Settle Down, Beavis

This afternoon's game, surprise surprise, was one I didn't watch. But as it was the 12:10pm "Summer Camp Special," which I believe has also been known in past seasons as "Senior Citizen's Day," or "The Businessman's Special," I was at least able to follow the early portion of the game on my lunch break...you know, on Gamecast at my desk. But as far as I could tell, the game turned on two pitches in the top of the first. With two outs and men on 1st and 3rd, Rafael Montero had 2 strikes on Joey Gallo, who is essentially a feast or famine hitter on the level of Rob Deer or Dave Kingman. But Montero balked to bring home a run. He then laid an absolute meatball in to Gallo who promptly hit it out for a Home Run. Just like that it was 3-0 and that was pretty much the game right there. The Mets managed a Wilmer Flores Home Run off of Martin Perez and lost 5-1.

The more interesting Mets news came later this evening when news broke of the Jay Bruce trade to Cleveland for an A-ball pitcher. I have no issue dealing Bruce and although the return is underwhelming, it's something, and that's all you can ask for given that there just wasn't a great deal of interest in him. Of course this has brought out all sorts of Idiot Mets Fans out of the woodwork screaming about "stoopid sandy and corny collins gotta go" and "here we go another seven years of losing." One particular nutjob went so far as to suggest that the reason Alderson didn't deal Bruce to the Yankees for a supposedly "Better package" is because the Mets are bitter that they're failing and the Yankees are having a good season. I wonder how many of these people actually pay attention to the moves Collins makes, or if they're even Mets fans because the way they behave I sometimes feel like they're trolls that were sent by the Yankees just to piss us off. You can blame Alderson at times for inactivity, but I've been watching him for seven seasons now and there has not been a single trade made that didn't come to serve some greater purpose. It's as though these people are yearning for the days of Omar Minaya, who would react to any minor adversity by babbling and making short-sighted, unnecessary trades. Bruce is going to be a Free Agent and probably wasn't going to be back anyway, I mean, sure, the Mets could use the offense but to what end? To help them finish in 3rd place instead of 4th? It's the old adage of "We're losing with you, we can lose without you," and so it seems to me there is no loss in this deal.

Then again, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by the Idiot Mets Fans. These are the same people that continue to crow for Wally Backman (who by the way still does not have a Major League managing position) and think the soul of the team left with Daniel Murphy, who was a great player for all those years. It's kind of like listening to the rhetoric of people who support the current Presidential administration. Sometimes I'm not sure what fans expect the team to do. This season is lost. We just have to try and make the best of what's left because I much prefer Baseball Summers to Winter and no Baseball.

Knock You Out

Monday night was my 8th game of the season at Citi Field, but certainly one that I'd circled and progressively got myself more and more cranked up about as the date approached. I've already gone over my dislike of the Cubs, and my distaste for their sophomoric fans, and how utterly galling I found their run to a World Series championship last season was. I know that the Mets as a team had to be looking at this series too, because you always go gunning for the Champs. To say nothing of the fact that the Mets kicked them in the teeth in the NLCS two years ago, and handled them in similar fashion in the regular season last year and if they'd had the opportunity, they might have done the same thing in the Postseason.

But that was last year and this is now and the Mets have had a hard time getting out of their own way, but so have the Cubs, themselves just a .500 team and perhaps going through their own World Series hangover. That in and of itself is no deterrent; they're still viewed as the "Golden Boys" of Baseball, and their fans were out in full force at Citi Field, much to my disgust. I'd prepared myself for any number of confrontations, since, as case history has shown me, Cubs fans have no particular shame and a lot of chutzpah, but nothing materialized. This was a minor victory. In the grand scheme of things, I wanted the Mets to handle any necessary rebuttals on the field. To my delight, they did so, as Jacob deGrom delivered a big-time performance in a big-time moment, whipping off a masterful Complete Game effort to lead the Mets to a 6-1 victory.

I'd mentioned that this was my 8th game of the season, but my first this season with my other half. She being the wiser usually waits until June to start coming to games, as she lacks my aptitude for cold weather. She also lacks my punctuality, though in her defense we were both delayed getting out to Citi Field due to the entire MTA network going into retrograde. I wasn't at the stadium until 6:50, she didn't get there until about 7, and by time we got through security, and waded through the noodnick Cubs fans cocking around on the Field Level, and got upstairs, and got food, and sat down, it was already the middle of the 2nd inning. Comparatively speaking, we missed very little; deGrom allowed a 2-out double to Anthony Rizzo in the 1st that went nowhere, Neil Walker and Lucas Duda both hit deep fly balls to Right Field that didn't have the legs to get out in the bottom of the 1st, and deGrom navigated the 2nd following Asdrubal Cabrera and Jose Reyes massacring a pop fly, striking out Javier Baez and John Lackey in the process.

