Unable To Finish

Monday night, I got home, took a rest, and got up just in time for the beginning of the game.
Tuesday night, I got home, took a rest, and got up just in time for the top of the 2nd inning.

Clearly, I'm slipping.

I was slipping pretty hard by time the 4th inning came around, and I'd finished making dinner. My other half and I then sat down to eat, but she started yammering about how she wanted to watch something else instead of the game. I can't say I blame her, given how lousy the Mets have been lately, but I would have preferred to watch the game as opposed to the alternative. But, I relented and let her have her way. At the time, the game was scoreless.

And, as such, when she'd finished watching her program, I put the game back on and saw that it was 4-1 Mets. Little did I know that I'd missed the real show, Noah Syndergaard smoking his 3rd Home Run of the season to stake the Mets to a rare lead. On the mound, Syndergaard was making it stand up, looking better than he had in weeks before he tired in the 6th and his defense betrayed him.

For Syndergaard, this is, perhaps, a bit of a corner turn, since he looked much fresher. He hasn't exactly been suffering for velocity and really the stuff looks OK, but that little extra something he had early in the season hasn't been there. We've talked about him dissolving into Leiteritis far too often, but it seems like he had it back, somewhat. After the Diamondbacks beat and kind of embarrassed him last Wednesday, he got a bit of revenge, holding the Diamondbacks down into the 6th. He probably could have made it through the 6th, but for a pair of errors by T.J. Rivera that not aided a 3-run rally but forced Syndergaard to waste more pitches until he was ultimately unable to finish the inning.

At that point, it being late and I still being tired (and with an early morning today) I shut the game off altogether. Whatever was going to happen would happen, and, well, if it was going to be bad, I didn't want to be around to see it. A 7-1 lead had shrunk to 7-4 and given the way the Mets have handled the Diamondbacks this season that didn't really sit comfortably with me.

But, as I rose this morning, I see that the Mets did, in fact, hang on to win the game 7-5, so that's something.

Go Home Already

I know that the medically-induced pregame departure of Terry Collins was probably weighing on the minds of the Mets as they went through Sunday afternoon's mess of a game in Milwaukee. That doesn't necessarily excuse them from their performance, which I'd consider something that more closely resembled the Pittsfield Mets than Major League Baseball.

By time I gave up on the game, I'd seen no less than 4 balls thrown not especially close to their intended targets, 2 bungled batted balls that were charitably scored hits and one pitcher visibly lose his shit on the mound. I'd also seen the Mets fall into a 5-0 hole against one of those irritating pitchers that looks like he should be going to Social Studies class, not a pitcher's mound.

But, there are days like this, and sometimes you just need to vomit it out of your system all at once. You knew that trouble was abound when Wilmer Flores butchered Ryan Braun's grounder in the 1st inning, kicking it into Left Field and allowing Braun to take 2nd, and then 3rd when Alejandro De Aza basically fired the ball into the front row seats behind 1st Base. Somehow, this was scored a Double and an Error but the writing was on the wall. Later, Steven Matz would throw away a bunt attempt leading to two runs, Flores would throw away another bunt leading to two more runs, and in the process Matz had a Brad Lesley-level meltdown on the mound and only fortunately did he regain enough composure to keep the score at 5-0 and grit his way through 6 innings.

Not that the offense helped much. Zach Davies, who pitched reasonably well against the Mets in New York, completely stifled them on Sunday, getting out of a bases loaded jam in the 1st inning and then allowing nothing thereafter, so that by time the Mets did mount a cosmetic rally, it was already too late. They'd lost me by that point anyway. After 6 innings, with little hope in sight, I threw in the towel. Sometimes, you've just seen enough.

So, this 10-game road trip ends with the Mets going 5-5. They probably should have gone 7-3 or 8-2 if they'd managed to hit and not just melt down completely yesterday. On the other hand, this road trip felt like they'd gone 3-7. Regardless, this is the second time they've gotten to the end of a long road trip and just fallen completely flat, so that's something I might be a little concerned about going forward. A nice day off today should help. I hope.

