Early Exit

I have, in the past, talked about how you can tell whether or not Bartolo Colon has it in a game within the first dozen pitches or so. He's usually cool and collected, no matter how bad he looks, but there's particular signs. If he's looking nimble and on point, where he's hitting his spots and getting hitters to chase bad pitches, he's good. But if he looks fat and sweaty and he's flipping the ball up in the air, the Mets are probably in trouble.

Last night, Colon was looking sweaty from the first pitch. The results indicated as much.

Colon barely survived a 1st inning where the Cardinals strung together a bunch of ringing hits, allowing 4 runs and putting the Mets in a hole that they probably weren't going to be able to claw themselves out of. Sure, they managed to get some singles against John Lackey, but for all the hits they managed, they weren't driving in any runs, which is probably a familiar refrain at this point. Colon, in spite of an awful 1st inning and in spite of Carlos Torres throwing before said inning was over, actually got it together and kept himself in the game for a few more innings, but by then the damage was already done. Then the damage was done some more, in case you weren't sure, in the 5th inning, when the Cardinals got more runs, knocked Colon out of the game, and then Carlos Torres allowed a Home Run to Randal Grichuk and I figured it was time to watch something else.

By time the Grichuk bookended his night by hitting another Home Run off the other Terrible Torres, I was long gone so I've at least wised up to the fact that games like this aren't worth my time once the opponent hangs an 8-spot on the board.

Meanwhile, the Mets continue to generate singles by the bucketload, but never in a useful-enough sequence to score some runs, so what you end up with is this comical sort of line where the Mets actually picked up 12 hits in this game, but only two runs, so you can assume they were leaving runners on base by the boatload while Cardinal runners continually found ways to cross the plate.

Two games into the second half and I'd already like to hit the reset button. Again. What's with this team that it continually finds ways to die after the All Star Break?