So we finally hit our seats in 418 for the bottom of the 2nd inning, just in time for Cabrera to shoot one out into the bullpen in Right Field. I'd noticed a Cubs fan sitting directly in front of me and, just for emphasis, made sure to yell "He's not catching this one!" once it seemed pretty certain that the ball was out. That was the leg up the Mets needed. In the 3rd, the Mets had 2 on and no out for Yoenis Cespedes, but Cespedes grounded into a Double Play. The Cubs fans, who as a collective seem to sound like a bunch of women and children when they cheer, were all up, but Jay Bruce picked up Cespedes and shut up the Cubs fans good and proper by hitting a laser beam of a Home Run into the Cubs bullpen. This was one of those shots that looked like it was going to hit the wall, but somehow scraped over instead. Which was fine by me. In the 4th, Cabrera hit another one into the Bullpen on Lackey's first pitch of the inning.

Once he got a lead, deGrom went into cruise control. This was good, particularly considering how badly he'd pitched his last two times out, but it again underscores the fact that deGrom can be good enough to battle through with less than his best, but when he has his best, he can absolutely dominate, and that's what he did to the Cubs. He wasn't clean by any stretch; he walked 4 batters and the Cubs had men on base basically in every inning, but he wasn't giving the Cubs an inch.

In the 3rd inning, he gave up a hit to Kris Bryant and walked Anthony Rizzo. Ben Zobrist hit into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.
In the 4th inning, he gave up a leadoff single to Jason Heyward. Willson Contreras hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
In the 5th inning, he gave up a hit to Lackey. Jon Jay followed by hitting into a 4-6-3 double play.
In the 6th inning, he walked Rizzo. "He can't do it again, can he?" was my thought. But sure enough, Zobrist hit into another 4-6-3 double play.
That's 4 Double Plays in 4 innings if you're keeping score, and two of them to Zobrist, who we've all had enough of for several lifetimes.

Only in the 7th did the Cubs manage to reach deGrom, when Addison Russell flicked a Home Run into the Right Field corner with 2 outs, one play after Terry Collins got a safe call on Baez at 1st overturned. Cubs fans were slapping each other with salamis, but that was basically the highlight of their night. deGrom was in such control that by time he finished the 7th, I thought it possible, though unlikely, that he could finish, as he was hovering around the magical 100 pitch number. There were two pitchers warming up behind him in the 8th, but deGrom didn't waver, retiring the Cubs in order for the first time all evening. Meanwhile, in the last of the 8th, the Mets tacked on two more runs to stretch their lead to 6-1, and with 2 outs, deGrom took his turn at bat to a roaring ovation.

The 9th, then, seemed mere formality. I don't quite recall if anyone was warming up, but there seemed little reason why deGrom couldn't finish the game out unless the Cubs rallied, but they didn't stand much of a chance. Zobrist grounded out on the first pitch of the inning, he got Miguel Montero to tap weakly back to the mound, and he blew Contreras out of the box at 97mph on his 116th pitch of the night to put a bow on things.

It had been some time since I'd seen a Mets pitcher throw a Complete Game. The double whammy of a CGShO has eluded me as well, but, you know, don't get greedy. I hadn't seen a Complete Game by a Mets pitcher since 2011, when Miguel Batista threw one on the last day of the season. And games like that are generally forgotten (there's also this game, which does not qualify but does tick most boxes). Point is, deGrom came up big when the Mets really needed it, obviously because they simply need to win games at this point, but also to show that they can still stick it to the Cubs and shut up their fans. People will remember this game. I'll remember this game. Hell, even my other half will remember this game. This was probably the most rousing game I'd been to all season. Good timing.

Real Live Victory

Admittedly, I didn't actually see any of Wednesday night's game, as I was precluded by some other pressing matters that required my attention and then a nap that I needed to take, so as a result, I only know that the Mets won on Wednesday.

I know that in order to win, they needed to score, and scoring runs in Texas doesn't seem to be much of an issue, although they only hit two Home Runs on Wednesday as opposed to the 5 they hit on Tuesday, which of course just goes to show you that, really, you need to pitch well in addition to hitting Home Runs, and sometimes cramming both of these things into one game has been a challenge for the Mets this season.

Zack Wheeler, who, let's face it, has been the Mets best pitcher to this point this season, slung his way through 7 innings and in fact left in prime position for a win as the Mets did lead 3-1, but, of course, the Mets bullpen went SPLAT and blew his lead in the 8th inning. Extra innings seemed imminent but the Mets managed to scrape across a run in the top of the 9th in spite of themselves. Jose Reyes hit what apparently should have been an inning-ending fielder's choice, but for Roughned Odor alligator-arming a relay throw to Elvis Andrus that was not handled (and even after replay still was not handled), which allowed Matt Reynolds to steam around from 2nd base to score.

Ostensibly, the Mets scored the winning run on the most Anti-Met play of the season, because it seems like this sort of thing has been working against the Mets all year.

So, the Mets leave Texas with a split, and I really can't say they're treading water because with their standing it seems like they're drowning. Now, off to Atlanta and I can't say recent history of June trips to Atlanta give me much confidence. On the other hand, reinforcements are coming...supposedly...