The Follies

This once-promising Mets season has now dissolved into a circus that nobody really wants to watch, because instead of it being like the circus of, say, the Omar Minaya/Willie Randolph era, this circus is a complete and utter bore. There's no jolt, no fire, no drama, no intrigue, just the Mets kind of sleepwalking their way through these games, usually ending up scoring 2 runs on 6 hits and making 1-2 errors of varying consequence.

Tuesday night, with the Mets, who can't win on the road, playing in Milwaukee, who can't win anywhere, something had to give. Unfortunately, it was the Mets. Jon Niese pitched decently, because all the Mets starting pitchers have pitched decently of late, but he was the latest in a long line of Mets pitchers to pitch decently and lose because he gave up 2 runs and the Mets offense had no means of recourse.

Niese gave up a run in the 1st inning and looked like he was going to melt down into one of his trademark Jon Niese innings where he starts glaring at nobody in particular, snatching at the baseball and giving up 4 runs. The Brewers helped him out by being the Brewers, but then again, the Mets did a good job of helping out Mike Fiers on the other side by being the Mets. Somehow, the Mets grabbed a lead in the middle of the game—I must have passed out at the sight of them scoring one run and so I hadn't regained consciousness when they scored again—but Niese ran out of steam in the 6th, the Brewers tied the game, and then when Michael Cuddyer made the Mets daily Error in the 7th, the Brewers took the lead and the equilibrium had returned to the game.

The Mets then had the indignity of going down in the 9th inning against Francisco Rodriguez, only being able to counter with Johnny Monell. Monell, of course, was up earlier in the season and if I'm not mistaken had about 30 At Bats and hit into 13 Double Plays. Fortunately, he did not hit into a Double Play last night, but that's only because there was nobody on base ahead of him. Instead, he simply Josh Thole'd to end the game, which I suppose was a fitting way for this game to end.

Johnny Monell? This is who's getting an At Bat with the game on the line? Travis d'Arnaud is back on the DL, of course, because Terry Collins said on Sunday that he'd be back in the lineup good as new by Tuesday. This has been going on with the Mets for 6 years now, so should we really be shocked by this? Collins said before Tuesday's game that he expected d'Arnaud to be out for the minimum 15 days with his elbow injury or his shoulder injury, so you can forget seeing him back in the lineup until late August, I'd guess. Dilson Herrera had a mishap in the 2nd inning when Jean Segura ran over him on a play at 1st. Herrera looked like he did something unpleasant to his wrist, but then he shook it off and stayed in the game, probably because even in his short time here, he's become wise to the fact that maybe he ought to not spend too much time around Ol' Ray "Cortisone Shot" Ramirez.

This is the circus. Same shit, different year and now the Mets are back at .500 after running out to a great start and with Washington unable to get out of their own way. If I were the upper management, I'd be ruing the lost opportunity here if I weren't too busy doting over the team's A-ball affiliate. 

No Relief

Saturday's game had all the makings of one of those "Bad Hangover" games. The sort of game where the Mets lose and it's so deflating that it takes the steam out of the ship for the next few days and then all of a sudden you've lost 10 of 15 and nobody knows what the hell happened. It can go down that quickly, and that's what troubles me the most about a really troublesome loss.

The Mets basically dragged themselves kicking and screaming into a position to win this game in the first place. It took overcoming getting generally handcuffed by Shelby Miller, getting Andrelton Simmons-ed to death, having Jacob deGrom give up a Free Steak-level Home Run to Freddie Freeman and having Danny Muno nearly submarine everyone with an unconscionable three errors...And yet somehow they were able to get past that and grab a lead in the 7th inning. It took Jacob deGrom basically outpitching the stink of his team, and the Mets finally took advantage of an opportunity in the 7th inning.  It took a Juan Lagares pinch hit, a Curtis Granderson double, a 2-run single from Travis d'Arnaud and an RBI single from Lucas Duda, and all of a sudden a 1-0 day in the doledrums turned into a sunny 3-1 lead.

