Still A Loss

The Mets have, in their history, continually proven that there are plenty of ways to play this game and lose. Tuesday, they did so in spectacular fashion. Tonight's performance was less spectacular, but the result was still the same. In spite of tallying 11 more hits than they were able to muster on Tuesday, they screwed up in plenty of other ways and still managed to lose to the Giants, 8-5.

It took the Mets all of one batter to surpass their offensive output from Tuesday. Curtis Granderson led off the game by banging a hit over Angel Pagan's head and back to the wall. Mysteriously, though, Granderson pulled up between 1st and 2nd and what probably should have been at least a double was merely a single. So, after tallying their first hit since Sunday, I guess the Mets forgot what to do. This loomed large a few batters later when Michael Cuddyer poked a hit through the left side. had Granderson taken the extra base that was rightfully his, he would likely have been on 3rd and Cuddyer's hit would have meant a run. Instead, Granderson was only on 2nd, and Aoki's throw home nailed him by a good 15 feet. Fortunately, Wilmer Flores followed with a 2-run single, and the Mets now had not only surpassed their hit total, but also their run total from Tuesday.

This would all be hunky dory, except that Matt Harvey didn't have it. This was already proven by local hero Joe Panik, who took Harvey deep on an 0-2 pitch in the top of the 1st. For a while, it appeared that this would simply be a motivating blip on another sterling Harvey performance, similar to the Saltalamacchia Home Run his last time out. Harvey settled in, the Mets bats got him a lead, partially buoyed by the much-welcome return of Travis d'Arnaud, and going into the 6th inning, the Mets led 4-2 and everything looked good. The Mets were going to hold off the Giants and shake off Tuesday's debacle.

Except that Harvey imploded in the 6th inning in a way that we've not seen Matt Harvey implode. In the span of 4 batters, Harvey saw his lead and then the game disappear. Buster Posey nailed a 2-run double to tie the game, Brandon Belt followed with a 2-run Home Run to give the Giants a lead, and, later, Justin Maxwell bombed another Home run, and before you could blink, a 4-2 lead turned into a 7-4 deficit and Matt Harvey was looking rather pedestrian.

Harvey wasn't helped by a pair of Outfield errors, some general laziness in the infield, and Eric Campbell, whose general Eric Campbellness leads any potential Double Play grounder to net only one of the needed outs and other similar ground balls to be muffed altogether. But he shouldered the blame himself, which you could probably expect. It's not exactly encouraging when you hear your ace say things like "Right now, I'm not helping my team at all," and "I need to break it all down and start from square one, and that starts tomorrow." But at the same time, it's nice that he at least understands that he has to take accountability for his poor performances and work to get better.

Now if only his teammates would follow his lead.