That's Nice Of You

The Mets had one of those "in spite of themselves" wins on Tuesday night. First of all, they started Tyler Pill, who's one of those Dillon Gee-types (in fact, I believe Gee was name-checked on more than one Mets broadcast) in that he's a pitcher who doesn't "trade high" because he doesn't have "great stuff" but he manages to overachieve because he's a "Gamer." That's a polite way of saying Pill has an excellent chance of being a spot-starter or #5 starter for a while, and he might have a hot month here and there, but don't expect too much.

But Pill surprised us all on Tuesday by working his way into and deftly out of some jams against a tough Milwaukee lineup (that's tough in spite of the fact that you haven't heard of any of them but we learned that when the Mets played them in Milwaukee). Pill gutted his way through 5.1 innings allowing just one run and departing with a 2-1 lead that became a 4-1 lead when Lucas Duda hit a Home Run in the bottom of the 6th. But, of course, since the Mets bullpen is a consistently dicey proposition, they found themselves in a sticky situation in the 7th inning when Fernando Salas loaded the bases and then had to turn things over to Jerry Blevins in order to rescue him. Blevins did his job; he struck out Travis Shaw and in spite of issuing a run-scoring walk to Domingo Santana, got Jett Bandy (still not to be confused with Jaff Decker) to pop up for what appeared to be an inning-ending out. But Asdrubal Cabrera had a moment with Baseball and did not catch the popup, and to everyone's abject horror, two runs scored and the game was tied. Goodbye, Tyler Pill Win, Hello, references to woebegone Mets Middle Infielders who should not be mentioned in polite company.

Then, of course, came the bullpen parade. Neftali Feliz begat Josh Edgin, begat Jacob Barnes, begat Addison Reed, begat Corey Knebel, begat Josh Smoker, and so on, and so forth. Mets relievers handed Brewer batters walks seemingly at will. The Mets batters did a good job of not doing much of anything. Finally, it seemed that Smoker was going to go the limit for the Mets, as the only "available" reliever was Neil Ramirez, whom nobody wanted to see. So it became somewhat imperative that the Mets figure out a way to score, particularly against Wily Peralta, deposed as a starter due to repeated ineffectiveness that seemed to disappear whenever he faced the Mets. So in the 11th, Peralta set the Mets down in order.

But finally, the Mets managed to break through in the 12th, the last possible moment before a Ramirez sighting. T.J. Rivera, whom we haven't heard much from lately (he was falling victim to the curse of overexposure anyway) hit for Smoker and singled. Michael Conforto walked. Jose Reyes moved up Rivera by grounding into a Fielder's Choice. That brought up Jay Bruce, who mercifully singled to center to score Rivera to win the game, probably about 75 minutes later than it should have ended. Irregardless, the Mets did manage to win, which is probably the most important thing. After all that, it's nice that the Mets could figure out a way to win a game like this.

Small Big Ball

The Mets continued their recent trend of great offense/lousy pitching again on Saturday, as they jumped on Odrisamer Despaigne early and often to the tune of a 5-run 1st inning, then survived another shaky outing from Robert Gsellman and another injury, this time to Asdrubal Cabrera, and eventually turned things back on late against the Marlins bullpen to come away with another win, this one by an 11-3 score, which gives the Mets 6 wins in their last 8 games and 3 series wins in a row.

As usual, it is the little things that add up.

Not that it matters much to the press, who seems more interested in cracking on the Mets than actually reporting on what happens in the games, but the Marlins were the victims of some stupid in this game. Their scheduled starter, Wei Yin Chen, went on the DL on Friday with the mythical "tired arm," for those who think that sort of thing only happens to the Mets one month into the season. The replacement, Despaigne, who famously no-hit the Mets into the 8th inning that one time, was a minor irritant, as the Mets hammered him early and often and led 5-0 after 1 inning. The Marlins played like you'd expect them to, as they kicked the ball around plenty, starting off with Nickleback mishandling a hot shot from Michael Conforto that started the rally. Later, balls continued to clank off gloves and fly balls were bungled as the Mets tacked on more runs late in the game. Once again, they did so without the virtue of a Home Run; most of these runs scored because the Mets were working counts and hitting singles and doubles and just moving the line along. Conforto alone had 2 RBIs without the virtue of a hit as he walked three times, twice with the bases loaded, the latter time coming after a brilliant AB where he fell behind 0-2 and managed to check his swing three times to work out the walk. But the point is, if you just hit singles and doubles and bunch them all together, you'll accomplish the job just as well as if you sat back and waited for Cespedes to hit the 3-run HR.

Gsellman was effective, if not especially good, in his 5 innings. It seems to be more an issue of location and execution rather than stuff, that's preventing him from pitching as solidly as he did down the stretch last year. I can't quite figure it out just yet. With a full complement of pitchers, he might be on thinner ice but as the numbers have dwindled, there's not many other passable options. Certainly not if Montero continues to make an ass of himself whenever he gets an opportunity.

So it becomes the offense that has to shoulder the load, and they've done so as they scored 5 or more runs for the 9th game in a row, which is a far cry from the days when they were hard pressed to score 5 runs in a week. Then again, this could just as easily flip so we should just enjoy it while it lasts.