Things got even better in the 8th inning. Jack Leathersich entered the game and gave up double to Cameron Maybin, who subsequently stole 3rd and was primed to score when Freeman flew out to left. But Darrell Ceciliani, who's had himself a nice little week bopping around here and there, was able to throw a perfect strike to d'Arnaud and nail Maybin at the plate. Though Leathersich departed following the 3rd round of Muno's Follies, he was relieved by Bobby Parnell, a welcome sight for someone whom, when we last saw each other, was moping his way off the mound after blowing a Save last Opening Day with a torn elbow ligament that required the Big Boy Surgery. Parnell gave up a hit, but also got the 3rd out of the inning, thus bridging the game to the 9th inning.

Here's where the turd in the punchbowl reared its ugly head, because Jeurys Familia had picked a rather inopportune time to father a child. The Friday night/Saturday morning birth of Jeurys, Jr. precluded his ability to close out Saturday afternoon's game, leaving the Mets to counter with...Hansel Robles?!

Robles has pitched OK, but just OK in his time in the Majors. I like his stuff, but he needs experience before I'd trust him to close out a game. He needs to be slowly worked in to instances like this. A few weeks ago, Collins ran him out there with a 3-0 lead against Philly and after two batters, the game was tied. The Mets ended up winning that game so everyone forgot about this. But in this game, with a 3-1 lead, now being trusted to finish the Barves out, Robles was nervous, struggled, gave up a walk, and then a hit, then got two outs, then gave up an RBI hit to Maybin, and with Freeman then coming up, Robles was removed in favor of Alex Torres. Torres, then, was the one who had the high pleasure of giving up the tying hit to Freeman and getting hung with the blown Save.

Blowing the lead was particularly deflating, and the fact that the Mets were retired in order in the 9th and then the 10th spoke to a team that really had the wind let out of their sails. This game probably could have continued long into the evening, but fortunately Maybin singled home 2 runs in the 11th off of Carlos Torres, making himself the hero of a game he was probably going to be the goat in at least an hour or so earlier. The Mets finally re-awoke and got hits from Ceciliani and Dilson Herrera against Williams Perez (the Barves' secret weapon, Williams Perez), before Mayberry lined into a rather irritating Double Play and Lagares grounded into a Fielder's Choice, and the Mets ended up losing a game they really had in their pockets.

Now, the key here is can the Mets come out today (you know, in a few minutes), shake off the cobwebs from this debacle of a game and win the series against a team that doesn't look like they're trying very hard at least 65% of the time. Dillon Gee is making a spot start...that's not so encouraging. I'd say hang on to your hats and hope for the best. If they lose today, I'm not going to feel so good.

Still A Loss

The Mets have, in their history, continually proven that there are plenty of ways to play this game and lose. Tuesday, they did so in spectacular fashion. Tonight's performance was less spectacular, but the result was still the same. In spite of tallying 11 more hits than they were able to muster on Tuesday, they screwed up in plenty of other ways and still managed to lose to the Giants, 8-5.

It took the Mets all of one batter to surpass their offensive output from Tuesday. Curtis Granderson led off the game by banging a hit over Angel Pagan's head and back to the wall. Mysteriously, though, Granderson pulled up between 1st and 2nd and what probably should have been at least a double was merely a single. So, after tallying their first hit since Sunday, I guess the Mets forgot what to do. This loomed large a few batters later when Michael Cuddyer poked a hit through the left side. had Granderson taken the extra base that was rightfully his, he would likely have been on 3rd and Cuddyer's hit would have meant a run. Instead, Granderson was only on 2nd, and Aoki's throw home nailed him by a good 15 feet. Fortunately, Wilmer Flores followed with a 2-run single, and the Mets now had not only surpassed their hit total, but also their run total from Tuesday.

