Ruined By Replay

The entire outcome of Sunday night's debacle of a game was determined by Justin Turner. No, I'm not going to give a whole diatribe about Turner and the "stupid mutz let him get away" because he wasn't any good here and never showed signs otherwise. But nonetheless he broke the entire game last night. Steven Matz started for the Mets and if anyone needed a good outing, it's Matz because he just hasn't been able to get it together lately. He gave up a 1-out single to Corey Seager, but that's OK because Seager hits everyone. Turner followed and reached on a Fielder's choice. Then he tried to steal 2nd with Cody Bellinger at the plate and was thrown out by Travis d'Arnaud, and he looked it too. But Turner was pointing and waving for a challenge, and so the call was challenged, and lo and behold, because Turner is a Dodger and the Dodgers are The Hot Team, replay showed that he'd Ole'd his way past Amed Rosario's tag, and he was, in fact, safe. So after walking off, Matz had to come back out to the mound, and after going to commercial, ESPN had to come back, and reset the whole thing.

So, you know what happened. That reversed call immediately led to a walk, and shortly thereafter 3 Dodgers runs and the rout was on. The Mets once again had no recourse; after letting themselves get rooked into 3 Runs in the top of the 1st, they immediately came up against Hyun-Jin Ryu in the last of the 1st and struck out in order.

Nothing further is worth discussing. What the hell is there to say? They lost 8-0, they got embarrassed on National TV once again, and they lost the entire season series to the Dodgers.

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.

Did Me A Favor

I barely made it through half of Friday night's game at Citi Field. This wasn't so much because I couldn't take it, but because my other half, who was accompanying me for the second time this season, had taken ill and needed to go home. This was around the top of the 5th inning, when the score was still 2-0. So, we left. She wasn't thrilled about it and neither was I, but given how things played out the rest of the night, clearly she did me a favor by getting me out of there.

While the score said 2-0, which was perfectly in reach, the Mets weren't winning this game. They were too busy falling victim to the will of The Hot Team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have just been annihilating every team in their path for the last three months, including a sweep of the Mets. This should have been obvious minutes after the game started, when Chris Taylor got behind 0-2 against Jacob deGrom, and then started fouling off pitches, and taking balls, and finally, the count was full, and then he hit a line shot to Left that clanged off a railing for a Home Run. And what did I hear? Loud, raucous cheers from a crowd packed with Dodgers fans. So right there, I knew the Mets were fucked. Corey Seager followed with a rocket double and only because deGrom is deGrom and can sometimes will his way through innings did he escape with the score still 1-0. A lesser pitcher would have had a 6-spot hung on him. Or worse.

It didn't improve from there. Yasiel Puig hit a Home Run in the 2nd to make the score 2-0, and meanwhile, the Mets looked mostly hopeless against Yu Darvish, making his ballyhooed Dodgers debut after being acquired from Texas. Darvish hadn't been pitching well with the Rangers, but of course he hits the Dodgers and the switch flipped. The Mets mostly didn't touch him, though deGrom did manage a hit in the 3rd, and then stole a base which was academic. Amed Rosario, making his Citi Field debut, did the same in the 5th, after we'd departed.

But, of course, our early departure meant I'd been spared the indignity of seeing Chase Utley hit a Home Run in the 6th off of Josh Smoker, I didn't get to see more Dodgers Fans dancing in the Aisles, and I didn't have to watch the Mets fade out meekly into the night as clearly they're no match for The Hot Team right now. Given their record and the streak they've been on, I'm not sure anyone is a match for them.

BAI

I only managed to catch an inning or two of Thursday night's game, which is more or less how I'd been watching this series. I think it could only be stomached in small doses. But at any rate, the Mets were behind when I turned the game on, which stands to reason given that the Dodgers had hit 44 Home Runs in the series to that point, half of them by Cody Bellinger, the other half by Corey Seager, and another half by Justin Turner because the Mets needed more reason to look like assholes. I'll give Steven Matz a little bit of credit for only allowing two Home Runs, instead of the requisite 6 that the other Mets starters had given up in this series, which meant that when I tuned in, the Mets only trailed 3-2 instead of 11-2.

But at any rate, Lucas Duda hit a double to score Jay Bruce and tie the game 3-3 in the 6th inning, and that gave me some blind hope that maybe the Mets could salvage something here, but that was not the case. I shut it down around the 7th inning because, you know, it was late and I was tired, and of course everything went to shit from there.

This series reminded me of those years when the Mets were terrible and Washington would come in to Citi Field and hit 87 Home Runs, most of them by Rendon and Fire Hydrant Head. But the Mets lost all four of these games not so much because they'd quit or weren't trying, it seems more a matter of the Dodgers are to 2017 what the Cubs were to 2016 or something like that. I do realize that based on the last 7 games the Mets season is probably toast and we're probably going to start seeing some of these pieces get traded off in the coming weeks. It's sort of the curse of the middle ground. Not good enough to hang with the big boys, but dammit, I still think the Mets are better put together than the Fucking Marlins. Not that it counts for anything at this point but you take what little victories you can get.

That Internal Fight

Something happened in the 4th inning of last night's game that kind of piqued my interest. And I don't mean Yasiel Puig taking too long to admire his Home Run and pissing off the entire Mets team, because those things tend to get overblown and players are often good at policing themselves.

It was, however, the initial source of the Mets ire that caught my attention. I know that if you make the rounds, most of the chatter involves something to the effect of "fweh fweh stupid Mets and cwybaby fwores," and "maybe don't throw a fastball down broadway stupit mutz." And in reality, I don't care much what Flores said or who he happened to be saying it to, but more that he did it. It's sort of his way of saying that he's getting a little sick of this shit. I think we're all getting a little sick of this shit, and, you know, you kind of want your players to show that sometimes. Flores has a history of not really being the "silent, methodical" type. You saw that two years ago when he was—and then wasn't—traded. And here the Mets are, getting their heads handed to them for the third day in a row, their overmatched Pitcher Tyler Pill just served another one up to an arrogant, underperforming headcase and he hot dogged it. I mean, didn't Wilmer Flores basically just do what every Mets fan wanted to do at that point?

Beyond that, you're starting to get a little bit of leadership out of Flores, which is important because the Mets seem to be kind of leaderless right now. David Wright probably won't be back unless some divine intervention occurs, and other guys are old, not playing well, injured, or have one foot out the door and in some cases all of the above. So it's incumbent on these younger guys to kind of make their case here. Flores to this point has had a very good season, which doesn't especially surprise me. People will listen to young guys if they're backing it up. I think you're seeing the beginning of a future leader.

