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.

Hell Stretch

No Mets season feels complete without a ridiculous long road trip directly out of the All Star Break. Granted, this season isn't quite as bad as the years that they had to come out of the Break and go to San Francisco, St. Louis and San Diego, or Atlanta, St. Louis, Colorado, or St. Louis, Los Angeles, St. Louis, but this trip, Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, isn't exactly much better.

The Mets played good in Philadelphia, which is also against trend, because usually these trips end with the Mets going 2-7, but then again they only played good, and not great. They'd have to play great against the Cubs, who I'm quite certain have had enough of the Mets and their fuckery. For once, we're the team that's been pushing the opponent around, at least when the Cubs are concerned, and you had to figure it was just a matter of time before they shoved back.

Monday night, the Cubs shoved back, to the tune of a 5-1 win. Steven Matz couldn't survive the 3rd inning, Anthony Rizzo hit the big Pizza Pie, and the Mets never recovered against Jon Lester.

I know that the Mets weren't going to totally stone the Cubs this season and a game like this was brewing, but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow. I've gone on record many times detailing my distaste for the Cubs (and primarily it's their fans, but then again that's the case with my dislike of most teams). I have a good friend who happens to be a Cubs fan and I'd at one point said that if the Cubs ever do win a Championship, I'd be happy for him, and no other Cubs fan. There is a humility to Mets fans, and perhaps it's just an embittered, cynical world view based on too many years of losing, collapsing, Willie Randolph and Ratso Wilpon. The Cubs fan seems to know none of this, for whatever reason. I'm not sure why, since the Cubs history is dotted with things like "Manager by Committee" and "Steve Bartman." But I digress. Now that they put together what is, in essence, a SuperTeam, you get what you have right now, which is essentially a giant circle jerk around the city of Chicago. Tell them that the SuperTeam never works and you're likely to get hit over the head with a Baseball Jesus poster or something.

Really, I didn't mean to spend this entire post cracking on Cubs fans, but for one, it's too easy and for two, I've said everything that needs to be said about the game. It was too much. Too much Rizzo, too much Lester, too much Matt Szczur (and I think his name being announced at all qualifies as too much Sczcur). Matz wasn't awful but he wasn't exactly inspiring either. Now, the Mets are down again, and they have to come back and face GOLDEN JAKE, who keeps talking about how he's refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to throw another 4 No Hitters. So, I mean, buckle up your chinstraps, right?

Thud

If you fell asleep early, you probably spared yourself a nice headache, because that's pretty much what I ended up with from watching the Mets play in San Diego.

The Case History for the Mets playing in San Diego, particularly at Petco Park, hasn't been good. Since Petco Park opened in 2004, the Mets have played there I believe about 40 times. In those 40 games, the Mets are, or at least seem to be 6-34, and of those 34 losses, 26 of them were by the score of 2-1. The remainder of them involved some kind of terrible thing happening, like a complete meltdown by the bullpen or a walk-off Grand Slam. 

None of those things happened Thursday night/Friday morning, but things didn't go well for the Mets anyway. This time, the obvious culprit was Jacob deGrom, who was going through some sort of mechanical difficulties throughout his rather laborious 5 innings of work. deGrom's velocity was down, his pitches were up, he wasn't getting anybody out and he seemed to be getting progressively angrier and angrier as the game went on. And things didn't exactly start out well for him to begin with. The first batter for the Padres, Wil Myers, who's one more injury away from bust-dom, took him deep. In the 2nd, he gave up a 2-out RBI single to Colin Rea, the opposing Pitcher, and in the 3rd there was more crap.

That being said, deGrom only left a 3-0 game, which was still in control, or at least it was until the Padres topped off their tank against Logan Verrett in the 6th. Derek Norris, who appears to essentially be another Wilson Ramos (meaning a big, loafy Catcher who hits sporadically but for whatever reason batters the Mets to the tune of an .840 BA) hit a Home Run and something else happened. But the larger issue for the Mets was their inability to hit Rea at all. The Mets made solid contact, but basically everything they hit was into whatever dopey shift the Padres had on, or it was a well-hit fly ball that got run down by Jon Jay, who seems to have materialized with San Diego after essentially being a Mike Matheny All Star for so many years. Rea took a No Hitter into the 7th inning, which is an accomplishment in and of itself considering that Rea is a relative unknown and the Padres have never thrown a No Hitter, a plight we as Mets fans are familiar with but can no longer empathize.