This would all be hunky dory, except that Matt Harvey didn't have it. This was already proven by local hero Joe Panik, who took Harvey deep on an 0-2 pitch in the top of the 1st. For a while, it appeared that this would simply be a motivating blip on another sterling Harvey performance, similar to the Saltalamacchia Home Run his last time out. Harvey settled in, the Mets bats got him a lead, partially buoyed by the much-welcome return of Travis d'Arnaud, and going into the 6th inning, the Mets led 4-2 and everything looked good. The Mets were going to hold off the Giants and shake off Tuesday's debacle.

Except that Harvey imploded in the 6th inning in a way that we've not seen Matt Harvey implode. In the span of 4 batters, Harvey saw his lead and then the game disappear. Buster Posey nailed a 2-run double to tie the game, Brandon Belt followed with a 2-run Home Run to give the Giants a lead, and, later, Justin Maxwell bombed another Home run, and before you could blink, a 4-2 lead turned into a 7-4 deficit and Matt Harvey was looking rather pedestrian.

Harvey wasn't helped by a pair of Outfield errors, some general laziness in the infield, and Eric Campbell, whose general Eric Campbellness leads any potential Double Play grounder to net only one of the needed outs and other similar ground balls to be muffed altogether. But he shouldered the blame himself, which you could probably expect. It's not exactly encouraging when you hear your ace say things like "Right now, I'm not helping my team at all," and "I need to break it all down and start from square one, and that starts tomorrow." But at the same time, it's nice that he at least understands that he has to take accountability for his poor performances and work to get better.

Now if only his teammates would follow his lead.

That Old Uncomfortable Feeling

Last night was my 4th game of the year at Citi Field, my second with George, the first April Night Game that really felt like a true April Night Game, and the night where my suspicions and everyone else's fears were confirmed: that the Mets were finally regressing to the mean after their raging hot start.

George and I had this discussion peppered throughout the game, which dissolved into a debacle rather quickly after a nice start. The Mets were playing at a mostly unsustainable pace over the first 15 or so games of the season, and that particular streak coming on the heels of 6 seasons of abject misery was enough to get any Mets fan gassed up. The problem is that the Mets aren't quite as good a team as they showed during that stretch. Eventually, these things have to even out, because that's Baseball. The Mets also aren't as bad as they looked at times, particularly last night, when they looked really bad, and the Nationals looked like the same team that comes in to Citi Field and routinely beats the Mets into submission.

But that's how the game played out. The Mets had multiple opportunities with Stephen Strasburg out of sorts and on the ropes, and having some weird silent argument with his Catcher Wilson Ramos, but for all their opportunities, they only managed to plate two runs in the 2nd inning, and then Strasburg settled down and stopped the Mets cold from there. On the other side, Jacob deGrom was humming along, retiring the first 9 batters he faced before walking Denard Span to lead off the 4th. Yunel Escobar followed and by now I'm sure we all know what happened from there. Escobar laid a DP ground ball on a tee for Wilmer Flores, Flores booted the ball, lost the play, and the game basically went down the shitter from there.

It's easy to point to Flores' error as the reason the Mets lost this game, but in the larger picture, whether that error happens or not, the Mets would have lost anyway because they stopped hitting. deGrom wasn't great but the 3rd inning can't totally be pinned on him (allowing 3 runs on 1 hit and 2 run-scoring outs is more indicative of the fact that he did a good job of getting himself out of a jam he shouldn't have been in). The 6th, when the Nationals started ringing hits off him, was, however, and then the 9th inning was just windowdressing from there. Point is, the Mets had 2 runs on 4 hits in the first two innings and after that, they had 3 hits and that was it. Yes, they bunched two of them together in the 6th and knocked Strasburg out of the game, but if he hadn't been all cocked up in the first two innings and gassed himself, he probably would have stayed in the game. But Murphy was 0-for-4, Campbell was 0-for-4, Cuddyer was 1-for-4, Flores was 1-for-4 and too much of that isn't going to work against Washington. The 8-2 loss is a pretty good example, and again, it's not because the score was 8-2, it's because even if that 3rd inning is different, the Mets still lose 5-2. 