Born To (Home) Run

Wednesday night's game appeared to be headed down a similar track as Tuesday's. In miserable weather, perhaps colder than last night, combined with some late-inning rain, the Mets held a late one-run lead over the Phillies. Robert Gsellman had done yeoman's work getting himself into the 8th inning, but a leadoff double knocked him out and the run ended up scoring thanks to a 2-out, 2-strike dying quail of a hit that landed in front of Yoenis Cespedes. But, unlike in the previous few nights where the Mets could not respond, on this night they did as Jay Bruce hit a 2-run Home Run in the bottom of the 8th to provide the Mets just enough to hang on and win the game, 5-4 and end this mystifying 4-game losing streak in which everything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong.

It of course is always irritating to me when I go to the first game of a series and the Mets lose, and then come back and win the next night, and that's no different on this evening, although in reality, I can't say I missed sitting out in weather that appeared to be colder on Wednesday than it was on Tuesday, among an even sparser crowd than Tuesday, in intermittent rain and from what Howie Rose told me on the radio, a dead standstill in transit as the 7 train had suspended service entirely right in the thick of the evening rush. So even if I had gone to this game instead, I would have been just as cranky and miserable as I was on Tuesday. On the other hand, the Mets win probably would have made it more worth it.

But so the game, which in addition to the positive outcome appeared to move at a much brisker pace than Tuesday, boiled down to Robert Gsellman's ability to just be his own bridge, keep the Phillies at bay and keep the Mets in the game, and he did that. Gsellman hadn't been especially good in either of his first two outings, and yes, one of them was the 16-inning game last week but in neither game did we see the toughness he'd displayed late last season. Wednesday night, we saw it back and for the most part he looked really good. He made himself the 1st starting pitcher to make the 8th inning this season by allowing 2 runs on 5 hits with 7 strikeouts through the first 7 innings. Yes, the Phillies annoyingly undid his effort by tying the game in excruciating fashion. However, Gsellman more importantly kept a majority of the Mets' relievers in the bullpen, which was good because I already discussed how the bullpen is burned out 3 weeks into the season and that's not safe.

Meanwhile, the offense continued to stagnate. Curtis Granderson isn't hitting which isn't anything new because he always starts slow. Jose Reyes isn't hitting and is kind of becoming a liability to the point where maybe it's time to just give Wilmer Flores the job or give Amed Rosario a buzz. And of course if that wasn't bad enough, two guys who were hitting, Lucas Duda and Travis d'Arnaud, left the game with injuries. Duda got banged in a rather ugly-looking collision at 1st base and at this point diagnosis seems uncertain. d'Arnaud banged his hand on someone's bat and later came out which is concerning because every time d'Arnaud comes out of a game because of an injury we don't see him again for two months, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. So, it came down to the one guy left who's been hitting, and that's Jay Bruce. I went into this season talking about how Bruce seemed out of place here and he may still be out of place here but to his credit all he's done this season is shut up and hit and basically he won this game by himself. The Mets looked dead in the water until Bruce hit a 3-run Home Run in the 6th to put the Mets ahead and then in the 8th, after the Phillies tied the game, he basically decided he'd had enough of this and hit another Home Run, this one a 2-run job, to put the Mets ahead for good and, of all things, earning himself a curtain call. And, well, he deserves it. I don't know how long this will last, I don't know how long he is for this team, I know he's a Free Agent to be, but hell, he needed to have a start like this because there's multiple players here that could very easily take his job and he's making it hard for anyone to do that right now.

Glad You're Here

Philadelphia is a place where the Mets have, at least in the past couple of seasons, gone to wake up. Back in the days when the Phillies were the top banana in the league, it wasn't quite so pleasant, but as they're no longer the team to beat and those guys that made them such aren't around anymore, this neutered version of the Phillies are, well, kind of a punching bag. And the Mets treated them as such last year.

Still, I have this residual anxiety about playing the Phillies, probably because their young pitching staff can be sneaky good, as long as they remain healthy, and because the Mets have really stuck it to them so much over the past couple of years that they're probably pissed off and it's boiled over in a few sporadic instances.

Monday night was one such instance where their young pitching kept the Mets off balance and then they got a little chippy. But it didn't work. After Jerad Eickhoff mostly silenced the Mets for 7 innings, Edubray Ramos came into a tie game and immediately threw a pitch over Asdrubal Cabrera's head. You may recall what happened the last time these two crossed paths so I'd guess it wasn't lost on either party. But so that happened, benches got warned and the game went on. Ramos then proceeded to eat his lunch because he walked Cabrera and subsequently gave up a 2-run Home Run to Jay Bruce that ultimately served as the winning runs in this 4-3 Mets victory. For Bruce, who emphatically slammed home a high-five at home plate, this has to be a gratifying start. On Opening Day, I talked with George about how Bruce on this team didn't seem to make sense. George kept confusing him with Lucas Duda. It's not because I don't like Bruce or because he's destined to be a Ballclub Flog. It just felt as though he was here just because he had to. The Mets essentially found themselves stuck with him. And it wasn't lost on him either, and I can't imagine he was too thrilled about the situation either. But to his credit he's making the best of it and as most of the Mets batters have been kind of quiet over the first 7 games this season, Bruce has opened like a house afire and essentially won this game by himself (with an assist from the generally silently solid Jacob deGrom, who quashed an early rally, buckled down with less than his best stuff and ground out 6 solid innings).

