Don't Get Cocky

I didn't see any of Saturday's game, which as is sometimes the case, just as well. The Mets came out a little chippy early against the Dodgers, hitting 3 solo Home Runs against Rich Hill, and Seth Lugo cruised along through the early innings, but then the Dodgers turned back into The Hot Team and reminded everyone why they're regarded as such. They hit 5 Home Runs over the final 4 innings, stormed back and rolled past the Mets, who had no means of recourse or response as they took another loss on the chin, 7-4.

The Dodgers now are starting to remind me of the Nationals in 2013-2014, when they would play the Mets and hit 33 Home Runs in a 4-game series. The Mets right now have played the Dodgers 6 times this year and lost all 6, and each time it seems like they are just getting massacred. Last night, when Taylor hit a leadoff Home Run, I just smacked my head in disbelief because it's just like, come on, man! I know the Dodgers are good, but the Mets aren't even trying to just make them a little uncomfortable. Or maybe they are and it's just not working. Either way, sure, they hit three Home Runs off of Rhich Hill, but did anyone actually think that lead would stand up? Of course not. These are the 2017 Mets and the 2017 Dodgers and placed on an even playing field, the Dodgers should be winning every time. And they have. And now we have to be subjected to it on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy tonight.

Fortitude

If nothing else, the Mets, in a year where basically everything that's gone wrong, continue to fight, and sometimes they actually provide a bit of a glimpse of greatness. This happened on Saturday, one of those weird late afternoon starts that they seem to play almost exclusively now. Zack Wheeler didn't have it, he was betrayed by his defense, the bullpen faltered late, the Mets found themselves behind, but somehow they got off the mat, and thanks to 7th inning Home Runs by T.J. Rivera and the day's bobblehead honoree Asdrubal Cabrera, came back to beat the Phillies in a hideous affair, 7-6.

Certainly, this wasn't quite what Doubleday had in mind back when he invented the game (nor what Doubleday had in mind when he purchased the Mets in 1980). Wheeler started for the Mets and was good early against a once-again moribund Phillies lineup, but he hit a wall in the 4th. Against stiffer competition this might not have gone so well. Against the Phillies, he only allowed two and wasn't helped by a pair of errors (and yes, one was his own), but after slogging along and throwing an inordinate number of pitches, he couldn't finish the inning and the Mets found themselves in the bullpen far earlier than is palatable.

The Mets, however, came back against Jeremy Hellickson, one of those guys who's constantly getting traded or rumored to be getting traded. Jay Bruce drove home a run on a groundout and Lucas Duda followed by hitting a Home Run into the Apple to put the Mets back ahead. Erik Goeddel, who's resurfaced here despite still not being particularly good and now sporting a ridiculous coif, spit the lead back up, and so the game was tied 3-3. Fernando Salas followed, pitched a good 6th inning, and then Terry Collins pushed his luck and tried to squeeze another inning out of him, so of course he allowed a 3-run Home Run to Tommy Joseph.

Hellickson, meanwhile, was pitching like the anti-Wheeler and had thrown about 75 pitches through 6 innings, and with the lead, there seemed no reason to remove him. So, of course, he allowed a Home Run to Rivera to start the last of the 7th. And that ended Hellicksonnn's day, in favor of Pat Neshek and his bizarre 1890s windup. Neshek pitched a solid inning on Friday but was less effective on Saturday, giving up a double to Travis d'Arnaud and a pinch-hit single to Wilmer Flores, which then set the stage for Cabrera to repeat his Home Run Heroics from last September.

Then, of course, it rained. It looked like it was going to rain basically the entire game, but they stopped the game in the top of the 8th inning, and in spite of Collins being rather incensed by the whole thing, it was probably a good idea since it was pouring where I was and generally what happens where I am usually ends up at Citi Field 10 minutes later. So that halted things for a spell but eventually the game resumed, Addison Reed came in, finished the 8th, finished the 9th and finished the game, a good 4 and a half hours after it started, as Saturday afternoon became Saturday night.

So, now, the Mets have done what they needed to do here and can sweep the Phillies tomorrow if all goes well. Then again, "all goes well" has been a dicey proposition for the Mets this season. But, still, they fight.

Groan

Well, I mean, what would a Mets road trip be without another player going down with an injury that probably could have been avoided with proper conditioning?

The Mets lost to the Mickey Mouse Marlins in the Loria Mystery Machine on Tuesday, 6-3, which is bad enough, but of course they also lost Robert Gsellman to a hamstring injury in the process. This occurred at the end of the 4th inning, at a point in the game where the Mets had gone ahead on a Curtis Granderson Home Run to lead off the game, fallen behind when Gsellman allowed 3 in the bottom of the 1st, and were in the process of trying to claw back into the game. Gsellman hit a slow roller and busted it to try and beat it out, as that would have allowed the tying run to score. But, of course, he was out, the run didn't score, he came up lame and was out of the game, and that kind of screwed the Mets from there. Instead of trying to get Gsellman through 6 innings, they were in the bullpen in the 4th, working forward, and although they did tie the game later, the bullpen eventually did the Mets in again as Neil Ramirez, Jerry Blevins and company decided to abandon all fundamentals in the last of the 7th inning.

The constant string of avoidable injuries was bad enough (the Mets play in Florida in the Summer enough to know to fucking hydrate before a game), but of course their play in the last of the 7th was something to rival the Brooklyn Cyclones or some similar Low-A ball team. Ramirez was summoned to start the inning, which already was a bad sign since nobody trusts Ramirez in anything even resembling a high-leverage situation. Again, Injured pitcher screwing things up. He walked the first batter and right there I knew that the Marlins were going to score multiple runs. I didn't need to see Lucas Duda ole what was probably a double play ball, or Wilmer Flores run away from a ground ball that he would have probably been hard-pressed to field anyway. The damage was already done.

So, the Mets undo all the weekend's good will, lose another Pitcher and look like assholes. Another fine day. You wonder why I'm groaning.

Deserving Fate

Going through this season to this point, I guess, what, 60 games in, has been kind of a chore. That's what happens when you come in pretty well convinced that this team is going to break through and find the greatness that they've been chasing for 31 years now...and then the bell rings and the whole thing just falls flat. The Mets ran out to 7-3 and since then the whole story has been win 1, lose 2, win 1, lose 3, win 2, lose 3 more. But Friday night's game in Atlanta was one of those games that, in my younger, angrier days might have just thrown me over the edge.

