These Annoying Guys

It is inevitable, over the course of a long, 162-game season that the Mets will have nights like this, where they just get handcuffed by some random Pitcher you probably never heard of. Last night, it was Vince Velasquez that did it to them, as he stifled the Mets over 6 innings. Most Mets fans probably weren't aware of Velasquez at all, but here he was sticking it to the Mets in his Phillies debut. Velasquez was probably one of the lesser known players that Philly acquired from Houston in the Ken Giles trade during the offseason but I wouldn't sleep on him. I've already said this about most of Philly's pitchers and already it's biting the Mets in the ass.

The Mets' inability to generate any meaningful offense on what was probably a miserably cold night at Citi Field was Bartolo Colon, who essentially got hung with a loss based on one bad pitch—a ball that kind of hung to Ryan Howard in the 5th inning—that Howard hit out and accounted for the only run of the game. Colon, outside of that pitch, was his usual wonderful self. He pitched 6 innings, didn't walk anyone, struck out 7, had his two riotous At Bats, nearly legged out an infield hit that would have made Citi Field come apart, and made an over-the-shoulder catch of an Odubel Herrera bunt attempt.

These games are irritating enough when you lose to a bottom-feeder team that's throwing an unknown commodity at you, but the Mets did themselves no favors by failing to make much of a peep against four Philly relievers that they ate for lunch on Friday afternoon. Everyone seems to point to the 8th inning and the fact that David Hernandez was behind in the count on every batter he faced, but somehow each time induced a swing on a sucker pitch and the end result was he departed with a clean line. Then, of course, they did more nothing against Jeanmar Gomez and his 1 career Save in the 9th inning to finish off this 1-0 loss, the Phillies' first victory of the season.

Nobody seems to be in much of a rhythm offensively. I'm not terribly concerned about this right now, particularly when you consider that thanks to the nonsensical schedule they've had to play so far, this was the first time they had games on back-to-back days a week into the season. These things will right themselves over time. You just don't like to give games away to lesser opponents. That's what really makes everyone crazy.