This little gem of a game was of course mostly lost on me as I was out at a Passover Seder all night, as can happen early in the season. So I can't provide much in the way of observations beyond what I've seen on highlights. But I know pretty much everything I need to.

Beyond The 162

The primary objective for the Mets going into the final weekend of the regular season was pretty simple: Win 1 and guarantee they'll play past Sunday. Win 2, and they'll play on Wednesday, at Home. They've accomplished 50% of this goal.

The Phillies, in spite of basically playing out the string and in spite of the fact that the Mets bombarded their pitching staff rather mercilessly last weekend, were a team that made me kind of nervous, because they're just the team that would like nothing more than to kick the Mets in the nuts and screw up their season. Fortunately, the desire of the Mets was enough to offset the spoiler aspirations of the Phillies, as they rode more hot hitting from Jay Bruce and more clutch pitching from Robert Gsellman to a 5-1 victory. They might have been able to clinch outright, but for the Cardinals winning. So the Mets will just have to try to wrap it up themselves tomorrow.

It being a Friday night game, I missed a large swath of the proceedings because I'd fallen asleep. So I didn't see the Phillies take an early lead, I didn't see the Mets again have a tough time with Alec Asher early on, and I didn't see the Mets tie the game on a Bruce single and take the lead for good on a subsequent T.J. Rivera single in the 4th. I also didn't see Bruce hit his 4th Home Run in 6 games in the 7th inning. Hey, it was a long week and I was tired!

The downside of course was that I ended up missing Gsellman's fine outing altogether. Though he wasn't as sparkling as he was last Sunday in his 7 shutout innings, he still pitched well enough, holding the Phillies to 1 run over 6 and, well, being another one of "those guys" who've sort of just appeared here over the last two months and wound up playing a major role in getting the Mets to this point. You can't plan on these things—hell, outside of him getting a small headshot and bio buried in the recesses of the Mets yearbook which you haven't picked up since April, you probably had no idea who Gsellman even was—but this is what happens in Baseball sometimes. You get contributions from guys you've never heard of and find yourself after 160 games now guaranteed of playing no less than 163 for the season.

So, now, the Mets have a chance to spare themselves of any weird tiebreaker scenario with one more victory tomorrow. Unfortunately, this game somehow got co-opted by FOX and moved to 1pm, which is kind of a turd in everyone's punchbowl, but the Mets will just have to make the best of it, and so will we, even though I'd rather the Mets clinching call not be screeched by Matt Vasgersian or whoever is doing the game.

Impossible Is Possible

It's the general stance of the Mets fan to kind of keep their asshole extra tight during the final few days of a Pennant Chase. There's not much anyone can do to help this; it's just the side effect of too many seasons where they've been in close contention only to have something get screwed up and everything fall apart at the end. But the way this 2016 race has played out, with the Mets storming back from the fringes the way they have has been something else. I'm not sure that I've seen the Mets do what they've done this year before—the only thing remotely close I'd guess would have to be 1973—6 years before I was born—but dammit, the Mets keep cobbling together these victories. Their 5-2 win over the Marlins finished off their 6th series win in September, their 16th win of the month, and combined with the Cardinals losing, and the Giants losing, put them 1 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco and 2 1/2 games ahead of St. Louis...with only 3 games remaining.

I really hate to say this, but for the first time, I'm starting to think that the Mets might actually pull this off.

How they've managed to do this, I'm not sure. But it seems to be exemplified by guys like Seth Lugo, who aren't given much in the way of attention and who might have a real rude regression to the mean at some point, but they continue to play over their heads and surprise the hell out of everyone. Lugo gave up an early Home Run to Martin Prado, which for the Mets is about on par with giving up a Home Run to, say, Greg Dobbs, but nothing after that as he navigated his way through 5.1 innings and received plenty of backup, first on a second inning 2-run Home Run from James Loney, who seems to be Mr. Marlins Park, that tied the game, and later another 2-run Home Run from Jay Bruce, who all of a sudden has come back to life, and probably at just the right time.

The remainder of the game was bullpen and more bullpen, as Hansel Robles, Fernando Salas and Addison Reed bridged things up to Jeurys Familia, who closed out the 9th inning for his 50th Save of the season.

So, the Mets are now finished with the Marlins for the season, and after a really difficult and emotional 3 games in Miami the Mets could use the day off they've got on Thursday. St. Louis and San Francisco are both playing, but no matter what happens on either front, the Mets will go into the weekend still leading the chase, and if things break right, they could conceivably have this thing wrapped up by Friday night and actually get to relax for a couple of days over the weekend. But—again. I'm getting ahead of myself. But after all the crap that's gone on this season and everything the Mets have had to overcome, it's quite a story the way things have played out, isn't it?