Fortunately, Yoenis Cespedes finally hit a ground ball where a Padre infielder wasn't with 2 outs in the 7th inning and removed that potential stigma from the game. Still, Rea continued to mow down the Mets into the 9th, when they mounted an irritating 3-run rally. I say it's an irritating rally because yes, while it's nice that Granderson homered and Cespedes homered, all it did was just prolong the inevitable: To lose 5-3 instead of 5-0, but lose nonetheless.

At least it wasn't a 2-1 loss with Jay hitting the walk-off Home Run and pogo-sticking his way around the bases. Then again, the Mets still have 3 more games in San Diego. Anything's possible. 

Is Anyone Really Surprised?

So, the Mets go on the road and in their first game hit 4 Home Runs en route to a win over the Cleveland Indians. Surprise, surprise.

It's not often that the Mets find themselves in Cleveland, a city that bears the reputation of bad weather and poor luck, but is also the home of several relatives (which I feel obligated to mention every time the Mets go to Cleveland), and is also the home of Progressive (nee Jacobs) field, one of the few out-of-town ballparks I have actually been to.

Friday's game seemed to be full of some incongruities for the Mets, never mind the show of strength that had eluded them over the season's first 8 games. First of all, I wasn't watching, which can happen on a Friday. After a long work week, I have been known to get home and immediately fall asleep with the radio on, thereby omitting any attention I could be paying to the first several innings of the game. Also, everyone was wearing 42, in honor of Jackie Robinson, a nice symbolic gesture that nonetheless makes every Met remind me of Butch Huskey (some other fans are reminded of other 42s, but this is where my mind goes). Then, there was the whole American League park thing. For one, the Mets start their road season this season playing 5 games in AL parks before ever playing in an NL park, which means everyone's favorite, the DH. And, finally, there was a lineup shuffling that resulted in, among other things, Michael Conforto landing in the #3 spot in the lineup, which I think is where he'll eventually end up on a permanent basis should he continue his current career arc.

Conforto warmed to this particular change rather quickly, blasting his 1st Home Run of the season in his first AB, staking the Mets to an early lead. Bartolo Colon, returning to the stadium where his career began 19 years prior, gave up the tying run in the bottom of the 1st but settled in from there and had his usual Bartolo Colon outing. This was, of course, a much different Colon from the sleek, young fireballer that initially appeared for the Indians way back in 1997, and in wearing #42 Colon was one of the rare Major Leaguers who actually got to wear his age on this day, but results are results and Colon continues to get them no matter what shape he's in.

The game remained tied at 1 until the Mets exploded in the 5th for a trio of Home Runs, which, if you're counting, gave them 4 for the game and increased the team's total for the season by 300%. Alejandro De Aza, who was given a rare start, started the inning with a Home Run, and both Yoenis Cespedes and Neil Walker followed with 2-run Homers and suddenly the Mets had broken open the game with this sudden, road-trip induced avalanche of offense.

It was 6-2 by time I turned in, and all-time Yankee Great Joba Chamberlain was on the mound for Cleveland without a swarm of bugs sticking to him. The Mets had ample opportunities to tack on runs, but didn't do so and it seemed to matter little. Or at least it mattered little until the 9th inning, when Addison Reed, in trying to will his way through a 2nd inning, tired and allowed a 2-out, 2-run Home Run to Carlos Santana to make a 6-2 game a 6-4 game. This, again, shouldn't have mattered; with 1 out to go, Reed probably could have ground out one more batter. But in this era of by-the-book relief pitching, Terry Collins HAD to go to Jeurys Familia for that 1-out Save, in spite of the fact that Familia had a) already worked in every game of the Florida series, including a hairy 5-out Save on Wednesday, and b) was sick. This was pretty stupid and it almost bit Collins in the ass when he gave up a hit to Yan Gomes (Yan Can Hit!) before falling into a vortex of old friends. With Marlon Byrd at the plate, Familia wild pitched Gomes to 2nd before allowing an RBI single to Byrd. Byrd was then pinch-run for by Collin Cowgill. Juan Uribe (who by the way had a 3-hit revenge game) followed and drew a 4-pitch walk. I half-expected someone like Scott Hairston or  Anthony Recker to emerge next as a pinch hitter (and only later did I discover Recker apparently is an Indian now), but instead it was Jose Ramirez, and Familia did manage to get Ramirez to fly out and end the game, which unnecessarily ended with a 6-5 score and a bit of a buzzkill for the good feelings that were flying around most of the night.

Ultimately, a win is a win and since it was the offense that supplied it on this night that's an even better thing to see. Conforto seems to like that #3 spot in the lineup, or at least I like seeing him there and maybe this will stick for a while. Cespedes looks like he's about to go on one of his raging hot streaks, which is even better to see. Mostly, it's just good to see the Mets actually playing like they mean it, which we knew would happen eventually.