This is sort of juxtaposed against an asinine article I read earlier on WFAN.com, the gist of which can be summed up as "dur dur dur stupid mets didn't sign turner and murphy and lookit them now." And, I mean, yeah. I get it. The past six games have just been a series of the Mets getting their heads bashed in by Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy, former Mets who were let go ostensibly because they hadn't proven themselves worth keeping around. I mean, Justin Turner was around for three seasons, and basically proved himself to be an inconsistent role player with a goofy personality who liked to throw pies in people's faces. At no point did he pose as a .330 hitter, because if he had, the Mets probably wouldn't have let him go. Murphy, of course, just makes me angry. Like, now, he makes me legitimately angry. I mean, think about it. We saw Daniel Murphy here for 8 years. Not a few cups of coffee. 8 years. And 8 years as a starting player. And if at ANY point in those 8 years, he'd shown that he was at all the kind of player he's turned into since he went to Washington, then the Mets would have given him a contract, and none of this would be happening, and everything would be fine. But nooooooo. We got 8 years of the anthropomorphic version of "the Yips," got tantalized by a well-timed two-week hot streak, and then an era that ended with two of the most egregious, Murphy-typifying errors in backbreaking spots in the World Series. And in case you forgot, nobody wanted him that offseason, he was probably Washington's 4th choice, and now he's Joe Fucking Morgan and the Mets are the jackasses.

Grumble. This is why it's important for guys like Wilmer Flores to get a little pissed off. It's just a reminder that these guys actually do care about this debacle of a season.

The Same Thing

I'd essentially turned off Monday night's game before I ever started watching it, and for all intents and purposes I did the same thing on Tuesday. Or at least I should have.

I was watching at the beginning of the proceedings on Tuesday. I figured Robert Gsellman had to fare better than Wheeler did the night before but that was blind hope since the Dodgers basically ate him for breakfast. Logan Forsythe led off with a single, Corey Seager followed with a Home Run over the Center Field fence, I slapped my head in disbelief, Justin Turner reached when T.J. Rivera threw a ball not especially close to 1st base on a routine ground ball, Cody Bellinger hit another Home Run, I slapped my head again and then went to do something else.

By time I checked back in, the Dodgers were busy flossing their teeth with Gsellman, Seager hit two more Home Runs and everything else that could possibly have gone wrong, went wrong.

I know that the Mets aren't as bad as the Dodgers are making them look right now, but then again I'm not convinced of this. The Mets season right now is, ostensibly, finished and I would guess we'll be hearing rumblings and grumblings of trades in the coming weeks, but these last several games against really good teams have been mostly noncompetitive efforts. This from a team I believed was going to do something great with themselves. I've been shown. The more fool you.

Tuning Out Early

These West Coast games have a habit of playing havoc with my schedule on all fronts. I'll stay up to watch a 10pm game, but watching through to the end is largely dependent on whether or not the game is worth staying up for.

I was late tuning in last night and as such, when I did click on, the Mets were already behind 7-0, as Zack Wheeler was lit on fire by MLB's newest flavor of the week, Clay Bellinger, and opposing Clayton Kershaw I figured there was not much worth sticking around for. So I shut it off.

What did I miss? Well, ultimately, I missed the Mets wasting everyone's time by putting forth a thinly-veiled comeback, hitting 4 Home Runs off of Kershaw to cut a seemingly insurmountable deficit to 8-6 by the 7th inning, and then having their momentum cut off by Fernando Salas, who allowed the Dodgers to tack on two more runs in the last of the 7th to close out a 10-6 loss in this series opener.

I mean, sure, give the Mets credit for fighting back, particularly to Jose Reyes, who arose from his coffin to hit two Home Runs, Gavin Cecchini, who hit his first career Home Run, and to Jay Bruce, who continues to play exceptionally well in a mostly hopeless situation, but, I mean, who at that point was still watching? If a Home Run is hit and nobody is around to watch it, did it ever really happen?

Seek Professional Help

And, once again, the Mets find a way to lose and look like schmucks on National TV. It seems like this always happens when they play a game broadcast by someone other than Gary, Keith and Ron. After spending 8 innings battling uphill against an actual Bear of a Pitcher, Jeurys Familia once again shit the bed in a non-Save situation and sent the Mets to a 4-2 defeat in front of a nationwide audience.

Sunday, the Mets made their second appearance on The Biggest Game In The Galaxy on ESPN. Having to sit through an inning and a half of Joe Buck and his non-entity color guy was bad enough. ESPN's announcers, though not as anti-Met as Buck, are so vanilla it's not even funny. This game literally put me to sleep in the 2nd inning and when I finally woke up, the Dodgers had a 2-0 lead and with Clayton Kershaw cruising, the game may as well have been over.

Unlike when they met in  Los Angeles, Bartolo Colon had a reasonably good outing this time around, yes, he gave up those two runs but he kept the Mets within shouting distance, which is about all you can hope for against Kershaw. Asdrubal Cabrera reached him for a Home Run in the 6th, and it certainly seemed as though that was going to be it for the Mets unless lightning struck somewhere.

Amazingly, lightning did strike, because somehow the Mets got Kershaw's pitch count up enough that they cajoled Dave Roberts to take him out of the game with 2 outs and a runner on 1st in the 8th inning. Conventional wisdom would have him go right to his closer, Kenley Jansen. Back when Celebrity Manager was in charge, he would have gone to Jansen, and he was constantly blinded by his own adoration. But for whatever reason, Roberts went to Adam Liberatore, who subsequently allowed Curtis Granderson to hit a triple over the head of a discombobulated Yasiel Puig to tie the game.

Given new life, the Mets went to Jeurys Familia in the 9th to hold the line...and Familia did a wonderful job of handing the game right back to the Dodgers. No sugarcoating on this one. No 9th inning bailout like on Friday. Familia gave up a hit and two walks and probably should have been removed from the game before he could let Adrian Gonzalez hit a jam shot into Center Field to score the winning runs. It's not as egregious as Friday, when he blew a 4-run lead and shouldn't have been in the game, but that's not taking away from it being really bad. Because this time, he should have been on the mound, and he STILL couldn't get the Dodgers out. I don't know if this is a hiccup or something more symbolic, but maybe he needs to visit the team Psychiatrist. If Familia has that big of an issue going out there in a non-save situation, there's something larger at work here. He hasn't blown a Save all season but he blew two games in 3 days. And there's other instances of him not being especially crisp on those odd days. I don't know and perhaps I'm not meant to understand it.

Air Out Of Building

As much as I hate to say it, the scene at Citi Field last night kind of had all the makings of a major letdown as far as the game itself was concerned.

The Mets, in something that's often not spoken about, have a bit of a history of having these big, glitzy ceremonies where they roll out the red carpet for past heroes before a big game, and then they go out and shit the bed. It's happened more times than I care to remember.

They went out and did it again last night. After what I'm told was a very moving tribute to the 1986 World Series Champions (And no, I didn't actually see it—thanks to the game being on FOX, the ceremonies weren't shown on TV and I haven't had a chance to stream it yet), the Mets were then thoroughly humiliated by the Dodgers and the Umpires in a 9-1 disaster of a game.