You can basically blow through the 1st 8 1/2 innings in a few sentences. Matt Harvey was OK. Not great, just OK, and managed to make it through his start not allowing any runs. Unfortunately, because he threw so many pitches—I mean, what else is new—that start only lasted 5 innings. Curtis Granderson hit a Home Run and the Mets led 1-0, and that lasted all the way to the next inning, when Paul Sewald came in, gave up a couple of hits and got Dansby Swanson'ed when Swanson doubled home two runs to give the Braves the lead. The Mets tied it on an out-of-nowhere Home Run from Travis d'Arnaud and thus it was tied into the bottom of the 9th.

Fernando Salas was in after having pitched a reasonably quiet 8th, and with 1 out, here was Swanson again, and at this point the game basically turned into a microcosm of the entire Mets season. You know, Swanson hasn't had a great season but that should hold little bearing on anything because he tattooed the Mets up real good late last year and I expect we'll see more of that. So Swanson hits one up the middle, and really this should be a single probably 100 times out of 100. And there's Curtis Granderson, moving after the ball with no particular sense of urgency, like he's going for another helping at the clubhouse buffet. So Swanson takes off for second and makes it, and not only does he make it, he makes it easily. So already, I'm incensed. Never mind the "maybe a Shortstop with better range makes the play" argument, because I'm not worried about that. Curtis Granderson played that ball like an asshole, and Swanson promptly made him look like an asshole. One pitch later, the game was over when Rio Ruiz singled through the hole where Cabrera probably would have been if Swanson had properly been on 1st, and Swanson scored and the Braves had a veritable Marlins party on the Infield. Probably because they all knew that they just stole this game from under the noses of a team that's totally fucking asleep right now. You could have seen Ruiz's single coming a mile away. Doesn't matter if Conforto didn't have a handle on the ball. He wasn't throwing out Swanson anyway.

I don't often outwardly think that the Mets deserve to lose games, but the Mets deserved to lose that game. They played like a bunch of assholes and they should feel like assholes. Sometimes, humiliation can be a good thing and if the first two months of this season wasn't bad enough, maybe a game like this will wake them up. The Mets, even in their neutered state, should be feeding the Braves their lunch. Instead, they're standing around with their thumbs up their asses while opposing players circle the bases at will. This isn't a Manager thing and it's not as though Granderson's the only culprit here because you see it in bits and pieces constantly. It seems like an annual thing, actually, that the Mets go into Atlanta in June and it seems like that Atlanta air just sucks the life out of them, and they look slow and tired and that sun is beating down on them and they get swept. A sweep wouldn't surprise me at this point.

Inescapable Stupid

The Mets will, over the course of the season, invariably lose games to teams they ought to beat handily. Such a thing happened this evening. The Mets ran out to a 5-1 lead over the miserable Padres behind some modest hitting and a solid effort from Robert Gsellman. Gsellman departed after 6 innings, and the bullpen blew the lead and ultimately the game, allowing 5 runs before 4 pitchers collectively could record 4 outs. Still, the Mets had opportunity as the Padres seemed more than happy to hand the game back over to the Mets, but the Mets just didn't seem capable of picking up the social cue as they loaded the bases with no outs in the 9th, and when a single would likely have won the game, the next two batters struck out, and the third batter flew out meekly, and the Mets came away with a puzzling 6-5 loss.

Things started off similarly to last night. The Mets banged out several early hits off of oft-injured former gambling addict Jarred Cosart, among them a 3-run double from Wilmer Flores to kick start a 4-run 3rd inning that ultimately knocked Cosart from the game outright. They plated another run in the 4th and everything was lovely. Gsellman, in his return to the rotation, pitched reasonably well against the Padres, which is what you'd expect because the Padres lineup is just a melange of boring. Gsellman made it through 6 but was pulled there after 84 pitches, a curious move considering the state of the Mets bullpen and the fact that Blevins and Sewald, perhaps the only two somewhat-reliable arms, were deemed unavailable. But Fernando Salas, who pitched close to 2 innings on Tuesday, was, and of course after getting two outs ran out of steam. He gave up a hit to Chase d'Arnaud (which is more than could be said for his brother on this night), and then walked Matt Szczur (because Szczur's whole deal is drawing walks and being annoying) and Yangervis Solarte (duh slobber yankee prospect) before finally being pulled in favor of...Neil Ramirez. NEIL RAMIREZ?! Ramirez shouldn't be allowed near the mound unless someone has a 9+ run lead and he's done nothing to prove to me otherwise, so was anyone at all surprised that he came within a goat's whisker of allowing a Grand Slam to Wil Myers?

So by the grace of Mark the ball stays in play and the game is merely tied, and Josh Edgin then has to come in and rescue the Mets from this mess. Fine. The Mets go in the tank in the 7th and out comes Josh Smoker to start the 8th. Smoker also pitched on Tuesday and on his first pitch gave up a rocket of a Home Run to Shemp. So what happens here? You guessed it—first batter, Hunter Renfroe, parked one in the 2nd deck in Left Field.

Now the Mets are losing and the game is creeping past 3 hours. Juan Lagares starts the last of the 8th by hitting a shot to right that Renfroe drops and Lagares ends up on 2nd. He went no further. In the 9th, the Padres go to Brad Hand to close the game, which seemed perfectly normal to me because I have no idea who the Padres closer is actually supposed to be. Maybe it is Hand. I don't know but the Mets had seen plenty of Hand during his time in South Florida Purgatory. Walker singled to start, Duda drew a walk, and Flores singled past Aybar, and had the ball been a bit more well placed, Walker probably would have scored outright. But why push it with no outs? Surely, against a reeling Hand, someone out of Curtis Granderson, Rene Rivera and Juan Lagares ought to be able to push across a run and perhaps two, right?

RIGHT???

...

Sigh. To say I was glad I didn't exchange my tickets off of last night would be an understatement because if I'd been there, I'd be totally apoplectic. Again, I know that sometimes these things happen. Hell, the Mets have lost 47 of the 55 games they've played in Petco Park by the score of 2-1, no matter how good or bad or boring the Padres are. But right now, when the team is just desperately seeking some kind of consistency while they stem the tide and wait for reinforcements, losing like this when they were playing a team that barely showed any signs of life all night just baffles me.

Exasparation

There have been seasons, or maybe I'm remembering wrong and it's just season, where the Mets were kind of dancing and jabbing, and then they went to Milwaukee and their entire season just got the life sucked out of it.

I know it's still May but after the way this past weekend played out I feel like I watched the same thing happen to the Mets. They had early leads both Saturday and Sunday, their starters gassed themselves way too early, the Brewers came back and then lit the Mets bullpen on fire.