Up Off The Matz

I'd surmised yesterday that maybe more than anything else, the Mets needed to go on the road and get the hell away from all the people and the talking and the distractions and just get back to business. Being at home can sometimes be the worst thing for a team, particularly if they're not playing well, because of media distractions, and fan displeasure and for the Mets it's been particularly magnified as they try to erase some of the ghosts of pennant races' past. Look at what being at home has done to Washington. The Nationals have played 6 road games this month and the rest at home and they can't get out of their own way right now.

The Nationals poor fortune, of course, has been the Mets gain as they managed to weather their poor play without losing much, or really any of their lead. And now they've gone on the road, knowing Washington had already lost to the Orioles, and they came away with a much-needed win over the Cincinnati Reds to knock another two digits off that ol' Magic Number, making it now lower than the Mets have been able to make it since 2006.

Though I was out most of the evening and didn't actually see any of the game until around the 9th inning, I was apprised on what was going on by a few outlets, including text messages. I knew that Steven Matz, in his first opportunity to face a team for the second time, didn't hold the Reds down quite as well as he did the first time around, but nonetheless held the line. He had his usual 1st inning problems when his nemesis Brandon Phillips drove home an early run, but after that he settled down. The Mets got him a lead in the 3rd inning thanks to key hits from Daniel Murphy and Lucas Duda against Josh Smith, who oddly also opposed Matz in that first game. But Matz tired in the middle innings and the Reds started to hit him around a little bit, so that by time he'd departed the game after 5.2 innings, he had allowed 10 hits and the game was tied 3-3.

But once again this seemed to matter little to the Mets. Facing Manny Parra in the 7th inning, the Mets bounced back and scored another quick 3 runs, with the same cast of characters writing the script. Daniel Murphy, who after so many seasons of playing on losing teams combined with the fact that he's Daniel Murphy looks like he's about to jump out of his skin every time he gets a hit, drove home the lead run with a triple. Yoenis Cespedes, who seems to be coming back to life, singled him home. Later, Lucas Duda, who also seems to be coming back to life, doubled home Cespedes. 3-3 then very quickly became 6-3. Although Hansel Robles had a bit of a Jay Bruce problem in the 8th inning and a fellow by the name of Jumbo Diaz struck out the side in the 9th inning, Jeurys Familia notched his 42nd Save with a clean 9th inning, the Mets won the game 6-4, and coupled with the Nationals again being unable to solve their own problems, everything was once again right with the world.

In 2007, I did a Magic Number count here and stopped after 7 because things were getting out of hand and I felt I needed to do something to try to reverse the karma. That didn't work. This year, I and I think most Mets fans have been too nervous about jinxing something. I haven't counted down anything, I think I've barely said the "P" word and the one phrase that I think Mets fans have been saying almost on autopilot has been "I don't want to get ahead of myself..." But, at this point, it may be too late to turn back now. The Mets have 9 games left and need to win 3 of them in order to wrap this up, or, some permutation of wins and Washington losses that totals 3. Odds are this is going to happen now. But I'm still not too comfortable with admitting that just yet.

Awesome And Uninspiring

An appreciable number of Mets fans turned up in Baltimore this evening, enough so that Jacob deGrom might have felt very much at home in Camden Yards. Although, given how well deGrom has pitched lately, he might have felt at home pitching in Luzhniki Stadium. deGrom got an early lead thanks to a pair of Curtis Granderson Home Runs and basically did the rest himself as the Mets rode his pitching into the 8th inning and then survived a 9th inning scare to beat the Orioles 5-3.

The game started late, though it didn't much matter to me as I'd come home and come perilously close to falling asleep altogether. There was apparently some rain in the Baltimore area that delayed the game by something in the neighborhood of 42 minutes. I glossed over this completely and I could be wrong on the time but what difference does it make? Unlike when the rain fell on Sunday, it didn't turn the Mets into meatballs, probably because it was before the game started. Or because deGrom just wouldn't let his teammates fall down the same rabbit hole they did two days prior.

Whatever it was, this was basically another typical game for deGrom. He tied the Orioles up and stuck them in his back pocket, allowing all of one run, a Gerardo Parra Home Run that was more flukish than anything else, 5 hits and 6 strikeouts before he departed with 2 outs in the 8th and 100 pitches. Perhaps, much like Harvey against the Colorados last week, deGrom could have finished the deal, but there was no need to push him. At that point the Mets had a 3-1 lead and when they stretched it to 5-1 in the top of the 9th, it seemed there was little reason for concern.