Recentering

After the raw and brutal emotion that took place Monday night, Tuesday night's game appeared much more businesslike by comparison. By businesslike, of course, it meant the Mets went back to the business at hand of trying to hang on to their slim lead in the Wildcard race. They amazingly remain on top of this 3-team jumble and maintained a 1/2 game lead over the Giants and 1 1/2 games over the Cardinals as they overwhelmed the Marlins late and coasted to a 12-1 victory.

At this point, I still don't feel comfortable looking too far forward--and right now anything past Wednesday night might be too far forward—but if this was Noah Syndergaard's final start of the regular season, he certainly finished with a bang, as his 6 innings of work were punctuated by no walks and 8 strikeouts to go along with a run on 5 hits. Assuming he's not needed on Sunday, he wraps up his first full season with a 14-9 record, a 2.60 ERA, 218 strikeouts, and more often than not a dazzling performance, which is what he delivered on Tuesday night.

It helps, of course, that he was backed by a pair of Home Runs, one by Yoenis Cespedes that clanged off the Loria Mystery Machine in Center Field, and another by Jay Bruce, his second in the last few days as he's continued his final week resurgence. They struck early against Tom Koehler, whom they were facing for the 14th time this season, and then again late, as they mashed home 8 runs in the 8th and 9th innings to blow open a close game against the deep back end of Miami's September Bullpen. Curtis Granderson was involved, Lucas Duda drove home 3 runs, and even Juan Lagares chipped in by swinging a bat and hitting a sacrifice fly to ice things up.

The 12 runs were great, and showed a continuation of the offensive explosion the Mets have been on over the last several games (Monday night being the aberration, although Monday night was an aberration of everything). However, 12 runs was the magic number for the night, as the Giants scored 12 runs and won, and the Cardinals scored 12 runs and won, and so for another day everyone's just in the same place. On the other hand, they're in the same place and now there's one less day on the calendar.

The Lesser Guys

The last time the Mets were on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy, I felt like they won purely to spite ESPN. I don't feel quite the same way about what went on last night, I suppose because the Nationals are currently sitting in victory formation with an 8-game lead, and without a clear story or player on their side to leech on to. Perhaps, I suppose, they could have rammed their heads up Daniel Murphy's ass just to annoy us (and on some level I'm surprised they didn't). Without a real "interest" story, this stood to be even more of a boring, content-free game than usual. Joey McTalkinghead and Eric Byrnes Aaron Boone were useless and the token woman had even less to say than she usually does. I watched the game from start to finish, amazingly, and I'm not sure she spoke more than once every three innings.

Pennant Race Baseball at its finest.

So if you could follow the game beyond ESPN's camerawork, which seemed to go out of its way to make sure you couldn't see the game (to wit: somewhere in the 1st inning, I believe on Reynaldo Lopez's Wild Pitch, we were treated to a shot of the 1st base umpire, who was nowhere near the play, as opposed to any shot of the action on the field), you saw the Mets once again ride one of these lesser guys to a much-needed victory, as Seth Lugo spun 7 sterling innings, allowing 1 run, 6 hits and no walks to guide the Mets to a 5-1 victory and a series win over the Nationals.

For this we can partially thank Dusty Baker, yes, as he moved Scherzer off this game, but really, the credit needs to go to Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo. After the Mets lost the game Noah Syndergaard pitched, and the Mets were back on their heels and falling into the same pattern of ineptitude that's befallen the Pirates and Marlins, they needed some big time starts and these guys delivered. It's kind of uncanny that these lesser prospects have come up and performed as well as they have, but considering that the top tier prospects, Harvey, Syndergaard, Wheeler and Matz all burst onto the scene with such hype and furor, well, it's easy to forget about these mid-level guys that find themselves once they hit the Majors. There's no better example than Jacob deGrom, who really had no hype coming to the Majors and then got here and hasn't looked back. Now, we have Gsellman and Lugo coming up with no hype whatsoever and performing well. Maybe it's just that they're all pushed by the success the big guys have had, relatively speaking, or maybe they're all just slept on. Whatever it is, they're keeping the Mets afloat.

Meanwhile, the Mets still had to hit to get the job done, and they did enough of that against Lopez and the Washington Bullpen Parade, as Curtis Granderson continued his recent resurgence with a Sacrifice Fly and a 2-run Home Run to put the Mets ahead, and later Jay Bruce contributed a 2-run Home Run of his own and so maybe things are starting to fall for him as well. That would be nice.

Then, of course, I remembered why ESPN probably wasn't picking on the Mets tonight. They screwed the Mets just simply by televising this game period. They moved this game to Sunday Night, the night before the Mets have to pack up, go on the road and play this afternoon at 1pm in Cincinnati. So, you know, they can be nice and rested for that. They're probably in midair right now, I would imagine and one can only guess who will be starting today, but I have a feeling it won't be pretty...

It's Finally Over

So, finally, the Subway Series nonsense is finally over. Predictably, the Mets split the 4 games with the Yankees, keeping with their recent tradition of total inconsistency. It's only a slight step up from the total mediocrity they have, at times, displayed.

It seems fitting that Bartolo Colon was centrally involved in this win. I don't know why, but it does. Probably because it just seems like he comes through in spots like this. And he did, throwing 6.2 innings, allowing the Yankees very little and becoming the first Pitcher to win a Subway Series game for both sides. So, perhaps, it could be said that when the Subway Series Goblins come to visit, Bartolo is impervious. He just gives it some chewing gum and waves it away.

