before. I know I said that already but it needs to be reiterated.