Except that Tyler Clippard didn't have it in the 9th, and Jeurys Familia barely had it either. Clippard had gotten one out, but then allowed a walk and an annoying dying quail of a hit to Matt Wieters before departing in favor of Jeurys Familia. Familia got the 2nd out and then appeared to get Steve Clevenger to hit a game-ending ground out. Except that Lucas Duda basically pulled a Daniel Murphy and tried to field the ball, then realized he couldn't field the ball, and then tried to make it back to 1st base to receive the throw from Kelly Johnson. Had Duda just stayed at home, he probably would have saved a lot of headache but instead he received the throw while not standing particularly close to 1st Base. So the bases were then loaded, and at that point Familia essentially had an attack of Benitez because he inexplicably walked the next two batters to force in two runs, send the tying run to 2nd base, put the winning run on 1st and put half the Mets fan base in the latrines. Manny Machado was next and Machado's got the potential to put one in the seats and seal an absolute disaster of a game, but instead Familia pulled himself together and got Machado to ground to 3rd, far away enough from Duda that he had no choice but to stay planted to 1st base and the game was over.

So, that was a lousy ending to what was otherwise a rather fine win for the Mets, and it once again underscores the Bullpen as just vulnerable enough to cause concern, except that this is the Mets and when you bring up bullpen problems people start to have Vietnam flashbacks. Combine that with the fact that the fan base has basically forgotten what a pennant race is like and you have a real hot time.

Waterloo

It seems that invariably, the Mets have at least one series a year in Atlanta where they go in and just stink up the joint, and usually it ends up with them getting swept and looking really bad in doing so. This past weekend was that series, when the Mets needed to just sort of keep themselves afloat, but instead fell victim to their own personal Waterloo once again.

Fortunately, this was also one of those weekends where I really didn't get to see much, or any, of the three games. I'd mentioned that I was out Friday night and arrived home and fell asleep with the game on the radio, which was just as well considering how things turned out.

Saturday was more or less a repeat of Friday, except that I arrived home earlier in the game, fell asleep earlier in the game, and awoke to find that the Mets had still managed to lose. Noah Syndergaard had a not-as-good outing, where he expended too many pitches too early in the game, only pitched 4 innings, and was gone by time the game was decided. I did hear Travis d'Arnaud tie the game with a 5th inning Home Run, and then I heard him depart from the game with a rather frightening sounding elbow or shoulder or both injury, which happened when the Barves took the lead and ultimately didn't give it back. Later, I found out that the injury was not so severe, although if Ol' Cortisone Shot Ramirez has his hands on Travis, we might not see him again until mid-August.

Sunday, I was visiting my Father for Ralph Kiner's Birthday and while we were out to dinner, I saw the final inning and a half of the game, where the Mets, desperately in need of a run, created opportunities for themselves and then did a wonderful job of screwing themselves out of said opportunities. Matt Harvey pitched his ass off for 7 innings and allowed 1 run and 4 hits (or at least I assume he allowed 4 hits). Usually, when you get an outing like this from your best pitcher, you ought to be able to win the game, except when you're pitching in front of the Mets lineup, in which case your chances of winning are at best dicey. The Mets managed all of one hit off of Julio Teheran in his 7 innings of work, and so by time the starters left the game, it was the Braves with the 1-0 lead. Eric Campbell hit a double in the 8th inning—his first hit in weeks, it seems, but was stranded. In the 9th, with The Great Rivera Kimbrel no longer an option for Atlanta, and Hairy von Flugelheim Jason Grilli unavailable, the Mets were facing non-entity Jim Johnson. Curtis Granderson singled, and then Juan Lagares beat out a sacrifice bunt attempt for a hit, and the Mets were in business. Lucas Duda flew out, which was OK, because Michael Cuddyer could still get the job done. Except that for Cuddyer, getting the job done meant grounding into his 44th Double Play of the season, an unconscionable outcome of that particular at bat, and the Mets were officially sunk.

So, the bloom is pretty much off the rose for this season, and I suppose that's a kind way to put it. Were I more succinct, perhaps I would just say they're up Shit's Creek once again. 5 losses in a row, including 3 against a team that they probably should be feeding their lunch to, and now 1st place is gone, .500 is up their ass, and everything is terrible once again. The Mets have the worst road record in Baseball if you don't count the Phillies and what the hell kind of team with any sort of aspirations plays to a 10-24 record on the road? If it makes you feel any better, and it probably doesn't, the Mets now have 3 more games on the road in Milwaukee, owner of one of the 3 worst records in Baseball. I give the Mets one out of 3. Let them surprise me. Hell, let them surprise themselves.

This Just In...