Mix this in with the weather, which started off as one of those nights when it posited to be mildly comfortable at Citi Field (game time temperature 58˚), but the temperature dropped as night fell and it turned into one of those nights where the scoreboard might have said 54˚, but in the seats, it felt about 34˚. I don't know if that's what made the rest of the crowd cranky (and cranky is a good word to describe it, particularly after so many of them petulantly booed Wilmer Flores in the bottom of the 4th), but that's what did it to me. It did it to George, too. This isn't a recent development, but in prior years, we had no qualms about sitting around through a game all night, no matter how cold it was, and no matter how long it took us to get home, or how early we had to go to work the next morning, and no matter how shitty the game was playing out. You go to a Mets game, it's different from watching it on TV because you feel a greater sense of investment in the proceedings. I hate seeing the Mets lose, period. But when I go there and they lose, I like it even less. There's a lot of stress behind it and you want to stick by your team until the last bitter out.

But, let's face it. We're getting old. We're not 26 anymore and our aptitudes for sitting through these games, particularly when it's 5-2 or 8-2 and you know the Mets aren't coming back, is starting to grow thin. George said it himself, he doesn't want to sound disloyal or like he's a bad fan, but on nights like this, he's rooting for the game to be over quickly, not for the Mets to come back and win. And, oddly, I felt the same way. In the bottom of the 9th, I said something to the effect of "They better either score 7 runs, or none at all." because let's face it. The temperature felt about appropriate for Binghamton at that point, and who wants to see the Mets dick around and load the bases and score 3 runs only to have Daniel Murphy hit a foul pop up to the 3rd baseman for the last out? If you're going to rally, rally and win, don't rally, still lose and keep us there longer than necessary. Fortunately, the Mets spared us this by going down in order in the 9th and getting us out of there quickly. That might have been the most considerate thing they did all night.

New Flog City

The lights were on their brightest in the Bronx on Sunday night, as the Mets and Yankees met up for the finale of the April portion of the Subway Series in The Biggest Game In The Galaxy. ESPN, no longer featuring Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were out in full force. This goes to show just how long it's been since I've actually watched The Biggest Game In The Galaxy (the Mets have managed to avoid one in a few years), but while the announcers have changed, the content has not. ESPN's broadcasts are usually more style than substance, with their overproduced graphics and unnecessary bells and whistles that take away from just about everyone's enjoyment of the game. I'm not sure who the lead announcer is other than it's not Joe Buck, but he may as well be Joe Buck since he presents the Pepsi-Cola version of MLB announcing. Color commentary is now provided by the comedic duo of Curt Schilling and John Kruk, because they're silly and irreverent and people like that, I guess. I used to get up for the Sunday night game, but that was a different era when I was younger and wilier and I didn't have to be at work until Monday afternoon. Now, I've come around to the nuisances of Sunday Night Baseball. It's become too sugarcoated. It seems like every week, they're cramming Yankees vs. Red Sox, or Braves vs. Nationals, or Dodgers vs. Giants down our throats. That's bad enough if you don't like those teams, but for some reason, when it's the Mets and the Yankees, I find it even more of a nuisance.

The Mets and Yankees treated the viewing public to something less than the top-quality Baseball that ESPN prides itself on showing, which may serve them right, but the joke was on the Mets on Sunday night. Though the Mets still came out of the weekend with one win in three games, they kind of looked like schmucks on Sunday and in losing the series this weekend, have now ensured that Mets fans will be treated to an entire summer of "DERP DERP DERP SAME OLD MUTTS (GOBBLE SNORT DROOL)" from the mouth-breathing faction of fans of the other team. For as far as we've come, and as much as we'd like to think we're the better team, and from top to bottom we probably are, we still can't get it over on the Yankees, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't somewhat frustrating. I shouldn't care about the Yankees or their fans, and for the most part, I don't. Except when the Mets play them and things don't go well, which has been often. It's the main reason I've become completely turned off to the annual Subway Series Shit Show, to the point where I won't go to the games. It's just not worth the anxiety. It was better the last two years when we only had to go through this 4 times a year, but now it's back to six, and for some asinine reason, it's broken up so that we have the Subway Series in April, and now we get the high pleasure of playing them again in September, probably in the middle of a pennant race when the last thing we need to worry about is the Goddamn Subway Series.

