Battie Wattie

Matt Harvey faced the Phillies for the second time this season and his line for the game seemed rather similar to his line the last time he squared off against Philly: 6 Innings, 6 Hits, 3 Runs, 1 Walk, 4 Strikeouts (I don't think it's exactly the same, but close enough). Last month, this was good enough to get a win. It probably should have been good enough to get a win last night, too, except that unlike in April, Harvey's lousy teammates couldn't get him more than one run, and thus we were left with a refrain all too familiar to what we saw two years ago, when Harvey went almost 2 months without a win because he would pitch incredibly and his teammates stood around with their thumbs up their asses. That seems to be what happened last night. The Mets wasted a perfectly good Matt Harvey start and only managed to squeeze one run off of everyone's favorite, Cole Hamels, in an irritating 3-1 loss to a team they should be pummeling.

Though the Mets still sit in 1st place at 18-11, there's still plenty of trouble brewing, primarily because the team isn't hitting and nobody seems to be able to break that trend. I know they ran up against a tough pitcher in Hamels, but still, they ought to be able to generate more than a run on 5 hits, particularly since Hamels didn't finish the game and they did have to go up against at least one of those awful Philly relievers named Jake (as opposed to the Cardinals, who I believe once boasted a bullpen consisting entirely of guys named Tyler). Dilson Herrera hit a 3rd inning double last night and from everything I'm hearing, this is the biggest hit the Mets had all night. And he was stranded there!

Harvey, on the other side of things, blamed extra rest for his poor outing. At least he seemed to intimate that it was a poor outing, but from what I can gather, he seems to feel he had a poor outing if he didn't pitch a Perfect Game. Rather than getting victimized by Chase Utley (who, with a batting average of .099 appears to not have had a hit since that night) last time, this time it was the carcass of Ryan Howard who got him. Howard, who now seems to move about as well as a Moai, sometimes has these nights where he feels 28 again and unfortunately last night was one of those nights. He had an RBI single and a Home Run and that right there was enough to sink Harvey on this night, which is kind of unfortunate.

Meanwhile, the other news involved injuries and more injuries and no offensive reinforcements on the way, but on the other hand, the Mets now have yet another Super Tuesday on the horizon, since Dillon Gee's groin injury has led to the callup of Noah Syndergaard, who will make his much-ballyhooed debut in Chicago. I'm sure we'll hear plenty about that in the days leading up. But the Mets have to worry about hitting the ball first.