Regular Eye-Coverer

I was expecting a night much like last night this evening, where I was out living my "other life" hanging around a Theater and I would get home much too late to see any of the Mets game. But it seems that the Mets and Phillies decided that I'd been a bit too deprived these past few days and extended their game much longer than necessary so that I arrived home in time to catch the last few lousy innings.

I got home just in time to see Hansel Robles whiz a pitch up around Cameron Rupp's eardrum, which was followed by Rupp pulling his "Big Man" act and yelling at Robles, and the benches emptying and people milling around the infield and Phillies trying to look tough and Mets trying to peacekeep and eventually everyone walked off. Robles was ejected, Collins was ejected and then I was filled in on what I'd missed.

I'd heard some unsettling rumblings about Yoenis Cespedes taking a Justin DeFratus pitch off his knuckles early in the game and being sent for X-Rays, which fortunately came back negative and saved us from a total fan base meltdown, and later Kirk Nieuwenhuis was hit by a pitch as well. Logan Verrett hit Odubel Herrera at some point, although when I think of retribution, Verrett isn't quite my first choice to deliver it. Nonetheless, it seems I'd missed a heated affair.

I'd also missed a sloppy affair, as the Mets roared out to a 5-0 lead and slowly but surely let the Phillies pull a 2008 on them and come back; it was 5-3 when I got home and by time that shit show of an inning ended the Phillies were ahead 6-5. This was because after Robles got ejected, the succession of Bobby Parnell, Dario Alvarez and Carlos Torres managed to allow 3 runs and get two outs.

Still the Mets had a chance to come back and when the Phillies brought that Dalier Hinojosa fellow in the game I thought their chances were good, based on my theory of "guys who wear #94," but that didn't happen. Instead of winning and keeping the pedal to the metal, the Mets lost their second game in a row in Philadelphia 7-5.

I mean, I guess I can't get too worked up because the Mets can't lose their Division title after having clinched it, but the last two nights they certainly aren't earning themselves any style points. This game ended up being close to 4 hours and the score was only 7-5, which ought to tell you what was going on. The Mets had, at loose guess 43 men on base in this game and most of them ended up stranded, and their pitching staff handed the Phillies an astronomical 24 walks, and when you have that happen, the resulting shit stew isn't very good. The Mets now have to regroup and come back in about 12 hours to play a game that's been unceremoniously moved up to a noon start time because of impending weather. So not only will they be playing on short rest, they'll also probably be playing in front of about a dozen people because they gave people about 18 hours' notice about the time change. I also don't think the Mets know who's starting this game either, since this is the now-vacated Matz slot in the rotation. Maybe at this point they've just decided to wing it.