...Jacob deGrom is good. Did I say that before, because it's true. But in order to find that out, the Mets needed to slog their way through the weekend to get to his turn in the rotation.

The Mets usually find a good deal of success when the visit Arizona, however this weekend appeared headed down a rather miserable path. Though they won on Thursday night, when Matt Harvey got pissed off and inspired his teammates to fight back, the subsequent starting pitchers failed to provide similar impetus. Jon Niese took the mound on Friday night, and, let's face it, Jon Niese hasn't been inspiring anybody to do anything except track the latest outing by Steven Matz in AAA ball. Niese took the loss, which isn't anything new, in an effort where he allowed 3 runs and 6 hits with 8 strikeouts over 6 innings, and somehow this outing was deemed a success. That's a good indicator of how badly things have been going for Niese lately. All confidence in him has been abandoned, which is kind of sad because we all know he can do so much better.

Niese would have been wise this weekend to take a look in the opposing dugout, because he'd see a left-handed pitcher with a similarly high level of talent, and a very similar lack of mental ability, and perhaps he might learn the cautionary tale. Particularly since that left-handed pitcher used to be his teammate, your friend and mine, Oliver Perez. Amazingly, after all the headache Ollie caused the Mets and the general embarrassment he caused himself, someone was still willing to give him a job because he's left-handed and has some life in his arm, even though at this point he's a total caricature on the mound. Nobody could wean him out of the weird, bad habits he'd develop, so at this point it was determined the safest place for him was to come out of the bullpen and face left-handed hitters and hope for the best. And if Jon Niese doesn't get his act together, a similar fate will likely befall him.

Saturday, Bartolo Colon was handed a similar fate, though not because he's an idiot like Niese. Colon just fell victim to some bad luck, in the form of his offense not scoring any runs for him (surprise, surprise), and an errant pitch to Welington Castillo that sunk him. Colon is a caricature in and of himself, probably because he not only continues to succeed on the mound, but also because he continues to surprisingly get hits, as he pinged out his 4th of the season. Nonetheless, this and 9 other Mets hits were not enough to offset his one bad pitch, and thus the Mets lost a San Diego Special, 2-1.

So, it came down to Sunday, with Jacob deGrom on the mound to try to salvage the series and, for that matter, the road trip. deGrom found himself helped out early by Curtis Granderson, not helped out, and then helped out by Eric Campbell, and helped out some more by Wilmer Flores, but mostly he did the job himself. After Campbell's miserable error opened the door for Arizona in the 1st, deGrom settled down and delivered a pitching performance about as crucial as Harvey's was three days prior. His 7 inning effort was enough to put the Mets in position to win the series finale 6-3 and save the team from a completely disastrous 2-5 road trip, instead bringing the team back home with a partially passable 3-4 road trip. Actually, 3-4 isn't terrible considering they were on the West Coast, where they play games in the middle of the night and generally things just tend to go haywire for them. To put things in an even better perspective, the Mets come home from the West Coast in 1st place, if you can believe it, because for as much as the Mets have scuffled, Washington can't get out of their own way either.

For a season where they've had to battle a 2009-level number of injuries to key players, the fact that they've managed to keep themselves near the top of the standings to this point is a bit of a moral victory. But, then, how long can they keep this up...and when the hell will some of these injured players start to come back?

Not The Same Score

The Mets played their first of their periodic West Coast 10pm games last night. In my salad days, I thought nothing of staying up into the wee hours of the night watching or listening to these games, no matter how long they might drag out. But in the same vein that I no longer feel like I need to sit out in arctic cold Citi Field when the Mets are losing 7-2, I also can't necessarily make it all the way through these 10pm West Coast starts.

Sometimes, however, I do, and last night was one of those nights. To be fair, I did fall asleep sometime between the 4th and 6th innings. My other half had insistently gone to watch her stories on TV (Revolutionary War show du jour), and so I relented, opting instead to turn on the radio and let Howie and Josh tell the story for me. I don't so much mind this, however on this night they basically lulled me to sleep. Maybe it's just that San Diego gives off such a laid-back feel. Whatever it was, I innocuously shut my eyes with the Mets leading 2-0. Some time later I opened my eyes and the Mets were ahead 6-0, and I had no idea what the hell was going on.

What I did know was that Jacob deGrom was working on a Perfect Game at the time, because Howie, as is his wont, said something to the effect of "deGrom has retired all 15 batters he's faced so far," with the fitting segue to Johan Santana's No Hitter-iversary following immediately. Then, of course, someone got a hit for the Padres and there went the evening's major storyline.