This was another one of those nights where I wasn't actually around for most of the game, so I wasn't witness to the compounding bullshit that the Mets were subjected to, but since the game was on FOX, that means everyone's favorite dickheads, Joe Buck and Ken Rosenthal were on hand. Which means Joe Buck spent the entire game sneering at the Mets and Ken Rosenthal buried his head up the Dodgers' asses. I don't need to have seen the game to know this.

Noah Syndergaard matched up against Kenta Maeda. Last time this happened, things worked out pretty well for the Mets. It seemed headed in a similar direction until the 3rd inning when Syndergaard whipped a 99-MPH fastball behind Chase Utley. You didn't need to be a genius to know that something like this was coming. Even Utley expected it, and I suppose had the pitch drilled him, he would have just taken his lumps and gone to 1st base, because for as much of a jackass as he is, he's still a pro and knows when to take his medicine. Generally, these things are met with a warning and then it blows over. But for whatever reason, Adam Hamari, the home plate umpire, who I wouldn't know from a hole in the wall, ejected Syndergaard from the game immediately. Again, I don't really bring Umpires into the equation unless they make a severely poor error of judgement and need to be called out on it. Hamari was totally out of his element on this one. Give Syndergaard a warning and leave it at that. Terry Collins blew his stack at Hamari and got himself ejected as well, and, well, can you blame him?

Essentially, Adam Hamari nuked this game for the Mets. Instead of Syndergaard on the mound doing Syndergaard things, the Mets now had to bring Logan Verrett in in the 3rd inning, and he did yeoman's work until the 6th when Utley hit a Home Run. Because of course he did. Then, in the 7th, he hit a Grand Slam off Hansel Robles. Because of course he did. Because if you didn't hate Utley enough already, this was going to be the night he made sure he placed his name at or near the top of all-time Mets Villains, depending on who you ask on which day.

So, you tell me. You think Utley goes apeshit like that against Syndergaard? Yeah, me neither. Thanks, Adam Hamari. You basically screwed the Mets out of this game. I'm sure Joe Buck and Ken Rosenthal sent you flowers this morning. They must have loved watching this shit show unfold. I turned the game on sometime around the 8th inning—lord only knows why since I knew it was done with—and you could hear the glee dripping from Buck's voice. After the game, they threw it to the studio, where they have a real announcer named Kevin Burkhart—remember him?—and he was clearly incensed at what he'd just been subjected to. It seems like most everyone feels the same way. Sometimes, you just need to let the players police themselves, because outside of this, it's not as though the Mets and Dodgers have some stewing animosity toward each other. Instead, the Mets end up looking like clowns on National Television once again. Thanks, Hamari. You Ass.

Coming Up Roses!

I'm not quite sure what to make of tonight's game. I didn't watch it—other items of importance precluded me from doing so, but as I was able, I was updated via assorted means of mobile technology. I saw that the Mets bombarded the Dodgers' teenage rookie Julio Urias early. It is, I suppose, debatable as to whether or not the Dodgers using Urias in this particular spot was a good idea, but then again, I'm not writing a Dodgers blog, I'm writing a Mets blog and so who cares? Urias clearly was suffering from stage fright, the Mets took advantage, and the kid was gone in the 3rd inning.

By that point, the Mets had a healthy lead, and Jacob deGrom was cruising along mostly unimpeded. David Wright hit a Home Run, which seems to be about all he can do anymore, and Juan Lagares hit a Home Run, and the Mets led 5-1 in the late innings.

And so for whatever reason, Jeurys Familia was allowed to come in in the 9th inning and allow 4 runs to let the Dodgers tie the game. Familia already has a well-documented "Thing" about pitching in non-save situations. Now, yes, this is something he just needs to suck up and get over already. But when you have a situation begin to spiral out of control like that, there needs to be a backup plan. I get giving him the shot there; that's why you have a closer. But this is the sort of spot that could also have been handled by, say, Addison Reed or Jerry Blevins, especially when Chase Utley came to the plate and everyone wanted his head. And, you know, after all the hostility, is anyone really that surprised that Utley smoked a 3-run double to tie the game? I didn't even watch the game and I could have seen something like that happening.

So, yeah. A nice, uneventful evening for the Mets was about to turn into a complete disaster. A 5-1 game was now a 5-5 game and usually when something like this happens, the Mets end up imploding sometime around the 12th inning. But then Curtis Granderson hit Pedro Baez's second pitch into the Right Field seats for a game-winning Home Run and all was right once again. It always comes out positive if the Mets win. Familia has a bad day? Eyyy, fuhgeddaboutit! Mets win anyway! We can spend the rest of the night focusing on deGrom's strong outing, and Granderson's clutch hitting, and the Mets in 1st place. Everything's lovely!

Bwah Bwah

The Mets didn't exactly hit a ton in this 4 game series in Los Angeles, but whether the offense is going well or not is sort of immaterial when you have to face Clayton Kershaw. Particularly when he's on a hot streak.

All you need to know about this game is that the Mets were no match for Kershaw and if nothing else the moral victory is that Bartolo Colon had one of his "Fat and Sweaty" outings on a night when a good outing would have resulted in a loss anyway.

No further discussion necessary for this one. It's not worth remembering anyway.

His Own Show

Noah Syndergaard made his Major League debut exactly one year ago in Chicago. Since then, we've seen him mature into a legitimate stud pitcher, and in the early going this season he's separated himself as perhaps the best pitcher on a loaded staff. He hasn't been perfect, but even his bad outings this season haven't been utter disasters.

Then, we have nights like last night in Los Angeles when he outdoes himself.

The mostly dominant 8-inning effort is something you expect to see from Syndergaard. Rather than trying to blow everyone out of the box, Syndergaard was pitching to contact most of the night and after allowing a pair of early Home Runs, he settled down and allowed 1 hit past the 4th inning. And he only walked 1 batter.

Of course, it was his exploits with the bat that stole the show. After years of having pitchers that were totally inept with the bat, the Mets now have Pitchers that can not only hold their own at the plate, but in certain instances have actually carried the day for the Mets. Syndergaard did just this last night by belting a pair of Home Runs, in the 3rd inning and again in the 5th inning.

It's usually pretty jarring when a Pitcher hits a Home Run to begin with (and when Bartolo Colon did it last Saturday it was a national headline), and generally when it happens, the general consensus is something like "Holy crap!" Syndergaard's first Home Run was sort of a Holy Crap, because he really squared up a pitch from ballyhooed Japanese Import Kenta Maeda and blasted it out to right. It seemed like the Dodgers were caught off guard because Puig had been playing way in and had to make a mad dash back to the wall before running out of room.