Saturday, things seemed to be perfectly nice early in the game. Though Robert Gsellman struggled early, he settled down, got some runs thanks to Kevin Plawecki, who came through with a rare double, and from Neil Walker, who Homered, and everything was hunky dory until the 5th when Gsellman just lost it and the roof caved in. Brewers hitters started stringing hits together, guys I'd never heard of were coming off the bench and hitting (Jesus Aguilar? Didn't he surface with the 2010 Mets?), Gsellman was pulled for Hansel Robles and Robles just made things worse, capping things off by essentially throwing Travis Shaw a Bugs Bunny fastball so Shaw could hit it out and cap off an 8-run nightmare that put the Mets to bed for the night.

Sunday was basically Saturday's game, just magnified and slower in developing. Michael Conforto hit everything in sight, Neil Walker and Rene Rivera hit some more and the Mets ran out to a 7-1 lead for Jacob deGrom, who looked OK, if less than economical. But the Brewers kept pushing the envelope and pushing the envelope, and 7-1 turned into 7-3, and then relievers were involved, and Jerry Blevins couldn't get anyone out, and Fernando Salas couldn't get anyone out, and guys like Keon Broxton and Jonathan Villar were hitting Home Runs, and there was this Jesus Aguilar again, and who the hell is Manny Pina and what the hell is he doing hitting a Home Run off of Addison Reed to finish off this debacle because it was 7-1 and now it's 11-9...

I usually can find the solution hiding somewhere behind the story and the problem right now is I can't find the solution. The Mets hit all weekend but couldn't outhit their pitching and I'm not sure what the hell happened. I know guys are hurt and/or inconsistent, but maybe this is just my old theory of The Stink coming back to bite the Mets in the ass again. It starts with the Mets not tacking on runs last Wednesday and creeps into a blown save, and then a Jeurys Familia injury, and then a Matt Harvey meltdown, and then Hansel Robles and that miserable puss on his face, and then the utter collapse on Sunday. Nobody that's pitching for the Mets right now seems to be inspiring any sort of confidence.I don't know.  Sometimes you just need to get a town out of your system and maybe it's just Milwaukee's year and they'll go to Arizona and the change of scenery will help. Or is that just me trying to convince myself it's something else and not The Stink.

No photos today. That's how much this weekend troubles me.

Can't Mets Today

The Mets played an eminently forgettable game against the Phillies on Tuesday night in which they managed to progressively abandon all useful fundamentals of the game of Baseball more and more as the game progressed. They blew a lead late in the game and then had a total meltdown once the game went into extra innings, the end result being a miserable 6-2 loss. I'm so glad I was there to be a part of it.

This was, of course, my first night game of the season, and my first April Night game of the season, so it goes without saying that the piss-poor weather conditions already put a damper on the proceedings. The older I get, the less I enjoy these April games, which is kind of disheartening, but let's face it. With age comes common sense and common sense would dictate that it's just not the world's greatest idea to sit outside for close to 4 hours when the temperature is 48˚ with gusty winds. But I guess I won't have wised up for certain until I just don't go in April altogether. That may never happen.

Irregardless, this was my first game in my new seats down in Section 418, as opposed to several seasons in 512 or 513. I thought, by moving down, that I might be escaping some of the riffraff that occupies those sections but I see I'm mistaken; plenty of Metsplainers seem to sit down there as well, speaking loudly, not making sense, getting things wrong and generally doing enough to bother me and yet not enough for me to do anything about it.

There was a game, and Zack Wheeler started for the Mets. Wheeler is still figuring out how to be a Major Leaguer at this point, which is fine. He was hardly what I'd consider crisp, he threw way too many pitches, but to his credit he got himself out of jams every time he was in one and although he only made it through 5 innings, the only run he allowed scored on an Odubel Herrera Home Run. He left with a tenuous 2-1 lead. This probably should have been more, particularly considering the way Zach Eflin came out at the start of the game. Wheeler's command can be erratic, but Eflin's was basically non-existent in the 1st inning. Jay Bruce drove home Michael Conforto with a single to tie the game, and later Cespedes scored on a Wild Pitch. By any indication, this should have been a cakewalk from there.

But that didn't materialize. The Mets basically stopped hitting completely from there and though Eflin didn't impress, the Mets didn't capitalize and so the game remained at 2-1 into the late innings. Hansel Robles threw the 6th and when he inevitably got in trouble, Josh Smoker bailed him out. Smoker took it into the 7th before handing it over to Fernando Salas. Salas got through the 7th and appeared primed to get through the 8th as well before he ran out of gas. I suppose it's an indictment on Terry Collins and the use of his bullpen but a Manager can only use the pieces he's got, and I'm not quite certain why Salas is gassed 3 weeks into the season, but he went and walked Cameron Rupp with 2 outs. He probably had Freddy Galvis struck out outright, but even so he got Galvis to pop up to 3rd, which should have ended the inning except that Jose Reyes had a hard time of Baseball and dropped the ball. I'm not sure what the excuse was—I don't especially care—and after Blevins replaced Salas it seemed mere formality that Andres Blanco would drive home the tying run, and were this a kind world the lead run would have scored too but for Collins challenging the play and the hit being determined to have been a Ground Rule double. So the game was merely tied.

Again, if this game made sense, the Mets would have gotten off the mat and fed the Phillies bullpen their lunch as they are wont to do. But they couldn't hit Edubray Ramos, they couldn't hit Hector Neris, they couldn't hit Luis Garcia even though he seemed determined to hand them the game in the 9th. I feel like it should be a Kangaroo Court offense to swing at a 3-1 pitch in the 8th or 9th inning of a game, because 11 times out of 10 it's a total sucker pitch, but that's what Neil Walker did in the 9th and instead of probably working out a leadoff walk, he flew out and set the stage for the Mets to fade out quietly.

The game then moved to Extra Innings, and everyone basically got up and left, except for me and maybe a couple hundred other people. The people that left had the right idea. It was only getting colder and the game had already stretched well over 3 hours. Rafael Montero took the mound for the 10th and, well, we know what happened from there. More abandoned fundamentals ensued and it didn't help that Montero once again came up small in a key spot and I'm starting to wonder whether he just doesn't have it in him to pitch competitively at the Major League level. It seems to be OK in the minors but he can't pull it together here and I've kind of had enough. A hit off his heel, a pair of rockets, Phillies have the lead, Reyes looks old, Cabrera looks slow and by time the rally can be stopped, 4 runs have scored and the only thing to be done is just finish quickly and get out of there.