Regardless of whether or not he threw a Perfect Game, it was still a very fine outing for deGrom, who has now reeled off three consecutive outings where he's been in complete control. He has two wins to show for it, of course the Mets did win the other game as well, no thanks to their bullpen, but it seems like he's getting better and better with each outing. His 8 inning effort last night featured a stingy 2 hits, an even stingier no walks and 8 strikeouts, as his ERA for the season dropped to 2.41.

deGrom was aided by the Mets offense scoring 7 runs, which is kind of unheard of for them to do in San Diego, because the Mets have played 33 games at Petco Park and lost 29 of them by the score of 2-1, so any time they can go into San Diego and score more than 1 run, it's a moral victory even if they lose the game. I don't believe they've ever scored as many as 7 there. Daniel Murphy led the charge with 4 hits—he's actually been hitting more of late, which is nice because it heightens his trade value, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking this is going to be a long-term thing. It helped particularly because Lucas Duda was out with a Marlin-induced knee injury (and a note to Matt Harvey to stick one in Dee Gordon's ribs the next time they see each other), so whenever other guys can pick up the slack that's a nice thing.

Regardless, deGrom didn't need so much offense in order to wipe out the Padres on this evening. I think it's time to just admit to the fact that my man is a really good Pitcher.

The Avalanche

Since Sunday was Mother's Day, I was out wishing my Mother a Happy Birthday and didn't actually get to see the Mets/Phillies series finale. What I missed was a 7-run outburst from the Mets where from what I can gather they took advantage of Philly's mostly porous pitching. Though Bartolo Colon didn't have his usual repertoire working and even gave up a Home Run to the opposing pitcher Chad Billingsley, the Mets responded, getting a Home Run from Curtis Granderson, and some key hits from Wilmer Flores and Johnny Monell to basically overwhelm the Phillies and coast on to a 7-4 victory.

The Mets on this day banged out 14 hits, a season high, and if you've been sticking with the travails of this team the past few years, you know that 14 hits doesn't always guarantee victory. There's a multitude of instances where the Mets can pick up 10, 11, 12 hits and plate 2 runs and lose 3-2 because they get 2 men on and then proceed to ground out to 2nd for the rest of the inning. This wasn't the case on Sunday, where the Mets got plenty of men on base and actually succeeded in driving them in in most cases. For a team that's generally made a habit of scraping across 3-4 runs a night, 7 seems like coming to the Oasis in the middle of the desert. The majority of this came off of Billingsley, who gave back what he took and then some. Billingsley seems to fit the Phillies' team concept rather well; a once-promising starter with the Sad Dodgers, he underachieved, and then got hurt and basically was forgotten about completely by Baseball after missing two seasons with an injury. And now, he's surfaced in Philadelphia, because why not? Usually, these sort of reclamation projects find themselves with the bottom-feeders. A couple of years ago, he likely would have been a Met. But Pitchers of Billingsley's ilk aren't a particular need for the Mets anymore. Quite fortunately. Better it's the Mets beating him up rather than him getting beat up for the Mets.

One such Pitcher who could have been considered a reclamation project is Bartolo Colon, except that he was someone else's reclamation project after basically being retired for a year in 2010 (?). Since then, all he's done is reinvent himself as a finesse pitcher of the highest order, baffling hitters with an assortment of pitches that just aren't especially hittable. Of course, with Colon, you have to take it one game at a time because he's prone to those kind of games where he just has nothing and ends up getting lit in the 1st inning. But that hasn't happened this season, and in fact, Colon has been so deceptively good, it's easy to forget that he hasn't walked a batter since Opening Day. The 4 runs on 8 hits he allowed yesterday essentially amount to his worst start of the season, but nonetheless it was good enough to net a win on this day because, amazingly, his teammates actually scored him a few runs. This sort of thing can be helpful to a pitcher, because then they don't feel like they have to be perfect every time out (Unless you're Matt Harvey and you actually think you have to be perfect every time out). Colon ran out of steam in the 7th and the Phillies mounted a spirited comeback, but by that point, the Mets had enough of a lead that the Phillies couldn't get any closer than 5-4, and then the Mets put things away in the 9th.

The Mets now have played home-and-home with every team in their division and so now they go outside the NL East to see some other teams. To this point, their only non-division games have been against AL teams, but their next stop here will be Chicago, a team that seems to be in a similar mold to the Mets, at least if you believe the hype. This should be interesting.

Fill The Glass

And, once again, the Mets played just a sterling boondoggle of a ballgame in The Hulk's Lair in Plasticville, Florida, one of those places where things never seem to go right no matter how good things might look on the surface. The Mets came in to the Mystery Machine humming right along. They'd had their hiccup the prior weekend, got it out of their system, and now back to business laying the smackdown on a team that richly deserved it. The Marlins came into Citi Field last week and the Mets fed them their lunch repeatedly in a 4-game wipeout.