When he did it again in the 5th inning, Holy crap turned into laughter. Syndergaard had allowed his pair of Home Runs and came to the plate with 2 men on in an obvious bunt situation. But in some weird twist Mets pitchers can all hit but not bunt. Syndergaard couldn't lay one down, so instead he swung and blasted his second Home Run of the night to the left of Center Field, out of the reach of Joc Pederson and causing him to lose his cap over the fence.

So, then, it was Syndergaard 4, Dodgers 2 and in the 6th it certainly had a chance to be more when Syndergaard came to the plate with the bases loaded. He was clearly just seeing everything really well because he drilled the first two pitches foul with authority. And although he struck out, he'd clearly gotten in the Dodgers' heads on both sides of the ball.

Syndergaard basically did his Baseball version of the sleeper hold on the Dodgers over the middle innings and by time he'd gotten through the 8th it certainly seemed plausible that he could finish the deal. But of course in this day and age it's a tall order to ask, and so Jeurys Familia was summoned to close things out and of course he allowed a run to make it 4-3, but no matter. The Mets can now go for a series win outright tonight. You know, all they have to do is beat the Dodgers' Mr. Big Man.

Don't Think.

The game hasn't been over that long but already the whole "Jacob deGrom had a carbon copy of Game 5 of last year's NLDS" talk is all over the place. That's because that's the easiest way to describe what he did last night in Los Angeles. deGrom has already identified his mechanical issues that seem to be the cause of his lack of velocity and, more importunely, his poor start in San Diego last Thursday. Based on what he did last night, or perhaps early this morning, it's clear that he hasn't fixed the issue, but if nothing else he can work with it and try to bulldog his way through.

One thing deGrom can do really well is bulldog.

The Dodgers were all over deGrom from the outset and appeared primed to double him out of the building early on. But deGrom doesn't panic, doesn't stray from his game plan and just lets it all fall back into place for him. The Dodgers beat him like a drum in that 1st inning and all he did after that was let them keep getting runners on base so he could strand them there. That was the story of the game. He wasn't overpowering the Dodgers but he made every key pitch and got every key out and suddenly a game where he looked like he'd be hard pressed to make it through 4 innings was now in the 7th and he's still out there mowing guys down.

Unfortunately, while deGrom harkened back to one game from last year's NLDS, the Mets bats couldn't remind us of a different NLDS game against Alex Wood. You'll recall that Wood was essentially the sacrificial lamb in the midst of the giant can of whoopass the Mets unleashed on the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLDS, when he couldn't get Murphy out and then Yoenis Cespedes almost literally hit a ball out of Citi Field. Down 2-0, the Mets capitalized on a pair of fielding miscues by dear friend Chase Utley. Not that I ever liked Utley to begin with, but I'm even more convinced that he must be the douchiest teammate ever. With Cespedes on 1st and none out in the 2nd, Wilmer Flores hit a ground ball up the middle  that Utley fielded and then tried to do a backwards flip to 2nd base to get a force out. Never mind that Corey Seager wasn't at the base, Utley's toss wasn't especially on target either. So what does Utley do? He essentialy stonewalls his rookie teammate and never removes the puss from his face. Won't even look at the kid. Like it's his fault. Karma then bit Utley in the ass when Michael Conforto hit a ground ball deep in the hole at 2nd base and rather than take the easy out, Utley tried to wheel and throw to 2nd and instead heaved the ball into Left Field. Maybe someone needs to remind Chase that he's not 25 anymore? I don't know. I'd say he should retire but then that's one less opposing player for Mets fans to universally despise.

Then, that was it. Wood and deGrom controlled the tempo the remainder of the way, and really, I was prepping for extra innings because that's how it seemed this game was heading. Pedro Baez and Antonio Bastardo got through the 8th and the Dodgers went to Kenley Jansen in the 9th, while the Mets countered with Hansel Robles. Jansen was clean. Robles was too, at least through the first two batters. He got a quick 2 strikes on Trayce Thompson, a pinch hitter, and then came a couple of foul balls, and then for whatever reason Robles kept shaking off Plawecki.

We've all seen Bull Durham. You know what happens when you shake off the Catcher too many times.

Trayce Thompson got the free steak. And Hansel Robles just learned the first lesson of pitching.

That Blue Place

Dodger Stadium is one of those "odd" ballparks. It has a look so particularly unique to it so that when you're there, or watching a game there (I've never been to a game there), there's no mistaking what you're looking at. I know that this era of "retro" ballparks  has made the Baseball stadium more aesthetically pleasing but by and large it can be difficult to tell certain stadiums apart (i.e. who the hell could figure the difference between Anaheim Stadium, The Ballpark in Arlington or Newer New Busch Stadium?).  There's only a handful of places like it, and generally they have names like Fenway or Wrigley. Dodger Stadium is now the 3rd oldest stadium in the Major Leagues but nobody in Los Angeles seems to care. You know what you're looking at because there's that light blue motif, those accordion pavilions in the Outfield bleachers, that random 5th deck behind Home Plate and the overmodulated PA system that makes the ambient ballpark music sound like it's in your living room.

In recent years, the Mets' visits to Dodger Stadium have sort of paralleled the success of the team. When the Mets go to Los Angeles and do well, they've been having a good year. When things are bad, of course, they get really bad. Then, of course, there was last year, when the Mets went to Dodger Stadium and stole a pair of Playoff games, including a clinching game. So instead of coming in there this season with a bad taste in your mouth and a feeling of general ennui, now it's like a pleasant reminder of what went before.

Curtis Granderson helped continue those feelings by hitting Scott Kazmir's first pitch of the game into the seats to get the Mets out to a quick lead. George texted me earlier in the day regarding Kazmir being a good candidate for the Charles Barkley "Who He Play For?" discussion that we had a few weeks ago regarding Jake Peavy. I agree to a point, because while Kazmir has bounced around from team-to-team quite a bit over the past few seasons, there's still always going to be some residual bad taste in the mouths of Mets fans because of the infamous trade of Kazmir, what's now a generation ago. Since that time, Kazmir has made the Mets look both stupid and prophetic. What I can say, though, is that generally, the Mets have had Kazmir's number. Yes, I know that's not saying much since he's only faced the Mets 4 times.

Granderson got the Mets going and later Kevin Plawecki hit a Home Run as well, and Steven Matz helped his own cause by driving home another run with a double, and for the most part things seemed to be going smoothly. Matz nursed things through 6 innings and left with a 4-2 lead. Then, of course, the Bullpen turned into the Bullpen and we had a bit of role reversal in the 8th inning. Sunday, Antonio Bastardo was summoned to clean up Jim Henderson's mess. Last night, Jim Henderson was summoned to clean up Antonio Bastardo's mess. Both times, the messes were cleaned without any significant damage and Jeurys Familia finished out the game, just like he did last October.