The Mets offense didn't exactly light Nathan Eovaldi on fire, and I'm not sure why, because Eovaldi has that Marlins pedigree, which means that he has all this ability, and he throws really hard, and everyone talks about how "He's such a goood pitcher!" and yet he's consistently awful. I don't recall when Eovaldi landed with the Yankees, but he's done very little to impress anybody and I believe was only starting because he can and the Yankees needed someone to make the start. Unlike Colon, Eovaldi strikes me as very susceptible to a Subway Series. But the Mets didn't hit him, which bothered me, at least until the 5th, when Kelly Johnson hit the Trademark Yankee Stadium Home Run, a line drive that probably would have been a fly out or, at best, a single at Citi Field that snuck into the 1st row of the Right Field Seats for a Home Run to put the Mets ahead. Two outs and a Subway Series later, it was Jay Bruce connecting for a 3-run Home Run to put the Mets ahead 4-0. This, of course, was Bruce's Official Joe Buck WELCOME TO NEW YORK! moment, and certainly in good timing, being in a close game in the Subway Series and in a 2-out situation. So that probably got everyone feeling better.

But, of course, the most important thing is that the Mets are finally done with this Circus. I know I said it already but it will be good to get back to normal, inobtrusive Baseball. Yes, I know the Mets are playing in an AL park in Detroit this weekend. No, I don't care, because at least it's not the Subway Series.

The Welcome Wagon

The Mets reversed the Subway Series story on Tuesday night, where they gave the Subway Series instead of received it, which is a storyline I like much better than what we saw on Monday night. Alejandro De Aza and Travis d'Arnaud both hit Home Runs in support of Jacob deGrom, who was absolutely brilliant over 7 innings of work, making the Yankees look mostly foolish and keeping them off the scoreboard as they cruised to a 7-1 victory.

This game was mostly shrouded for me by events that conspired to keep me out of the house and away from the TV, so unfortunately I didn't see it, but I had plenty of opportunities to see what was going on via phone, so my heart was warmed by what was happening. This was, of course, in stark contrast to Monday night or it seems many Subway Series' past. But this seems to be what deGrom has been doing to most teams of late. Aside from his one hiccup against Miami, where I can only assume he'd fallen victim to some sort of Jeffrey Loria-induced hallucination, deGrom has rather quietly been the best pitcher on the team over the past couple of months.

The Yankees got a taste of this in full effect last night, as deGrom allowed 4 hits and 1 walk over his 7 innings of work, striking out 8 and sending multiple Yankee hitters into full-scale bitch fits over their inability to hit. One such strikeout saw Fire Hydrant Head fling his bat into the ground like a damn 6th grader. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from there.

The offense also woke up, as for the 3rd consecutive game, the Mets managed to score more than 5 runs in a game, and actually hit the magic number 6 for the 2nd time in 3 days. An utter avalanche as compared to the past week. They ambushed Maa Tanaka for a pair of Home Runs, by De Aza in the 3rd and d'Arnaud in the 5th to run out to a 3-0 lead, and then just ran him off the mound altogether in the 7th inning. I still consider it a minor miracle that Tanaka is pitching altogether, since it seems like he's been teetering on the edge of the Big Boy Surgery ever since he arrived in the Major Leagues, but he's still here and as such has been a bit of a neutered version of himself. I know that he came here and everyone expected him to go 24-0 every season, or perhaps that might just be how Yankee fans behave in general. I don't know. But everyone was contributing. Michael Conforto hit an RBI double, Matt Reynolds drove in a run, and even Yoenis Cespedes picked up a Pinch Hit in his cameo appearance.

Jay Bruce, in his Mets debut, did not get a hit, but that was OK because basically everyone else did. The hot word, as far as what I was able to grok, was that his presence in the lineup, in the cleanup spot, got everyone else to relax a little bit. If this is what Bruce will bring here, well, I'm all for it. More than anything, this team needs to relax. But first, they just need to get through the two games at Chicken Sacrifice Stadium without much incident.

Shit Show Week

Imagine, if you will, that the Subway Series is not simply a set of games between the two New York teams. Instead, picture the Subway Series as some horrible, demented green, or perhaps eggplant-colored blob, something like a cross between Shrek and Mr. Bighead. It isn't present except during these games this week, and usually it causes things that rarely, if ever, happen in a Baseball game to occur. Or it makes a player do something totally out-of-character. Or it makes a baseball bounce in such a way that defies general logic. Once again, the Mets and Yankees proved why the Subway Series is a horrible, wretched thing and needs to be stopped.

In spite of the fact that for a hot second, the Mets had a lead and things looked to be in a steady place, the Subway Series reared its ugly head and a series of dumb shit began happening to the Mets, culminating in the Yankees tying and eventually winning the game 6-5 in a miserable, predictable 10-inning crapfest.