But, things have a tendency to never happen as you'd expect it, particularly when you're going into Miami. This is a place where the Mets have played a seemingly endless string of winnable games that get away from them, annoying games where they blow leads, games where they don't score and lose on 40-foot singles and, then there's games like last night, where they look ready to strike and then puke it up before they have a chance to come back.

I'm not sure what kind of Miami-induced loss I like the least, not that any of them are preferable to any other, but at least we weren't subjected to the 40-foot single loss where the Marlins start prancing around the field like they just won the pennant (I'd assume they're saving that for the next time the Mets come to town in August). I suppose Tuesday's game was pretty objectionable, because it seems like that begat what happened Wednesday night. Off of Monday, if the Mets had come back the next night and rode the crest of Juan Lagares' game-tying double to a 9th inning victory, you come away feeling a whole lot different even if the Mets had lost last night.

But instead, they lost Tuesday, and played a see-saw of a game Wednesday that saw Bartolo Colon throw his usual Bartolo Colon kind of game, which is to say he was unspectacularly efficient. Problem was, the Mets couldn't extend their lead against Mat Latos, who looked mediocre and then got hurt, and ultimately the Marlins scraped back and tied the game on—guess what—an infield single by Giancarlo Stanton that Daniel Murphy gloved, but couldn't convert the throw. A typical Marlin play that tilted the game in their favor. Two innings later, they grabbed the lead by manufacturing a run, and though the Mets certainly could have had an opportunity against the Fish's B-closer in the 9th, down by a run, they wouldn't get a chance to come back because Alex Torres surrendered a game-incinerating 3-run Home Run to Ichiro Suzuki, the ageless wonder. Ichiro isn't known for his power, but even in his 40s and homing in on 4,200 worldwide hits, he's still someone to be reckoned with and he always had the ability to dial 8 when he really needed to. And this was one such instance.

So, instead of coming back home with the feeling that the Mets resolve continues to will them to victories and this is going to continue to carry them, instead, there's a little ennui going on because when you think about it, if Daniel Murphy doesn't hit that Home Run on Monday night, the Mets get swept and right now everything's terrible and I'm writing about how the Marlins should be disembowled by a land shark or something. So, at least it's somewhere in between, but I don't necessarily feel good about things coming off a series like this. Now, the Mets get to come home and face a Nationals team that's started to wake up and usually bludgeons the Mets at Citi Field.

On the other hand, the Mets haven't lost a game at Citi Field all season, so there's that.

True Colors

After an entire season about hearing how wonderful the Barves are, and how great their pitching is, and how Craig Kimbrel is the second coming of The Great Rivera, and how Andrelton Simmons is God's Gift to shortstops, and how they're a mortal lock to win the division for years to come, the Braves got to September and immediately fell apart. Now, with their chances of making the postseason on life support, the Mets had a golden opportunity to come in to their house, kick them in the nuts and for all intents and purposes put them out of their misery. In fact, with a sweep, the Mets would pull to within a half game of Atlanta for second place in the division. On a night where the Mets officially were eliminated from Postseason contention, they did their best to try to take the Barves down with them, as Zack Wheeler and company combined on a 5-0 shutout to extend Atlanta's misery and give the Mets a win in the series opener on the road.

Wheeler, who seems to have the number of his home state's team, threw 6 shutout innings en route to his 11th victory of the year and appears on his way to finishing his season with a bang. Wheeler, who's been a little inconsistent as the calendar turned to September and his inning count mounted, righted himself this evening and looked a little more like the pitcher who was really starting to turn into one of the NL's better Righty pitchers and the guy we thought would be #2 in the Harvey-Wheeler 1-2 punch.

But Atlanta's Julio Teheran matched zeroes with Wheeler into the 6th inning, until Lucas Duda reached him for a 2-run Home Run, his 28th of the season. This probably would have been enough for Wheeler, who finished out the 6th before turning things over to Carlos Torres and the Jeurys Familia/Jenrry Mejia Report. The Braves did nothing off of this bunch, but just to make sure, the Mets rallied for 3 runs in the 9th against dainty, toe-tapping Jordan Walden, who came in, pranced around the mound and couldn't throw a strike, walking in a run before being removed from the game in favor of Luis Avilan, who surrendered two more runs on his ledger when Eric Young, Jr. hit a 2-run single to close out the scoring.