So, just when you think the Mets are about to fall off the precipice once again, they come back and quickly run off 3 straight wins. This is what happens to good teams, and right now, the Mets are playing like a good team. Nice when that happens, isn't it?

The Saga Continues...

Every Postseason, I write something about how October is a different beast, and things that happen a certain way during the regular season never seem to follow the same script. Players who are usually counted on to come through scuffle and other, lesser players step into the spotlight because it's simply their time. The Playoffs chose them.

Your Playoff Chosen Met for 2015 is none other than Daniel Murphy.

To say that I've given Daniel Murphy a hard time this season would be kind. I'd say that over the past several years, I've raked Murphy over the coals countless times, and deservedly so. He's been here for a long time and for the most part has if nothing else been there on the team. Never has he done anything special and often has he done things that make you scratch your head and wonder what the hell he's doing in the Major Leagues, because he makes mistakes that a veteran ballplayer shouldn't make. It's nothing more than a desire to perform well, but with Murphy, things like that just never seemed to work.

And then the calendar flips to October and all of a sudden everything falls into place for Daniel Murphy, because of course it did. Murphy hit Home Runs off of Clayton Kershaw in Games 1 and 4 of the NLDS, in Game 3, he drove in a key run off another lefty, he played mistake-free in the field, and all of that was merely the prelude to what he did in the decisive Game 5 last night. And that's the beauty of Major League Baseball.

Murphy interjected himself into the game rather early. After replay showed Curtis Granderson beat out a ground ball into an overshifted infield, Murphy came up and drove a Zack Greinke offering over everyone's head, off the wall for an RBI double to give the Mets an early lead. Yes, he was stranded there. But if nothing else he'd broken the ice and made the statement that even if the Mets had looked lifeless on Tuesday night, they weren't dead yet.

This was important, because Jacob deGrom had to battle and battle hard to get himself through this game. The Dodgers banged out a series of ringing hits in the last of the 1st inning, plating two runs of their own and appeared ready for the kill before deGrom got his bearings and struck out Yasmani Grandal and Enrique Hernandez. deGrom, of course, had to get his bearings back all night long lest the game get away from him, but whenever he absolutely needed to make a pitch, he did. 2 men on in the 2nd, he struck out Seager and Adrian Gonzalez. 1st and 3rd in the 3rd, he got a Double Play. More of the same in the 4th and 5th.

Meanwhile, the Mets still had to try and solve Greinke, and of course Daniel Murphy was the one who did it, because, again, that's Baseball, and he'd been chosen. Murphy led off the 4th inning with a single, his 2nd hit of the night. Cespedes flied out, but Lucas Duda subsequently drew a walk, which tells you absolutely nothing about the intricacy of what actually happened. The Dodgers, as is their wont, swung their infielders way over to the right side with Duda at the plate, essentially leaving 3rd base uncovered. When Duda took Ball 4, it seems that rather than return to their traditional positions, Corey Seager and Justin Turner decided to kick the dirt and hang their heads. Murphy made some sort of mental note about this, and as he approached 2nd base, he decided to go for it, took off for 3rd base.

Now, had Daniel Murphy tried to pull off a stunt like this in the regular season, he probably would have been thrown out by 20 feet and we'd spend the remainder of the game talking about "The Typical Murphy Play," where he tries to do too much and ends up making a mistake.

But because it's the Playoffs, and Murphy was chosen, nobody's paying attention, Murphy's safe by miles and then he scores the tying run when Travis d'Arnaud hits a sacrifice fly.

And, of course, for good measure, Murphy comes up in the 6th, takes a middle-in mistake from Greinke and blasts it out into the Right Field seats and gives the Mets the lead they'd been chasing since the 1st inning.

Now with a lead came the tension, because there were still 12 outs to get and deGrom hadn't thrown a clean inning all game. Still, although it seemed like there were 3 or 4 times when it looked like he was going to cave, and certainly Noah Syndergaard appeared to be warming up every inning between the 3rd and the 6th, he just kept on plowing through and eventually he got through the 6th inning, and of course that 6th inning was his only clean inning. By that point, I'd started thinking about how to piece together the final 3 innings. Syndergaard, in my opinion, would have been a good choice were it the 4th or 5th. But deGrom somehow got through 6 and now I was thinking that the Mets would be wise to just throw the sink out there in the 7th, and hope someone can get some outs, and then let Familia throw the 8th and 9th. Or maybe just let Colon go out there and work his magic. Or just say screw it and tell Familia to get a 9-out Save. But Syndergaard ended up being the call, and it seems that warming up so many times really didn't bother him much because outside of walking Gonzalez, which was probably the safe thing to do, and then he made Justin Turner, who by that point had 3 hits in the game and was hitting about .970 for the series, look silly on a curve in the dirt for an inning-ending strikeout.

Syndergaard looked so good, in fact, that I then mused that maybe HE should go back out there for the 8th. Collins, of course, disagreed with me, which is just as well and the results proved once again why he's a Major League Manager and I'm sitting on my couch picking my nose. Familia came in for the 8th, in a situation where a double-switch might have been in order with the pitcher's spot due up 5th in the 9th inning. But the guy he was double-switching in, Juan Lagares, hit before the Pitcher's spot anyway. I'm assuming Collins just said "Fuck it," and went with his guy. Familia retired the Dodgers on 9 pitches in the 8th. Of course, the Mets then got a couple of men on in the 9th inning, resulting in Familia having to take a turn at bat, but the way the game was going at that point it was probably more advantageous to have Familia in the game as opposed to cocking around with the rest of the bullpen with no margin for error just to get to him. Familia struck out, went back out to the mound and polished off the Dodgers with another 1-2-3 inning, finishing things off by quick-pitching Howie Kendrick for the final strikeout and, amazingly, sending the Mets off to the NLCS with a 3-2 victory.

That did happen, didn't it?

That seems to be something I've been saying a lot about the Mets recently, but it's happened. They went from nowhere to Division Champions to a do-or-die game on the road and they won that too. They won with their best pitcher pitching with less than his best stuff. They won by virtue of the heady play of a guy known best for being decidedly un-heady. They won because their #2 starter was turned into a 1-inning terminator for a night. And they won because the Closer who wasn't supposed to be the Closer when this thing started came into the game needing 6 outs to get the biggest Save of his life, and Goddammit, he went and did it. In the Playoffs, you need not only the random luck but the skill to take advantage of it, and that's basically how the Mets won this series. They took advantage of whatever break they got and that's how they were able to tilt things in their favor.

So, the story continues for the Mets. Even though 24 hours ago I felt truly miserable at the prospect of the game and went through the day on Thursday suffering the side effects of Pennant Fever, everything of course felt much better after they locked down the win. Next, then, is the Cubs, and perhaps these are two teams that could be mirror images of each other, at least considering the way they've been put together. To say nothing of the spate of Cubs fan run-ins I'm sure to be subjected to over the coming days. Have I mentioned I'm not especially fond of the Cubs?