So...yeah. The Mets went out and made asses of themselves in front of a national TV audience. Things started out well enough, Curtis Granderson led off the game with a Home Run off of Nathan Eovaldi, the hotshot pitcher who throws really hard but isn't any good—we remember him from his time with the Mickey Mouse Marlins. The Mets had plenty of chances to get Eovaldi on the ropes but couldn't cash in. Still, Daniel Murphy poked a 2-out double to score Juan Lagares and the Mets were on their way.

Except that Jon Niese had one of those annoying Jon Niese outings. He got through the 1st inning well enough, except that he gave up a Home Run to Captain Pariah Alex Rodriguez with 2 outs. A-Rod seems like his usual self, he clapped his hands and hot-dogged around the bases like he'd just hit a walk-off Home Run, and maybe he thought he did for all I know. He's never been one to be aware of his surroundings much. That was fine, but then everything came unglued in the 2nd inning. Niese was primed to work around a leadoff double, but with 2 outs, he gave up another double to Gregorio Petit and everything basically went to hell from there. There was another double, and a hit that was basically where Daniel Murphy was supposed to be, and another double, and a Michael Cuddyer relay throw that he basically spiked into the ground...and all of a sudden it was 5-2 and I was ready to shut things off.

The Mets didn't have much trouble with Eovaldi, as they got back to within 5-4 in the 3rd, but that was it for them. A parade of Yankee relievers, most of whom I've never heard of, kept the Mets from getting any closer. On the other side, they slipped and slopped around, and made a bunch of errors, mostly by Daniel Murphy, who ole'd a ball that led to a run, didn't slide on a close play at 2nd and instead was tagged out, and generally had one of those Daniel Murphy days where he looks about as coordinated as a nerdy 11-year old. And as the game went on, I got to thinking if maybe this is the year that Daniel Murphy becomes my #1 flog. We all know that I have one good flog per season. Usually it was a worthless pitcher like Manny Acosta or Pat Misch, and for several seasons it was Lucas Duda until he proved himself useful, but maybe it's now Murphy's turn to be in my doghouse. You know, it's Murph's walk year. You always want to start out your walk year hitting .172 with 6 errors. Now, he's probably made himself untradeable, in addition to being a general nuisance. And I like the guy, so it pains me to say this. But there's only so many years you can watch a guy play second base with the tenacity of a scalded dog until you realize it's just not going to get better. He's worked really hard to get to this point and still he makes the same absurd mental errors because I don't know why. He's a decent hitter, but he's still a streaky hitter and for all the years he's started off hitting .320 after April, he's more than often gone on to hit .246 in every month until September. Point is, we've reached the ceiling on Daniel Murphy, and if it's still so underwhelming, you have to start to think beyond him. Paging...Dilson Herrera....

Jon Niese is also a good candidate for a flogging considering he's still sort of trading high on a good season he had back in 2012, but he's never quite duplicated the numbers he had that season. When he's good, he could be one of the best lefties in the NL. Problem is, he runs in patterns of one really good start, followed by 2 passably good starts, followed by a complete stink bomb. Tonight was the stink bomb. We need to see less stink bomb from Niese if he's going to stick it out here. There's too many good pitchers itching for the opportunity to crack this rotation for him to pitch like an idiot too many times, and I'd like to think he knows that and isn't resting on the idea that he's the only lefty around here. Paging...Steven Matz...