Someday I may pass on these games entirely. In fact maybe I've done that already since this is but my 2nd game of the season and this was Home Game #7. In my youth I might have charged out to another game during Opening Week. Now, as it sits, I'm not scheduled to go back until next week. Part of me is entertaining going to one of the Washington games this weekend but I need to be sure of the forecast before I make any further ill-advised decisions.

Marlins Get You Again

I guess the Mets were owed this one after the way they spent 8 innings cheating painful Marlin death on Thursday night. In spite of entering another war of bullpen attrition with the Marlins that seemed headed down a parallel track on Friday night, the Mets faltered before things got out of control as J.T. Realmuto doubled home the winning run in the last of the 9th to give the Marlins a 3-2 win.

It being a Friday and I being a year older, I was somewhat out of it for the early part of the game and as such I missed Noah Syndergaard's 6 innings of work, in which from what I can gather he had some bad luck leading to a 1st inning unearned run, an irritating rally, and then an irritating recurring injury as he either had another blister problem or a fingernail problem that caused him to leave the game altogether. As injury problems go, I suppose this is fairly benign stuff but that it keeps happening is more annoying than anything else. On the other hand, that's one inning fewer that he'll be able to throw as we get later in the season. It'll fix itself at some point, I would guess.

The Mets similarly didn't do a ton against Edinson Volquez outside of a Lucas Duda Home Run in the 5th inning. So things sat at 2-2 as things moved to the late innings. But, as the case can be on the day after some absurdly long games, the Mets had a bullpen issue. Unavailable were Addison Reed, Hansel Robles and Josh Smoker. Gone altogether was T.J. Rivera in favor of Sean Gilmartin, only around as an emergency arm. And left were the remainder of a mostly gassed group. To their credit, Rafael Montero and Jerry Blevins kept things in control in the 7th, and Josh Edgin did so again in the 8th. But Edgin, who is still on the fringes of trustworthydom, was chanced for a 2nd inning and although he nearly managed to negotiate it, he was black-flagged at the last step when Realmuto's double fell in the gap and scored Miguel Rojas with the winning run and it was Marlin Pizza Party Time.

I know, I know. The Mets for the prior 5 games felt kind of invincible. But games like this are unfortunately inevitable over the course of the season, and especially against the Marlins, a team who, as we've gone over many times, is built generally for the sole purpose of pissing us off. So of course they did it again.

A Different Ending

By all rights, the Mets generally lose last night's game in Miami. They've played games like this in Miami previously and that's always the end result. It usually happens in some sort of annoying fashion. Generally it involves the Mets falling behind, scraping and clawing their way back to tie the game, and the Marlins ultimately winning either in the 9th or some later extra inning by getting an infield hit, a walk, an error, and then the winning run scores on a check swing that goes 40 feet, or a Wild Pitch or something typically Marlin, and then they run all over the field slapping each other with baloney and acting like they won the World Series in April.

But something funny happened last night—the Mets didn't lose. They didn't fall victim to Stupid Marlin Tricks, they didn't run out of pitchers and they didn't have the Marlins Pizza Party thrown in their faces. Instead, after twice coming back from multi-run deficits, forcing an already long game into extra innings and running out of Pitchers, the Mets actually won, 9-8, thanks to Travis d'Arnaud's 16th inning Home Run.

Most of the action in this game was long forgotten by time the game ended, which is usually the case when you have ridiculously extended games like this. Robert Gsellman in the 1st inning had some command issues and for the second time in as many outings came away getting cuffed around pretty good. He gave up a Grand Slam to Marcell Ozuna in the 1st to put the Mets in an immediate hole. But, these Mets don't seem to take especially kindly to being pushed around. Almost immediately they struck back and tied the game against Wei Yin Chen, who in spite of some decent years in Baltimore seems to be the Tom Koehler for a new era; the Marlins pitcher whom the Mets face about a dozen times a year and generally rake around. d'Arnaud tripled home 3 runs and then scored the tying run on a Curtis Granderson sac fly in the 2nd inning and almost immediately it became clear that this had all the makings of a real barnburner.

In the 3rd, the Mets started throwing haymakers at Chen. Yoenis Cespedes hit a Home Run that appeared to go over the Magic Machine in Loria's Puke-Green Hell Hole, and Wilmer Flores followed with a Home Run of his own, albeit not nearly as majestic. That spelled the end of the road for Chen, but not so much for the Mets as Cespedes sent a Jose Urena offering into orbit in the 5th. So this 4-0 deficit had turned into a 7-4 lead and everything seemed to be just peachy.

Then, of course, Gsellman ran out of steam in the 5th and everything crashed back to earth in a string of singles and walks and sacrifice flies—you know, the typical Marlins rally—and Gsellman gave way to Josh Edgin who allowed every inherited runner to score by giving up a double to Nickleback and later a single to Billy Marlins and only by the grace of Cespedes were the Mets able to negotiate the final out of the inning as he threw Nickleback out at the plate (he runs like he's carrying a double rack of PBR on his back, dont'cha know).

The Mets, then, needed to negotiate the remainder of this game and keep the Marlins on lockdown. Rafael Montero had a hairy 6th and started an even hairier 7th before Jerry Blevins bailed him out, getting a pair of key outs, among them a strikeout of Ichiro Suzuki. In the 8th, d'Arnaud singled with 2 outs, bringing up Michael Conforto in a Pinch Hitting spot. This has hardly been an ideal role for Conforto, who probably should be playing infinitely more than he has been, but to his credit all he's done over the first two weeks has been shut up and hit the ball, and that's exactly what he did here, drilling a long double in the gap in Right Center to score d'Arnaud, tie the game, and set the stage for the remainder of the night's proceedings.

Usually, in games like this, teams tend to mount spirited rallies early, and then run out of steam. The Marlins had two men on in the last of the 8th vs Fernando Salas, but he reared back, struck out Mike Stanton and got out of the inning. He remained in the 9th and had no issue. The Mets had a similar rally go nowhere in the 10th against Dustin McGowan. Addison Reed came in for the 10th inning and stepped on the Marlins' throats.