Elation To Deflation

Tuesday night was the 7th Mets Postseason game I'd attended. Through Monday, the Mets had won all 6 of the prior games. Unhappily, I had my Postseason Loss Cherry popped in totally deflating fashion as the Mets were the unlucky recipient of a couple of ill-placed batted balls and the pitching of Clayton Kershaw, as they lost, 3-1, and failed to close out the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS at home.

There's so much that could be said about this game and yet in reality very little that could have gone differently. Kershaw, pitching on short rest, basically mastered the Mets, took the crowd out of the game and refused to let them get back into it. Prior to the game, there was that same frenzied, frenetic energy pulsing through the stadium. But it felt a bit more nervous than it did on Monday night. I certainly felt a bit more nervous. I and probably everyone else knew that the Mets were in a tenuous position. Win, of course, and the series was theirs, and a date with Destiny's Darlings, the Chicago Cubs on Saturday. Lose, and it's not over, certainly, but instead of a few days to recharge, instead a cross-country trip back to Los Angeles and a game Thursday night against Zack Greinke.

But a lot had to go right in order for the Mets to win. It would mean beating Kershaw for the second time in 4 days. Not impossible, but difficult enough. It would also mean that Steven Matz, making but his 7th Major League start, would have to get the ice in his veins extra cold in order to stand with Kershaw. Early on, he did, as the two matched zeroes through the first two innings. Matz got through the first with relative ease. Kershaw muddled a little bit, and perhaps the Mets could have broken through, but aside from a 1-out walk to David Wright, the best the Mets could muster was making Kershaw throw 18 pitches.

The game, for all intents and purposes, was decided in the 3rd. Kershaw singled with 1 out, and was subsequently forced out at 2nd by Enrique Hernandez. Seemed as though Matz had it under control, even after Howie Kendrick hit a 47-hop single up the middle that barely snuck by Wilmer Flores (perhaps Tejada fields it? Debateable. Were it hit slower, certainly) and moved Hernandez to 3rd. Matz then got Adrian Gonzalez to hit a little floater to Center, perfectly placed between the Cespedes-Lagares-Flores Bermuda triangle and, groan, in for a hit to score Hernandez. Justin Turner, who's simply murdered the Mets in this series, followed by drilling a ball down into the Left Field corner, plating Kendrick and Gonzalez and placing the hands of everyone in Citi Field firmly under their own respective asses.

True, I mused, the Mets were down 3-0 the night before early in the game. However, it wasn't against Kershaw.

Kershaw only improved as the game went on, and for as much as the fans wanted to get back into the game, it wasn't happening. The Mets didn't do themselves any favors either; where in Game 1 they made him work and throw a lot of pitches early in the game, this time they were hacking, flailing and generally helping him work through things quickly. Only when Daniel Murphy, who apparently just owns Kershaw, hit a Home Run in the 4th did we come to life. Otherwise, it was pretty much deadsville through 7 innings.

Fortunately, Matz allowed no further damage after the 3rd inning, although his location slipped a bit and he found himself in trouble multiple times before departing after 5 innings. Bartolo Colon, who's filled the Sid Fernandez role to a tee in this series, came in for the 6th and stopped the Dodgers cold for two innings once again. Colon, who was simply heroic working in a bridge role on Monday and again last night, did his best to get the crowd back into the game, but once again, Kershaw took everyone right back out of it.

In the 7th, Cespedes led off with an infield single off of Kershaw's glove, and that got everybody up again. The 7th was when Kershaw came unglued in Game 1, too. If only the Mets could sustain something here...but it didn't happen. d'Arnaud, who's just missing pitches, fouled out, Duda got a hold of a pitch and hit it well to Center, but not well enough, and Flores could only ground out.

Kershaw departed in the 8th, after only 93 pitches, and I was shocked that Mattingly removed him there. The Mets weren't solving him, certainly not with the bottom of their lineup coming up, and at 3-1, the game certainly wasn't out of reach. And if he was going to pull Kershaw there, why not just go right to his closer, Kenley Jansen? But instead, he went for Chris Hatcher, and immediately the Mets countered with a pair of Pinch Hitters, in Michael Conforto and Kelly Johnson, but neither of them could solve anything. Curtis Granderson worked a walk, though, and only then did Mattingly go to Jansen. Jansen, however, was wild, as he can sometimes be, and he walked Wright, and if there was ever an opportunity for the Mets in this game, this was it. And it was Daniel Murphy, who I and everyone else has killed for years for one reason or another. But if he could come through here, that might erase everything. I think everyone sensed this, maybe not the historical part, but certainly the opportunity part, and everyone was whipped into a proper frenzy, chanting and screaming and imploring Murphy to come through, or at least just continue the inning. Murphy worked the count full and had the runners in motion before he swung and hit a blooper, headed in a similar spot to Gonzalez's hit in the 3rd. But the ball hung up and was caught. The inning was over. The threat was over. And once again the air was just sucked out of the stadium.

The 9th inning seemed formality, even with the middle of the order coming up. For as much as the scoreboard tried to get everyone to rev up their energy, and for as much as we tried to energize ourselves to try to will the Mets on, the best we could muster was mostly muted agony as Jansen got the Mets in order to finish off the game and send everyone back to Los Angeles for a Thursday Night showdown. Except that 44,000+ people trying to cram down the staircase and onto the Subway at the same time was a bit more than Citi Field was able to accommodate and the resulting human traffic jam resulted in my getting on a train close to 45 minutes after the game had ended (on a normal Tuesday night, I can be out of the stadium and on a 7 in under 10 minutes).

On the one hand, I guess you could say that the story of the game was two bloopers, one that didn't hang up (Gonzalez) and one that did (Murphy). In reality, though, it was Kershaw. Though Kershaw has been maligned for some poor performances in October, you knew that if you gave a guy like him enough chances, eventually he'd come through and he came through big time last night. The Mets and everyone in the building knew that the potential for that to happen was there—perhaps that's why everyone was so anxious—and that's what happened.

So, the season comes down to one game for the Mets now, Thursday night in Los Angeles. Jacob deGrom will get the ball for the Mets, we know that, and probably everyone else within reason is available. Again, it's a deflating loss, and I hate that this is how my Postseason winning streak had to come to an end—or that it had to come to an end at all—but don't lose perspective. The Mets are still alive if nothing else and they'll have their guy going in the 5th game. Of course, Greinke will certainly be equal to the challenge. We already saw these two match up in what turned into a staring contest. There's a pretty good chance that Thursday could go the same way. The team that blinks goes home. The best we can do, I suppose, is try to shake off the blah from last night and re-mobilize ourselves. We owe it to these guys after breaking their asses for six months to get to this point.