The game had that dumb Subway Series thing going right from the start. Fire Hydrant Head hit Logan Verrett's second pitch of the game over the head of Justin Ruggiano and off the wall, and ultimately the ball caromed back towards the infield. Gardner appeared to have an easy triple, but he had an attack of Subway Series and decided to score, and fortuitously, Curtis Granderson and Neil Walker made perfect relay throws home to Travis d'Arnaud, who blocked the plate and tagged Gardner out.

But the tone had been set. The game was one of those back-and-forth affairs. Wilmer Flores homered of C.C. Sabathia in the 2nd. The Yankees struck back tied it in the 4th on a Verrett Wild Pitch. In the 5th, the Yankees grabbed the lead when they started hitting a string of 2-out doubles. At 3-1, conventional wisdom would have it that the Mets were going to fold their tents, but they can have an Attack of Subway Series too, and after a Michael Conforto RBI double cut the deficit to 3-2, Matt Reynolds had his Kaz Matsui moment by hitting a 3-run Home Run in the 6th to turn the game in the Mets favor, and everything, for the moment, was great.

But, lest we forget, this is still the Subway Series, which meant that even if the Mets were ahead 8-3, they weren't immune from the Subway Series. By this point, Erik Goeddel and Hansel Robles had worked clean innings, and Jerry Blevins came in to start the 8th, and of course he walked Fire Hydrant Head to start the inning, because Subway Series. With 1 out, Addison Reed came in and appeared to restore order by striking out Mark Teixeira's Carcass. Mr. Morality singled, and then was run for by Ronald Torreyes, who nobody's ever heard of, and appears to be no taller than 5'3" and of course is the embodiment of Subway Series so you knew he was going to do something to screw things up. It appears his mere presence gave Addison a Subway Series, because he then labored through an 8-pitch At Bat by Didi Gregorious, in the midst of which Torreyes predictably stole 2nd, before Gregorious hit a dying quail of a single to left to score both runs and tie the game.

The Mets, at this point, had packed up their bats for the night, since 5 I guess was more than enough for them. The game, however, was not over. Jeurys Familia came in for the 9th and somehow managed to fight off the Subway Series, but in the 10th, Seth Lugo, oddly the last man in the Bullpen for the Mets on this night, entered the game and the Subway Series literally ate him alive.

First, Lugo dug his own grave by walking Ellsbury on 4 pitches, which is just about unconscionable in that spot. Then he got 2 strikes on Teixeira's carcass, before he singled to left. Then some dude with a mullet was batting, which instantly meant that a Subway Series was about to attack, and of course it did because Mullet laid down a bunt back to Lugo, and instead of at least trying to get the sure out, Lugo threw to 3rd, and of course Ellsbury was safe because THAT PLAY NEVER WORKS AND IT ESPECIALLY NEVER WORKS IN THE SUBWAY SERIES!

You know what happened from there. Yankees take the lead, Yankee fans start smacking Mets fans with rubber chickens, the Mets get James Loney to 3rd with 1 out in the last of the 10th and strand him there when Curtis Granderson has a Subway Series and takes a pitch that Dellin Betances basically set on a tee for him to hit out of the ballpark.

So, I mentioned that Lugo was the last man in the bullpen for the Mets and that's of course because the roster was totally cocked up by this afternoon's trade deadline, which saw the Mets make a pair of deals, which were both totally necessary and completely puzzling at the same time.

First, there's the Jay Bruce trade, which seemed to unfold in typical Metsian fashion: complete, then almost dead, then done in totally backwards fashion. Initially, the deal included Brandon Nimmo, who I like but could understand moving here. Somewhere, the Reds balked at some medical records and so the Mets had to go back and figure out something else, eventually closing the deal at around 3:45 by sending Dilson Herrera and youngster Max Wotell to Cincinnati. I like moving Herrera even less, just based on the fact that he's so young and has, I think, a ton of upside. But then again, he also strikes me as one of those guys that the Mets just don't like, because they never gave him a real chance to earn his keep in the Majors and then kept blocking his path. Then again, the perfect scenario would have involved Neil Walker leaving and Herrera taking over next season. We won't see that now, which is a shame, but again, the Mets need something resembling a legitimate bat in the lineup right now, someone who will hit behind Cespedes and provide some protection. Is it a perfect fit? Hardly. But I also trust Sandy Alderson to make trades that have a purpose, so I'm going with it. And as far as the Herrera situation, well, Gavin Cecchini appears poised to ascend soon, too, and could slide over to 2nd Base. So, too, could Jose Reyes if he sticks around.

Then, of course, there's the trade the Mets made with Pittsburgh that somehow ended up with Jon Niese coming BACK to the Mets. Once you're done laughing your ass off over this one, you can shrug, and then laugh some more. I don't know if I can even call this trade addition by subtraction. Yes, the Mets got rid of Antonio Bastardo, which is probably the most operative thing here, but I guess the moral to this story is that sometimes, you have to take something lousy back in order to get rid of something lousy. So...yeah. After leaving and running his mouth a little bit, Niese is back and I believe the first thing he's going to do is sit down with Terry Collins, and Collins is going to give him a towel so that he can wipe all the egg off his face.

And then Bruce and Niese can turn around and dive right into the shit show.