The Thor You Know

In the bottom of the 1st inning this afternoon, Alcides Escobar took a Noah Syndergaard offering and deposited it well in the gap in Right Center field, resulting in a leadoff triple. This wasn't really the start that anyone wanted to see. The Royals seemed hell bent on continuing to peck the Mets to death and if anything, it seemed a mere continuation of Sunday night and then the five meaningful games prior to that.

Syndergaard, however, had other ideas, and after being outwardly mocked by the Royals, and rather than engage in the petulant war of words that the Royals prefer, he used his right arm to make his particular statement, which more or less was "Enough of this fuckery." Syndergaard struck out Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer in quick succession, kept Escobar glued to 3rd base and thus we went.

It appears to me, just based on the way Syndergaard developed last season and the way he kicked off his 2016 campaign, that Syndergaard is well on his way to being the 1B to Harvey's #1 and deGrom's 1A, which is to say that there's going to be quite a bit of hell to pay for anyone who gets in his way. He's displayed some healthy arrogance; not quite Harvey-level arrogance, and he doesn't have that visible anger when he's pitching, but when you look at the results—which today involved no runs, 3 hits, 1 walk and 9 strikeouts in 6 innings—well, you draw your own conclusions.

Other contributions on this afternoon included Neil Walker, who had his Official Joe Buck "WELCOME TO NEW YORK!!" in the 4th inning when he launched a 2-run Home Run off of the suddenly-irritatingly-tough Chris Young that held up as the only scoring of the game, Jim Henderson, whose first appearance in the Major Leagues in nearly 2 years was deceptively good, and Jeurys Familia, who showed no ill effects from his own Royals problems by setting them down in order in the 9th and capping off the Mets' initial victory of the season.

It is, however, all mere sideline to Syndergaard, as well it should be when Thor is on the mound. He was the only pitcher who truly stifled the Royals last season and if the Mets could have kept things going long enough maybe he would have had a chance to do it again on the grandest of stages. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but within the perspective of a new season and a clean slate, I'll obviously take today's results, and I'll take a split of this asinine 2-game series where the deck seemed completely stacked against the Mets.

And now, the Mets return home, where they'll get to sit on their hands for two days thanks to whatever clown drew up the schedule and gave the Mets two days off in a row three days into the season. The real party, of course, is Friday, whence I make my first trip of the year to Flushing and we blow the Shofar to signal the beginning of the 2016 National League Season in New York.