By time we hit the 12th inning, the wheels were beginning to rattle off the reality portion of this game. Generally, when it goes beyond 12 innings, you enter "all bets are off" territory, and you have to start thinking about survival tactics. In this case, the Mets had already blown through their front line of relievers, and now were down to Josh Smoker and Hansel Robles, and we already went over Robles last night because he'd pitched three days in a row and had to be avoided at all costs. So it was Smoker to the whip and to his credit, Smoker put forth probably the finest outing of his career to date. He hadn't looked especially good in his early outings this season, but with his ass on the line he rose to the occasion and in three sterling innings allowed a meaningless hit, a meaningless walk, and nothing else, bridging the 12th, 13th and 14th innings. He had to, because the Mets were doing just as much bupkis against Junichi Tazawa and Nick Wittgren.

By the 15th, it had become spaghetti-at-the-wall time. Jacob deGrom took an at bat hitting for Smoker, which meant that on-fumes Hansel Robles was coming in the game. Full-strength Robles is already a dicey proposition, so you know what this meant. However, to his credit, Robles didn't cave after giving up a leadoff single that probably shouldn't have been a single but for the official scorer acting like a Marlin. And that sent the game to the 16th inning, where d'Arnaud connected off tonight's starter Adam Conley's second pitch and put it out in the seats, giving the Mets the lead. For d'Arnaud, who's really one of those "crossroads" guys this season, this hot start he's gotten off to has been major. Both to solidify his place on the team but moreso to simply remind everyone that he can do it. But of course he's now got to keep it up.

Meanwhile, Robles now had to protect a lead against the meat of the Marlins lineup, and so of course he walked Hamburgers Yelich to start the last of the 16th, to bring up Stanton and cause every Mets fan that was still awake at 12:45am to cover their eyes. And Stanton connected, but only managed to line out to right. Nickleback followed, and after a back-and-forth battle, Robles finally struck him out on what has to be one of the ugliest-looking changeups I've ever seen, just a dying quail of a pitch that wasn't particularly close to being a strike, but was waved at anyway. Ozuna followed and almost anticlimactically swung at the first pitch and flied out, ending this game and giving the Mets their 5th win in a row.

Phew. These kind of games are very mettle-testing both for fans and players and really, I'm glad I was home watching this one on TV and listening to Keith get progressively crankier as the game went on. Keith clearly isn't made for extra innings like this, but that's OK. At least the Mets won and at least I wasn't in the ballpark for it. By the 14th, I was thinking "one more inning, then I'll go to bed," but of course I kept on watching until things finished. And, well, if there was ever a game to do that, I suppose this was it.

Combination Of All Things

The adage goes, I believe, that each time you go to a Major League Baseball game, you have a chance to see something you've never seen before. Last night at Citi Field was my 20th game of the 2016 season and my 399th in total. I've seen lots of things happen at a Baseball game.

• The Mets get a 9th inning Home Run to tie the game and an Extra Inning Home Run to win? I've seen that before.
• The Mets win a game on a Home Run that takes them from trailing to winning? Seen that before too.
• The Mets use 27 players in a game...Well, that I haven't seen. That was a club record and I've got the scorecard to prove it. 
• The Mets come from behind 3 times in a game to win? Yeah, that I've seen too.

But I don't think I've ever been to a game that packed all of these things into one crazy night, with the backdrop being the Mets in the thick of a Pennant Race and coming off a 3-game losing streak. In spite of all sorts of things going wrong, the Mets managed to get up off the mat and tie the game in the 9th inning on a lightning-like Home Run from Jose Reyes. In the 11th inning, the Mets fell behind again, and with the clock pushing midnight, Asdrubal Cabrera tolled the bell for a 3-run Home Run to give the Mets a 9-8 victory that has to rank up there with some of the most rousing games I've ever been to.

This long night of Baseball began innocently enough, with Seth Lugo on the mound for the Mets and Adam Morgan for the Phillies. The imminent drama that would unfold over the course of the evening barely seemed plausible given a matchup like this. The Mets jumped ahead in the 2nd on a Curtis Granderson 2-run Home Run, and with Lugo mostly humming along, everything seemed fine. The Phillies scored a run in the 4th after Cesar Hernandez hit what was kind of a fluky triple to lead off the inning, and Roman Quinn followed with an RBI groundout.

Then, of course, the Phillies ambushed Lugo in the 5th. They'd been hitting fly balls off of Lugo most of the night, and of course the perfect storm for bad tends to be the combination of a fly ball pitcher on the Mets and Ryan Howard. And of course, Howard led off the 5th and blasted a Home Run out into the night of the Center Field seats. This, of course, is mere rite of passage for Lugo, since Howard has hit what, 79 career Home Runs against the Mets? However, when Cameron Rupp followed with a Home Run of his own to put the Phillies ahead, that wasn't a rite of passage, that was a sign that Lugo was probably done for the night and thus the parade of relievers would begin.

The Mets managed to rally back in the last of the 5th. Ty Kelly hit for Lugo and walked, moved up on what was charitably scored an infield hit by Cabrera and a Morgan Wild Pitch, and then scored when Yoenis Cespedes stuck his bat out and flicked a single to right. In the 7th, Cespedes put the Mets on his back again, finishing off a two-out rally against Michael Mariot by nailing a double to score Reyes.

The Mets have been using their bullpen liberally and often lately, which has been a side effect of a decimated starting rotation combined with taking advantage of every possible expanded roster spot. As such, it took Sean Gilmartin and Erik Goeddel to complete the 6th and Fernando Salas to pitch the 7th, and once Addison Reed hit the mound in the 8th, it seemed like things would be stable. Of course, how wrong I was. Reed allowed about 20 feet worth of singles sandwiched around a sac bunt and the Phillies had runners on 1st and 3rd and 1 out and Maikel Franco at the plate. I mused that what Reed needed was a Mike Pelfrey Special—the bowling ball that's chopped right at the Shortstop for an easy DP. What Reed got instead was something completely different—the ball flying over the fence and into the Phillies bullpen for a 3-run Home Run that put the Phillies ahead 6-4 and sent a multitude of fans streaming for the exits.

