The Exact Opposite

After the Mets played what was for them a veritable thriller on Monday night, where they played a good sound game and got wonderful pitching and defense, they came back the next night and played an abject snoozer of a ballgame on Tuesday. Daniel Murphy had one of his trademark Daniel Murphy Tics, made an error that led to a pair of Giants runs, and ended up sinking Bartolo Colon and his teammates, who could make no particular comeback effort against Matt Cain and a quadruped of Giants relievers as they fell 3-0.

The 3rd inning of this game pretty much typified everything that's wrong with Daniel Murphy as a ballplayer. Not surprisingly, it's also the inning that decided the game so there's not much point in discussing anything else. After being set down in order by Cain in the first two innings, the Mets strung together a little rally. Kirk Nieuwenhuis, who mysteriously was starting again, struck out to start the inning to nobody's surprise, but then Kevin Plawecki doubled. Colon followed by flying out but he did get a good piece of the ball, or at least he did by his own standards. Granderson and Tejada then both walked and all of a sudden the Mets have the Bases loaded and Cain on the ropes...and then Daniel Murphy struck out to end the inning. No runs, no score for the game.

Last of the 3rd, and Gregor Blanco turned the Mets into a bug by reaching on a bunt, and then moved up on a Joe Panik (and by the way, it may be time to start tossing Panik in among noted Mets killers like Chipper Jones, Wilson Ramos, Greg Dobbs and others) hit. This brought up Matt Duffy, who hit an infield chopper towards Daniel Murphy at 3rd. Murphy gloved the ball and I guess he decided he'd go for the Grand Slam right there and turned to throw the ball to second, except he wasn't in anything resembling a good position to do that. So, instead, he did what was, I suppose, the most natural thing for him to do and juggle the ball in the air, then catch it and throw to 1st, too late to get Duffy. Then Hunter Pence drove in a run, and then Brandon Crawford drove in another run and that was pretty much the game right there.

So, you can't really pin this one on anyone other than Murphy. Colon pitched fine for his 6 innings, the Mets as usual didn't hit so how worked up can you get about that, and Daniel Murphy had a case of himself. That all together adds up to a Mets disaster.