All right. Enough Subway Series. It's getting me unnecessarily stressed out and making me forget that the Mets are still 14-5 in the early going this season. But, they're back to the NL East grind this week as they head down to Fraud Stadium in Miami before coming back to play Washington this weekend. Just get back to the kind of Baseball they were playing at home, before they had to go across town and get themselves all cocked up.

Boring and Snoring

Having picked up their annual Home Win over the Nationals on Friday night, the Mets went back into their proverbial shells over the weekend in a pair of forgettable games that I barely watched and in a long-recycled comment, I clearly didn't miss very much. The Nationals inched themselves ever closer to their 2nd National League East Championship in 3 seasons with a 10-3 win on Saturday and a 3-0 win on Sunday.

These games proved the Nationals to be quite a versatile team, and even if they're not a versatile team, the Mets do a great job of making them look like one. Zack Wheeler was the victim of Saturday's bludgeoning, surrendering a Home Run to Bryce Harper in the 2nd inning and didn't improve from there, departing after 4 innings with a 6-0 deficit. A multitude of pitchers finished the game only allowing 4 runs, which I suppose can be considered a moral victory but not really.

Sunday, Jon Niese took the loss in a game where he was simply outpitched by Jordan Zimmermann. Niese matched Zimmermann zero for zero into the 7th inning, before Wilson Ramos did what he usually does against the Mets and hit a 2-run Home Run, breaking the ice and for all intents and purposes winning the game for Washington. That was all Niese allowed in his 7 innings of work, but the Mets had no means of response against Zimmermann, or subsequent pitchers Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard or Lil' Billy and thus the game ended with the Mets being shut out.

The Mets, believe it or not, still have 3 more games left with Washington on their schedule, which doesn't seem fair because it seems like the Mets have played Washington pretty much every other series since the beginning of August. The Mets sit at 3-13 against them for the season, which would be a poor enough record to earn them a top Draft Pick were they an NFL team. Unfortunately, they aren't, and 3-13 against Washington is poor enough to note that the Mets are actually over .500 against the rest of Baseball. That's worth thinking about, but not too hard, because the Mets are going to have to play 18-19 games a season against Washington no matter how good or how bad they are against other teams, so they'd be wise to improve their level of play against these guys.

Stupid Rerun

I tuned out a brief portion of the latter half of the Mets game tonight, and when I resumed watching, it seemed to me that the game had ended and SNY had decided they would randomly air a rerun of the 9th inning of the Mets/Nationals game from August 13th, in which the Mets, trailing by a run, rallied to get the tying and winning runs in scoring position with less than 2 outs, and rather than plating one or two runs, instead got a runner thrown out at Home, followed by a meek, game-ending out.

Then, I saw Craig Kimbrel on the mound, and I realized that it wasn't a rerun, it was just the Mets being the Mets. My stance on Kimbrel is no secret; he's a closet choke artist, and the Mets have come perilously close to proving it on several occasions, and in fact have completed the job of hanging a few blown saves on his head. Considering how well they tend to hit him, you would think it might have happened more often than it actually has. Nonetheless, the Mets haven't been game enough to finish the job on most nights, whether it was due to a great, game-saving catch or a general inability to get the key hit, and last night that reared its ugly head once again as Ruben Tejada hit into a Fielder's Choice to get Eric Campbell thrown out at home, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis followed with the game-ending pop out to seal a 3-2 Mets loss.

Prior to that, the Mets did little to support another fine outing from Zack Wheeler, who got himself through 7 innings in spite of the fact that he appeared to be struggling more than he actually was. He allowed a leadoff Home Run to Jason Heyward, and another two runs in an excruciating 3rd inning that Wheeler had gotten himself out of, except that Tejada yakked on a ground ball from Meathead Evan Gattis with 2 outs and instead of ending the inning, resulted in an Error and a 3rd run home for the Barves, and on this night that was enough to provide a margin of victory.