A rather fair-weather fellow with a man-bun sitting directly in front of me stood up, slapped his cap down and started screaming, "HERE IT IS, THE GREAT COLLAPSE OF 2016!" This, of course, was not helpful at all and turned into one of those moments where, were I more of a hothead, I might have kicked him in his bun or smacked the shit out of him. I know that there's this general trepidation because the Mets are in a pennant race with 10 games to go, and I know that there's a whole quadrant of Mets fans that think Terry Collins just fell out of the stupid tree. But how is it a collapse when the Mets just came back from 5.5 games out altogether, ran past 4 teams and somehow sit tied for the 1st Wildcard just 27 games later? And never mind that, how about the fact that the Mets have done this while 3/5 of their starting rotation is hurt (and if you want to throw Wheeler in the equation, that's 4/6), 2 guys that were in the Opening Day lineup still standing, and the team is basically stuck throwing out lineups that include Alejandro De Aza, Rene Rivera and on this night Eric Campbell, and they're relying on unknowns like Brandon Nimmo and T.J. Rivera for meaningful contributions? The fact that the Mets are in this position at all is a minor miracle. This is a team that's refused to throw in the towel all season. But this jackass is screaming collapse. Really, I think he should have just admitted he actually was a fan of the other New York team rather than continuing his charade, but as the 8th moved to the 9th and he continued his nonsensical rants, I realized I was doing myself no favors sticking around where I was, and I did something rather out of character for me—I left my seat and walked down to the Field Level, where I ended up just standing around the concourse, figuring that if this was going to end, at least I'd get out of there quick and get away from Yelly McDoofus.

Hansel Robles cleaned up Reed's mess in the 8th and he and Josh Edgin got the Phillies in the 9th, while the Mets managed nothing off of Joely Rodriguez in the last of the 8th, and while he apparently was ready to come out for the last of the 9th, Pete Mackanin decided to get cute and once Travis d'Arnaud was announced to hit for De Aza, he pulled Rodriguez in favor of his closer, Jeanmar Gomez, which you had to figure was coming because why the hell would Joely Rodriguez be closing games? And at this point, Terry Collins decided to just throw his entire roster at the wall. He called back d'Arnaud and sent up Brandon Nimmo, who got a hit in a similar spot on Wednesday, and of course Nimmo did what he does best and hit a line drive single. Jay Bruce followed and was met with bewildered looks, calls of "Where's Duda?!" and, oddly, cheers, because hey, if Bruce could get a hold of one and tie the game, maybe all would be forgiven. But that didn't happen. Although Bruce hung in for a while he still struck out, which was only helpful in the sense that he didn't hit into a Double Play, which was quite fortunate because Reyes followed by drilling a 2-1 pitch into the Mets bullpen to tie the game and spark a frenzy of crazy people jumping all over the concourse.

So much for quietly slinking off into the night. Rather than a silent finish, the real action was just getting started. Mackanin, now having burned his closer, removed Gomez from the game in favor of Hector Neris, who walked Cespedes but allowed nothing more of consequence. So, it was off to Extra Innings, and after not catching an Extra Inning game for the first 5 months of the season, I was now in for my second in less than a month, and this one was coming on the heels of an already long game, as the clock was pushing 10:40 and although it was Thursday, it was still a school night. At this point, I decided I was good for one more inning, and then I had to get out of there, loath as I was to do so.

Jeurys Familia came in for the 10th and worked a quick, uneventful inning, and Severino Gonzalez did the same, in spite of the fact that Lucas Duda came up as a pinch hitter for Rivera and came within about 6 inches of hitting a Game Winning Home Run. In fact, as it was more or less directly in front of me, I couldn't quite see just where the ball landed and for a second I, and the people standing near me, thought it was gone. But Duda pulled up around 1st and wheeled back to the plate...where he then struck out.

Familia came back for the 11th and I held my ground...The 10th was quick. One more inning, I tell myself. Next thing I know, it'll be 1am and the 15th inning if I'm not careful. Freddy Galvis led off by lining a double in the alley in Left, which wasn't helpful at all. Familia then rebounded by striking out Aaron Altherr and getting Tommy Joseph to ground out. With two outs, he then walked Hernandez intentionally, which was the right move with A.J. Ellis and his .190 batting average on deck. If Ellis beats you, he beats you. Unfortunately, that's what Ellis did, floating a little dying quail of a single in front of Nimmo to score Galvis and put the Phillies back ahead. Collins then did nobody any favors by continuing to run more guys in from the bullpen in an attempt to get the 3rd out. Jerry Blevins came in and hit Odubel Herrera. Collins then removed Blevins for Jim Henderson. Henderson walked Maikel Franco after an excruciating 10-pitch At Bat that was like watching paint dry. Now the score was 8-6 and at this point I was ready to leave right then and there. The Mets had pulled a July move and resurrected themselves from the dead only to shit the game right back out again. Only then did Henderson manage to get the last out of the inning as more people vacated and I stood around stewing.

The Phillies brought in a fellow named Edubray Ramos for the last of the 11th in order to pick up the Save for them. This was the Phillies' 9th pitcher of the night, which is a lot, until you remember that through 11 innings the Mets had managed to run through 10 pitchers, which is the sort of thing you can only accomplish in a game like this, at this time of year when you carry 20 pitchers on your roster, and this combined with the 16 position players they'd used tied a club record. I didn't realize this at the time. I was too busy thinking about a) who was left on the bench to hit in the Pitcher's spot which was due up second and b) If the Mets tie this game again, who's left to pitch? After Nimmo grounded out, I got one of my answers when Michael Conforto emerged from the dugout, remained patient and walked on 4 pitches. Reyes followed, and I started thinking that Reyes might turn back into the Homer Happy ninny he used to be after his 9th inning heroics, but instead he did what his M.O. normally is and singled the other way. And this brought up Cabrera, and at this point all I was hoping was that he didn't hit into a DP just so Cespedes would have a chance. And, of course, Cabrera rendered this hope and my second question irrelevant by nailing the second pitch he saw over the fence for the Game Winning 3-run Home Run. He knew it right away, I think everyone else did too. It was just one of those hits that had that arc, sort of like Reyes' did. These fly balls look a lot different when you're sitting downstairs and I'm used to the view from the Promenade.

Whew. This was exhilarating, but also exhausting. As I said, I know I've seen a lot of crazy, wild things happen at Baseball games, but never one that seemed to cram so much action, absurdity and intrigue into one 4 hour, 23 minute melange of madness. Hell, I watched the last 3 innings standing, that's how messed up things got. But this game was truly emblematic of the fact that the Mets refuse to simply lie down, no matter how much they have to absorb as far as injuries and inconsistency. As weird as it seems, the Mets are now essentially run by these three gentlemen at the top of the lineup, Reyes, Cabrera and Cespedes, and they're winning these games just because they're getting things done. Go back and look at that scorecard again. The Mets had 9 runs and 11 hits for the game, and these three guys accounted for 4 runs, 8 hits and 7 RBI. Think about it: That's 3 out of the 27 players the Mets used in this game accounting for that much offense. But these guys are paving the way. They refuse to throw in the towel and dragged the whole team back into this game and didn't stop until it was won. I don't know how far it will take them over the next 10 days, or if they play beyond that, but they've kept the Mets alive and at this point I don't think there's more we can ask of them.

