No Such Letdown

The circumstances for the Mets on Thursday night screamed out for a letdown game. After going through a hard-fought and highly emotional series against Washington, the Mets now had to continue their road trip by traveling to Atlanta and everyone's favorite stadium, Turner Field. You know, that place where the Mets have gone something like 33-471 during its existence (and will fortunately close next year and hopefully be burnt to the ground immediately thereafter). Further, the Mets were greeted upon arrival in Atlanty by torrential rain that turned the field into a lake and delayed the start of the game by about 2 and a half hours. This has happened to the Mets before, usually with disastrous results.

However, these given circumstances seem to mean very little to the Mets nowadays. In a situation where a loss probably would have been perfectly acceptable, the Mets instead won 7-2 behind Bartolo Colon, who continues to defy age, logic and physics by performing the way he does. Colon hurled shutout ball into the 7th inning, chipped in with an RBI single and the Mets took advantage of an Atlanty team that looks about as bad as a Major League team can look.

The Mets didn't exactly have an easy matchup, as Shelby Miller has proven himself to be one of the NL's better pitchers, but at the same time, being stuck on a Braves team that's won 14 of their last 56 games, he's also been one of the most luckless pitchers in the NL. Coming into the game, Miller had won none of his previous 20 starts, and after the Mets jumped on him for 3 runs in the 4th inning, they ensured that his streak would reach 21 straight starts. The Mets extended their lead and even though Colon would ultimately tire in the 7th and the Braves would end his scoreless inning streak at 31, the game was never in much doubt. Even without the services of Tyler Clippard and Jeurys Familia (both of whom could benefit from a few days off). Dario Alvarez did a fine job finishing the 7th and getting through the 8th, and Addison Reed served the role of Closer du Jour even though he didn't enter a Save situation.

So, unlike the other times the Mets have sat through extended pre-game rain delays in Atlanty, this game was worth staying up for, although my complaint—if one could have a complaint about a game like this—€”is that it didn't end until after 12:30 and even though it was on Friday, it was still a school night and I would have preferred not to be up quite so late. The Mets had been doing so well with playing quick games. I'm not sure what happened.