Offensively, the Mets mustered a Wilmer Flores Home Run off of Julio Teheran and that's about it. They rallied in the 8th when dainty Jordan Walden came in, pranced across the mound and allowed an RBI single to Juan Lagares, but Lucas Duda turned back into a pumpkin and hit into a Double Play, and Travis d'Arnaud had the poor fortune of grounding a ball in the hole between Shortstop and 3rd that was not quite far enough to get by Overrated Andrelton Simmons, and so Simmons was able to make the play, throw out d'Arnaud at 1st and make everyone cream themselves over how he's God's Gift to Shortstops.

Then, of course, came the 9th, and the Mets getting Chokemaster Kimbrel on the ropes but, try as they might, they couldn't seal the deal and instead ended up turning the game into another reason for people to hop on the Barves Brown-nosing Bandwagon. And, hey, why not? At 5 games over .500 and 6 games out of 1st place, how could you not get behind them?! Excuse me while I go vomit.

Infernal Shit Show

I last year mused about the Dodgers being The Hot Team in Baseball, and how they were getting every conceivable break on their way to a Division title and a trip to the NLCS, where they were ultimately beaten by the St. Louis Cardinals, who might be considered the Golden Boys to the Dodgers' Hot Team. Last August, the Mets went into LA and were swept, and the Dodgers really made them look like a second-class team in the process. True, the Mets were (and perhaps still are) a second-class team, but the way that the Dodgers went about winning those three games were simply mind-boggling.

After last night's game, another Mets loss in Dodger Stadium in which they played like a bunch of idiots and really handed the game to the Dodgers, I'm starting to think more that maybe it's not so much that the Dodgers are The Hot Team as much as the Mets just have a Dodger Stadium thing. Or maybe it's just a West Coast thing, because they didn't play especially well in most of their other West Coast stops either. This has gone on much longer than just last season. Last night's simply scintillating affair was just another in a string of miserable performances the Mets have vomited up at Chavez Ravine. Four errors, two of which were committed by Wilmer Flores, served to do the Mets in, while Jon Niese had another one of his good bad starts as the Mets lost 6-2.

Things certainly got off well enough, as Curtis Granderson hit a leadoff Home Run off of Dan Haren. That was the high point of the night for the Mets. It was all downhill from there. Haren allowed the Mets two more hits over the remainder of his 7 innings, while on the other side, Niese was getting beat by guys like Dee Gordon and Erisbel Arruebarrena (you know, the great Erisbel Arruebarrena). It wasn't until the 5th inning that Flores had his attack of the blahniks and, following a bobble of a Yasiel Puig grounder, managed to trip over his own feet before he could make a throw to 1st, in a play that seemed to typify the Mets performance in this game. That particular error ultimately didn't lead to a run, but in the 7th, with Niese one pitch away from getting out of a jam and keeping the game at 2-1, Flores fielded an Adrian Gonzalez grounder cleanly, kept his footing...and unleashed a throw not especially close to Lucas Duda at 1st Base. This plated one run, knocked Niese from the game, and immediately led to two more runs when Matt Kemp doubled off of Carlos Torres. Game. Set. Match.

Though the game was for all intents and purposes over after that, the stupid didn't wear off for the Mets. They kind of creaked their way into a little rally in the 8th, and did manage to get a couple of men on for Curtis Granderson. But, in a scene reminiscent of last season, Granderson watched a 3rd strike that might not have been a 3rd strike, and then stood there and scowled at the umpire a little bit before slinking off. Later, Lucas Duda ole'd a foul pop in another play that didn't lead to any runs, but did typify the way the night was going for the Mets.

Fortunately, the Mets will get Jacob deGrom back from the DL tonight after being out for two weeks. That's a good sign since he's been one of the more brighter signs of life for the Mets this season. Unfortunately, he's got to come off the DL and pitch in Dodger Stadium, because the Mets still have two more games to play there this weekend. I expect that he'll hopefully pitch well, but something stupid is bound to happen. Gotta love those self-fulfilling prophecies.