The Proper Revenge

Monday night at Citi Field was a night 6 years in the making. Or maybe it was 9 years in the making. However long it was, it proved to be worth the wait. Citi Field made its debut on Baseball's grandest stage and rung itself in in style. The pregame talk of revenge quickly dissolved as the Mets unleashed the Gates of Hell on the Los Angeles Dodgers, setting a club record for runs scored in a Postseason game and grabbing a 2-games-to-1 edge in the NLDS with a rousing 13-7 victory.

I was in attendance—€”how could I not be—with George, 9 years to the day of the last Postseason game I'd attended. Postseason games, and this was my 6th to date, are a different animal from the Tuesday Night Special that I'm so fond of. These games are loud, unruly wars where I spend the entire day leading up to the game feeling like I could run from my office clear out to the stadium just to get to the game. Fans are on every pitch, mostly standing and when something good happens, there's not a cheer, there's a primal roar that rises from the stands. It had been a long time since I'd experienced that.

The game was, of course, scheduled for the somewhat-asinine start time of 8:37pm, and George and I arrived at the scene at around 7pm and already the scene was insane. Think, perhaps, Opening Day times about 50. To say nothing of the fact that these fans, which was on this night was probably about 98% in favor of the Good Guys, were out for blood. They were itching for a fight, and their target was Chase Utley. But Utley never saw the field, instead receiving a proper welcome during the pregame introductions. This was fine, as far as I was concerned. George agreed. Faith and Fear's Greg Prince, who I fortuitously ran into on the Promenade prior to the game, also agreed. The Mets did their best to whip everyone into a frenzy, handing out bright orange Rally Towels and prompting everyone to wave them as TBS came on the air, and even brought Ruben Tejada on the field as the Mets were introduced in a bit of a Willis Reed moment. But the best revenge, I felt, would be if Matt Harvey went out and simply shoved the bats up the Dodgers' asses for 8 innings.

But Harvey proved mortal on this night. Though he got through the 1st unscathed, the Dodgers started ringing hits off him in the 2nd, and loaded the bases with nobody out. The fans, which at this point were bouncing off the walls, were now sitting on their hands, and when Yasmani Grandal singled home two runs and Curtis Granderson's throwing error led to a 3rd run, the air had been sucked out of the building. When things like this happen in the Postseason, it's like an ambush. The air is literally sucked out of the building and the entire stadium gets eerily quiet. Here we were, first home Playoff game in 9 years, Harvey on the mound and he's getting lit up? This wasn't good. Fortunately, he minimized the damage and got out of the inning without allowing anything further.

So, then, the Mets now had to come back from a 3-run deficit against Brett Anderson, who in my opinion was part-reclamation project, part-retread, and represented the weak link in the Dodgers rotation. To say the Mets came out ready to attack him was an understatement. Yoenis Cespedes led off by hitting a little ground ball towards Jimmy Rollins (who also received a warm welcome) and simply outran the throw to 1st. Lucas Duda followed with a flare hit to Center. Travis d'Arnaud shot a hit to left that scored Cespedes. Wilmer Flores then reached on an infield hit, and now we were in business. But Juan Lagares hit into a Fielder's Choice and Harvey struck out, and it seemed like the Mets were going to let a great opportunity go by the wayside. However, Curtis Granderson atoned for his error by smoking the first pitch from Anderson off the fence in Right Center, plating everyone, erasing the deficit and blowing the damn roof off the joint. When I say it was loud, I mean It. Was. LOUD. Loud in a way we've never seen at Citi Field. Remember how the Upper Deck at Shea Stadium used to shake? I swear the Promenade level was shaking. That's the kind of release that was going on at that moment.

The fun was just starting.

Harvey wasn't at his best, but he was good enough. Mechanically, he was completely screwed up, probably because of the long layoff he'd had between games, and not, as some fans seem to feel, that he wasn't ready for Prime Time. Once his teammates got him a lead, he wouldn't let the Dodgers get back up and in the process, the Mets bats continued to light up the scoreboard and light up the "Pyrotechnic display" that was set on top of the scoreboard. In the 3rd inning, Cespedes singled and remained there with 2 outs when Travis d'Arnaud launched one onto the Party deck in Left Field. This one was gone off the bat, one of those classic d'Arnaud jolts when he just squares one up and it sails out into the night. This sealed Anderson's fate for the evening, as by this point he'd been spotted a 3-run lead and handed back twice that.

Things did not improve for the Dodgers as herky-jerky lefty Alex Wood entered the game in the 4th. Lagares led off with a double off the wall in Right-Center, a drive that just kept sailing until it reached the wall. Though Wood rebounded to get Harvey and Granderson, he, or perhaps his manager Don Mattingly decided to play with fire and intentionally walk David Wright. Wright generally rips lefties, yes, but I just had a feeling that he was asking for trouble by walking him in front of Murphy, and Murph for once proved me right by dropping a single in to Left to plate Lagares. At this point, Wood was royally fucked, because he was falling behind hitters, not particularly fooling anyone, and now had to face Yoenis Cespedes, and we sort of all knew what was coming. On 2-2, Cespedes stopped the show by hitting one of his now-trademark Home Runs that looks like it's been shot out of a cannon. Not only was it as much of a no-doubter as d'Arnaud's Home Run, this one was met with gasps moreso than cheers. It landed in the 2nd deck and Cespedes, as is his wont, styled at the plate, flipped his bat and took about a minute rounding the bases. Basically, the ball was fucked, Wood was fucked, the Dodgers were fucked. The Mets had gone from a 3-run ambush to a 10-3 lead and what was a tense affair had turned into more of a pep rally.

From there, things calmed down somewhat. Harvey finished the 5th inning, then turned the ball over to Bartolo Colon, who delighted everyone by striking out the side in the 6th inning. By this point, there wasn't any particular drama in the game, other than fans catcalling Utley, but nonetheless George and I still felt like more runs were needed. Not for any particular reason, just because the Mets had a bullpen and more runs were probably necessary. On the other hand, it was a jovial enough evening that when Adrian Gonzalez hit a Home Run off Colon in the 7th, nobody cared too much. They were too busy booing Utley.

The Mets honored our request in the Bottom of the 7th by plating some more runs off of Pedro Baez. Baez created his own problems by giving up a hit and two walks. Michael Conforto Pinch-hit and hit a Sacrifice Fly, and then Curtis Granderson, who had himself quite a game in his own right, doubled off the Left Field wall to score two more runs, giving him 5 RBI on the night and putting the Mets ahead 13-4.