Not Just Me?

I guess it's not just me that has a thing with the Braves this season. Though my record in Mets/Braves games this season is done at 0-3, I feel like that's the record of most Mets fans against the Braves this year. The Braves have already lost 90 games this season, the Mets have 80 wins and sit at the top of the Wildcard race, and yet when these two teams have met, the Braves have had the upper hand basically every time out, and especially at Citi Field. The Mets won 2 of 3 against the Braves here in April, and they haven't beaten the Braves here since.

Tuesday night was a bit more of a jarring loss than Monday, which was a debacle from the get-go. The Mets had a lead early against Julio Teheran, who they never seem to hit, but the Braves tied it after the Mets abandoned fundamentals in the 6th inning, and then put the game effectively out of reach in the 7th when Adonis Garcia hit a 3-run Home Run off of Jerry Blevins, who for some bizarre reason was left in to face the righty who's killed the Mets on multiple occasions.

The Mets rallied gamely late, but could get no closer than 5-4, and sure, you can take the moral victory of this being the first time the Mets have scored more than 3 runs in a game in a week, but it didn't do them a damn bit of good. They had Yoenis Cespedes up with a chance to win the game in the last of the 9th, but he got frozen by a Jim Johnson curveball, struck out, and the Mets ended up once again falling to the Braves.

I know there's a whole shitstorm over Terry Collins hitting for Jay Bruce in the 8th inning but let's be serious here. That's scenery. It's backstory. It's not important. There's a lot of eerie symbolism at work here between a series of curious managerial moves, and stagnating in the crisis point of a pennant race, and running out of logical things to say.

One more chance to get this right.

Perseverance

The Mets of course began the day with the news that Jacob deGrom was lost for the season, one day after it was announced that he would be starting on Sunday. This isn't good, but as I've said, I'd rather have the Mets go to the whip with healthy arms that might lack pizzazz as opposed to trying to force someone who's hurt to come back and risk him pitching ineffectively or, worse, injuring himself further. So if nothing else, and if you can believe it I'm taking the silver lining route here, we have a real, legitimate answer to what's been ailing deGrom, and also no false set of expectations that he'll at some point be back. It's a drag, but then again, just about everything that's happened this season injury-wise has been a drag.

And yet the Mets as a team continue to process this information and go out and win games anyway, and they do so in all sorts of strange ways. They already won a game this week when a guy hit his first Major League Home Run in extra innings. Last night, the Mets won because Curtis Granderson came up in the 11th inning with the Mets down a run and hit a Home Run to tie the game, and followed that up by coming up in the 12th inning and hitting another Home Run to win the game, so, you know, why not? Why not get a pair of Home Runs from the same guy in back-to-back extra innings?

Seth Lugo, whose general M.O. has basically been to eat innings while keeping the Mets in the game, did that again. He wasn't at his best; he seemed a bit wild early, but outside of a 3rd inning Home Run from Eddie Rosario he allowed the Twins nothing of consequence over his 5 innings of work. This was fortunate, because the Mets were doing nothing against Ervin Santana. Santana continues to toil away for a woefully overmatched Twins team and, well, the Mets saw a bit of him back when he pitched for Atlanta that time and it seems he hasn't changed much. Santana had the Mets stopped cold through 7 innings and only in the 7th did they pose a credible threat, and even then Santana struck out Michael Conforto to end the inning and finish out his night.

And, of course, as soon as Santana left the game, the Mets tied the score. Ryan Pressly, who I suppose is posing as Minnesota's setup man (if you asked me who their closer was I probably wouldn't be able to tell you), gave up a first pitch hit to Jose Reyes, wild pitched him to 2nd and then Reyes moved to 3rd on a Cabrera ground out. And that brought up Cespedes, and for whatever reason teams continue to pitch to Cespedes in opportunities where he can beat them. Miami did it and it wrecked their precious little season. Minnesota did it and ended up getting beat as well, as Cespedes just flicked a 3-2 pitch over the 2nd baseman's head for the tying hit.

And, so, it then became a bullpen fest. The Mets had already burned through Josh Smoker, Fernando Salas, Jerry Blevins, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia by time the game moved to the 10th, and so the game was turned over to Hansel Robles. The Twins countered with several pitchers you've never heard of, unless you're somehow related to J.T. Chargois or Alex Wimmers. Robles moved to the 10th, but in the 11th he was burned, and I mean legitimately burned, by Byron Buxton, who may be starting to get his sea legs under him. Buxton hit a Home Run up into a part of Citi Field where it seems only people named "Miguel Cabrera" or "Cespedes" can reach and the Twins not only had a lead, but a chance to use their closer and for me, a chance to see who their closer actually is.

Brandon Kintzler, said Twins Closer, came in to try to close things out in the last of the 11th and of course gave up a Home Run to Curtis Granderson on his 2nd pitch to re-tie the game at 2-2. Kintzler then appeared ready to just end things right there, giving up subsequent hits to T.J. Rivera and Brandon Nimmo, which brought up Kevin Plawecki—remember him?—for his first At Bat since June or thereabouts. Plawecki had a hard time up here earlier in the year and this time just hit into bad luck as his line shot glanced off Kintzler's glove and right to Brian Dozier, who threw him out. Kintzler then hit Matt Reynolds with a pitch, and then struck out Jose Reyes, which meant that after all that crotch-grabbing, we were just going to play more baseball.

Josh Edgin pitched the 12th inning for the Mets without incident. Michael Tonkin entered for Minnesota and retired the first two batters, then was subsequently removed by Paul Molitor in favor of Ryan O'Rourke—you know, the great Ryan O'Rourke. I'm not sure why at this point Molitor felt he needed to play matchups, but Granderson had one of those At Bats that Cespedes usually has, where he starts fouling off pitch after pitch and eventually gets something he can handle, and he did, and he hit it down into the little slip of seats in the Right Field corner for the game-winning Home Run and the Mets had won this absurd mess of a game 3-2.

And, of course, shortly after the Mets won, the Cardinals won, coming back on the Giants to win and knock the Giants back into a tie with the Mets for the first Wildcard. Can you believe this? The Mets played the Giants about a month ago at perhaps their worst point in the season, and now they're not only tied but because they hold the tiebreaker, the Mets are, in fact, in position to host the Wildcard game. But, they're not there yet. They have to keep winning these games against teams that are clearly overmatched.

Mic Drop

Ultimately, it is the end result of a game that matters the most, and less so the journey that a game takes to get to that end point. That's not always quite so apparent. On Monday night at Citi Field, however, it was, as an odd and incongruous 10 innings and 3 and a half hours of Baseball turned to elation as Yoenis Cespedes cranked a walkoff Home Run to give the Mets a crucial 2-1 victory in the opener of this 4-game series against the Mickey Mouse Marlins.

Getting to that point was, well, I'll call it interesting, and maybe that's being kind. It didn't seem to be an evening that would shape up in the Mets favor altogether, seeing as how they were throwing Rafael Montero out on the mound which is sort of tantamount to throwing your spaghetti at the wall to see if it's ready. The Marlins were throwing Jose Fernandez, who usually not only stifles the Mets but throws over-the-top celebrations in the process. To say nothing of the fact that the Mets lineup didn't include Neil Walker, Asdrubal Cabrera or Jay Bruce, and Cespedes was probably playing on one leg again.

I wouldn't call either pitcher's effort on this night particularly good. Montero spent most of his evening getting two outs, then walking guys, and then getting the third out, and Fernandez more or less did the same, if only in a different order. Montero walked 6 in all over his 5 innings of work, and only by sheer will did he make it out of there unscathed. Certainly, the Marlins had opportunities. But in the 4th, he got Fernandez to ground out to end the inning, and in the 5th, he got Marcell Ozuna to swing at a sucker pitch and ground into a Double Play, the exact thing he needed at that moment.

Fernandez was a bit sharper, although not by much. He'd skidded through the 2nd inning, in spite of Celebrity Manager trying to cajole the Umpires into challenging a call without using his challenge, for no other reason that I can figure out other than he's just a total sack of shit. Meanwhile, he was leaving his pitcher out there to throw warmup tosses for 5 minutes. In the 4th, he started walking guys too, but the Mets couldn't come up with a hit of consequence either.

Montero departed after 5 and Fernandez after 6, and for a while both bullpens seemed to pick up where the starters left off. Sean Gilmartin worked around a 2-out hit in the 6th. Jerry Blevins gave up a walk in the 7th. Kyle Barroclough worked a clean inning. In the 8th, Addison Reed came in and appeared to follow suit, getting two outs before allowing a hustled double to Ichiro Suzuki, who seems to be the Anti-Marlin, the only redeeming quality of an irredeemable object. Xavier Scruggs followed, and he hit a line drive to left that looked to me to be an easy out, but I don't know whether Cespedes didn't have a good read, or it knuckled, or it wasn't quite as I saw it, but it sailed past Cespedes for a double, scoring Ichiro with the game's first run and sending me into a total snit because once again I was watching the Marlins do stupid Marlin things. It figured that after all of this, they would win on this crap.

But they didn't. Irritating fidget A.J. Ramos came in for the 8th and immediately gave up a double to Jose Reyes. The Marlins then started doing more Stupid Marlin Things, and pulled their corner infielders in to play for a bunt, while Ramos ran a reverse-wheel to try and pick Reyes off and nearly threw the ball into Center Field. Alejandro De Aza did not bunt, but instead flew out to Left, and perhaps if anyone other than Jose Reyes were on 2nd this would have accomplished nothing, but instead Reyes took off and made it to 3rd easily. Cespedes followed, and this was the sort of spot you wanted him up in. But Cespedes didn't need to do anything, as Ramos chucked a pitch to the backstop. It took a fortuitous carom to J.P. Regalbuto, who wheeled and threw back to Ramos at the plate, but his throw was lousy and Reyes probably would have beaten it anyway. In fact, all it accomplished was giving Ramos the opportunity to drop a knee on Reyes' neck and nearly decapitate him in the ensuing collision. While for a brief second it looked rather scary, Reyes eventually popped up and walked off, probably because who the hell wants to deal with Cortisone Shot Ramirez and his bunch of bullshit. To say nothing of the fact that, had Reyes departed, the Mets had no other option to play Shortstop. Walker was out, Cabrera somehow girded up his loins enough to pinch hit in the 7th, they made the asinine choice to option T.J. Rivera when Montero was activated and so they were stuck with a roster of 14 Pitchers, Rene Rivera and Bruce on the bench. Or at least it seemed that way. They'd already used Jacob deGrom to pinch hit and George and I were waiting for Birthday Boy Noah Syndergaard to take an AB.

Irregardless, Reyes stayed in the game and the game remained tied. Jeurys Familia allowed the Marlins nothing in the top of the 9th, and Mike Dunn got the first two men out in the last of the 9th, before Rene Rivera was announced as a pinch hitter. And, of course, here came Mattingly out of the dugout to make the total Dick move of taking out Dunn and bringing in Nick Wittgren, for no other reason than to force Collins to use Jay Bruce, the last guy on his bench. That was, perhaps, the most Marlin thing ever. It would have served him right if Bruce parked one in the seats, but his line drive was right in the glove of Scruggs, and it was off to Extra Innings.

I had, through 15 games this season, managed to avoid Extra Innings, in stark contrast to 2013, where it seemed like every game I went to went into extras. Josh Smoker came in for the Mets and struck out a pair of Marlins, punctuating his inning with a fist pump and celebration, perhaps just to stick it in the Marlins' ears a bit. Or maybe the kid was just feeling fired up. Wittgren retired the first two in the last of the 10th, and I figured this game wasn't going to end here, because he wouldn't throw Cespedes anything remotely close to the plate. Certainly, he couldn't be that dumb, could he? So I started thinking about 11th innings, and how late I could stick it out as it was a school night. But on the 1-1 pitch, Wittgren I guess was feeling his Wheaties a little bit and left a fastball a little to close to the outer half. You know, just the spot where Cespedes likes it.

And, of course, you know the rest. All the machinations and weird, paceless Baseball that had gone down to that point was just backstory to the real show, which was the missile Cespedes fired into the Left Field seats, you know, one of those shots that was gone as soon as he hit it. Following his requisite bat flip and 40-second Home Run trot, Cespedes was then doused with all sorts of odd liquid, some chewing gum, and eventually he was crowned by Reyes. Generally, I don't stick around for the postgame interview, but on this night I did. Probably because after jumping around and yelling, I needed to collect my bearings before heading downstairs. Or because I just needed to cap it all off by hearing whatever Cespedes had to say. Then again, if you asked me what he said, I probably couldn't tell you. Whatever it was, the Mets had won, they pulled even with the Marlins and now just take it from there.