Addison Reed pitched a solid 8th inning and then Erik Goeddel came in for the 9th inning and promptly got lit up, allowing a 3-run Home Run to Howie Kendrick before needing to be rescued by Jeurys Familia. Familia had no such problems, retiring all three men he faced to close out the Dodgers and close out what was a real barnburner of a game. At 12:24am. Yes, it was late. Yes, once the Mets went up by 9 runs, a lot of fans headed for the exits because it was so late. Yes, George and I both had long trips to our respective homes and arriving before 2am was a dicey proposition. Did we care? Not at all. All that mattered was that the Mets found a way to get up off the mat, shake off the words, the pain and the controversy and win the damn game, and at this time of year, that's really all that matters.

This will, I believe, be remembered as the night that Citi Field finally became "Home" for Mets fans. It's been the de facto home ever since it opened back in 2009, but there's never been that great, magical moment that we can all look back on. For the most part, it's been forgettable teams with nice individual accomplishments mixed in. This 2015 year has been the first time Citi Field was home to a winner, and the first time that those glitzy, overproduced and overhyped Playoff Productions were on hand, and oddball trinkets like rally towels were handed out. The Mets did their job to make sure it was a magical night to be remembered. It was a full team effort, as most of the Mets wins lately tend to be, but it was probably Granderson's double that brought the house down. 9 years of pent-up frustration and anger just came blasting out in that one moment, and it carried, through Cespedes' Home Run into the 2nd deck and basically through the rest of the night. Each of the now 6 Playoff games I've been to has had something oddly unique about it, and this one certainly had plenty of unique moments that I'll continue to carry with me.

But the best part? I get to go back later today!

A Familiar Refrain

The Mets had a golden opportunity to steal a second game of the NLDS in Los Angeles last night, but as we're all well aware now, a series of horrible events conspired to prevent that from happening. In spite of Noah Syndergaard pitching well into the 7th inning, the Dodgers were the recipient of some advantageous umpiring and clutch hitting, grabbed the lead and rolled home for a 5-2 win to even up the NLDS at 1 game each.

Things actually started out wonderfully for the Mets. Noah Syndergaard hit the mound about as amped up as deGrom was on Friday night, touching 101mph on the radar and blowing the Dodgers out of the box. The Mets jumped on Zack Greinke for a pair of 2nd inning Home Runs, the first from Yoenis Cespedes, because you knew that was coming, and the second from Michael Conforto, who showed he was ready for Prime Time right away. Mets lead 2-0, and all is right with the world.

Unfortunately, though they had some opportunities, the Mets never built on this lead. Greinke, who's equally as tough as Kershaw, bounced back from this and stopped the Mets cold the remainder of his 7 innings of work. On the other side, the Dodgers reached Syndergaard for a run in the 4th inning, when Justin Turner, who officially looks like a birthday party decoration, doubled to lead off the inning, and Andre Ethier hit one of his own. But, Syndergaard rebounded, got out of a jam and worked through the 5th and 6th innings without much trouble.

Then, of course, the 7th, which is the cause of all the trouble.

Syndergaard started the inning and struck out Yasmani Grandal, and looked just fine in doing so. But then he was too fine to Enrique Hernandez and walked him. The carcass of Chase Utley followed and although he barely got his bat on the ball, he got just enough to flick it over the head of Daniel Murphy for a single. At over 110 pitches, this was it for Syndergaard, who was removed from the game in favor of Bartolo Colon. This move was questioned, but after 6+ innings of Syndergaard's heat, Colon's craftiness was probably the right idea. I'm all in favor of giving Colon work here so long as he can get guys out. And he did what he needed to do against Howie Kendrick, who hit a screamer up the middle. A DP would have probably been tough even on a clean play since Kendrick runs well, and Daniel Murphy made what could basically be described as a Daniel Murphy toss to 2nd base, leading Tejada to the far side of the bag and forcing him to spin around in order to wind and try to throw to 1st. But, of course, that throw never came off, because just to make sure the Mets didn't turn the DP, Utley basically decided he was Clay Matthews, III and went for the takeout instead of the base. Tejada was completely upended and Utley was assumedly out. Fielder's Choice, run scores, tie game.

Then, of course, everything went haywire. Utley not only slid late and not particularly close to 2nd base, he actually missed 2nd base completely in his attempt to take out Tejada. And, of course, in the process, he not only upended Tejada, but broke the Shortstop's leg in the process. I mean, we already knew what a jackass Utley was before this play, so we didn't need to be reminded. And the ensuing replay was totally botched because whether Tejada touched the bag or not is immaterial. How interference wasn't called on Utley on this play is totally beyond me. We have a case history of plays like this where it took far less to draw an interference call, which would have resulted in an automatic and inning-ending DP. But it wasn't called. I mean, I don't know, I dumb as a post, but it seems to me that when a runner is so aggressive in trying to take out a fielder with a slide he not only misses the base but injures the fielder, wouldn't that kind of be a clue?

So, yeah. Just to turn the knife, the Dodgers end up challenging the call based on some weird technicality involving the neighborhood play, which should have been in play if they weren't going to call interference, and after all that crotch-grabbing and posturing, Utley was deemed safe. Safe! I'm not sure what sort of message the umpires were trying to sell at that point—perhaps martial law—but that basically turned the entire game upside down. The Mets got rooked on the call and you could basically tell Adrian Gonzalez was going to get the big hit before he even stepped to the plate. Whether Colon or Addison Reed were in to face him wouldn't have mattered. Just to make sure, Turner followed by driving in Gonzalez, the Dodgers went ahead 5-2, and that was pretty much that.

It's very easy to be frustrated over a game like this and a call (or in this case non-call) that totally changes the game and screws the Mets over. But let's not lose perspective here. The Mets needed to do one thing, and that was not come back to New York down 0-2. They did that. They won a game and they're coming back home with the series tied 1-1, and on Monday night, they'll have Matt Harvey on the mound and a stadium full of fans that are going to be absolutely roaring. The Dodgers, on the other hand, counter with Brett Anderson, who's not Greinke and not Kershaw. Sure, they had a chance to get greedy and win both games out there but the chances of that happening were, logically, unlikely. That being said, it's now on Harvey to come out on Monday night and pitch like he means it.

More importantly, though, the team needs to forget about this and move on. I know a lot of guys were pretty upset about it, and rightfully so. Whether Utley meant to hurt Tejada or not, he still did and that's going to piss a lot of guys off, and even guys that weren't playing in the game. Again, Utley's an abrasive prick and he's built a career around that, and it's not as though Mets fans liked him anyway. With crisis there is always opportunity and yes, the Mets lost their best defensive infielder, but they still have Wilmer Flores there, who has the potential to make up in offense what he loses in defense. But the worst thing the Mets can do right now is dwell on it and come out on Monday feeling tight and frustrated. This is something that this team has done really well all season long. They've consistently bounced back from tough losses and come back and played strong. This is a testament to Terry Collins, of course, but also to the way the team plays; together and without fear. Resiliency has been a key trait for this team.

It has to be, otherwise we're in a lot of trouble.