This was the sort of game that, far as I'm concerned, showed the true colors on both sides. The Mets, behind Wheeler and some timely hitting, gutted this game out and tried even though this was the night where they were officially eliminated from any sort of postseason contention. The Braves, who've been getting all sorts of smoke blown up their collective asses for years now, folded like a deck of cards when faced with a game against a team they're supposed to be so much better than. After dominating the Mets early in the season, now the Mets have fought back and in spite of the fact that the Braves were this supposed great contender, the Mets are actually 8-9 against Atlanta for the season and if they do their job and play like they did tonight for the rest of the weekend, they can flip the season series in their favor. Sometimes it's nice to play spoiler and kick a team in the nuts that really deserves it.

Hitting Sticks

If the Mets hit all season the way they hit last night in Cincinnati, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.

Friday night saw the Mets break out for a season-high 14 runs on a season-high-tying 18 hits, blasting a season-high 5 Home Runs in the process as they pasted the hapless Reds and their legion of Rookie Pitchers 14-5.

The Reds have suffered through about as lousy a season as the Mets have. The fact that they came into Friday night's game with equally terrible records of 66-74 speaks for itself, although on the end of the Reds, it's probably markedly more disappointing than it is for the Mets. The Reds, who have been to the Playoffs 3 out of the last 4 seasons and whom I picked to make it to the World Series in 2013, haven't been able to get out of their own way this year and injuries to key players like Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips combined with lousy seasons from Jay Bruce have combined to sink the Reds ship as they've muddled through about as lousy a second-half as you can have. They haven't been able to find any kind of consistency and the Mets seemed to take advantage of this as well as anyone in last night's game.

The Mets jumped on Alfredo Simon early and often, scoring twice in the 1st thanks to RBI hits from Travis d'Arnaud and Curtis Granderson, once more in the 2nd when Lucas Duda walked with the Bases Loaded, didn't score in the 3rd—the only inning in the game which they did not do so—and knocked Simon from the game in the 4th when d'Arnaud mashed a 3-run Home Run after Simon dared to intentionally walk Duda ahead of him.

d'Arnaud's Home Run seemed to be a mere prelude to the ensuing fireworks, as Wilmer Flores Homered in the 5th off of J.J. Hoover, Granderson Homered in the 6th off Ryan Dennick, and hapless Rookie Daniel Corcino surrendered two more blasts in the 8th and 9th, to Dilson Herrera and Lucas Duda, respectively.

Bartolo Colon was the beneficiary of this outpouring of support, as he generally tends to be. I'm not sure what the numbers are exactly, but it seems like just about every time the Mets have one of these games where they put up 7, 11 or more runs, Colon tends to be on the mound. On a night where Colon himself didn't seem to have his best stuff, he still managed to carry the game into the 7th inning, another one of the solid outings we've come to expect out of him over the course of the season, before turning things over to Buddy Carlyle and, in the 9th, Eric Goeddel. By that point, the Mets had opened things up enough that we actually had sightings of players like Josh Satin and Juan Centeno, truly indicative of how the night was going for the Mets.

You'd like to think the Mets could keep this going for a couple of days, at least while they're in hitters haven Cincinnati, but something tells me that they're going to end up pecking and scraping for runs the remainder of the weekend after all this. After all, they've already had games this week where they scored 8, 6, and now 14 runs, so let's not get crazy here.

Even Flow

For the second straight night, I failed to make it to the end of the late-night Mets/Mariners tilt way out in Seattle. Unlike Monday, when I got through one inning, last night I made it to the end of the 5th, which is a marked improvement, but still not enough to prevent me falling asleep without knowing who won the game. Only when I woke up and checked my phone did I see that the Mets had emerged victorious, their 3-1 victory marking the first time they've ever won a game in Seattle—granted, it's only the 5th game they played there, but still. Worth at least making a note of.

Jacob deGrom was the beneficiary of this particular win, and deservedly so. After fizzling out with a series of losses and no-decisions in games where he's pitched well, he's now started to turn those efforts into some W's, and all of a sudden he's starting to be a little less under-the-radar. After stifling the Mariners for 7 innings last night, allowing all of 1 run and 5 hits, winning his 3rd consecutive start, he now sits with a 4-5 record and a rather shiny-looking 3.01 ERA, numbers that could conceivably throw him into an NL Rookie of the Year crop that lacks a particular standout. And the more you think about it, you have to ask yourself, well, why not deGrom? Even at his worst, he hasn't pitched particularly poorly more than 2 or 3 times he's took the mound, and as he's gotten his sea legs under him, he's been brilliant. For the month of July, his numbers could rival pretty much anyone in the league that isn't named "Kershaw;" in 4 starts, he's posted a 3-1 record, a 1.73 ERA and struck out 34 in 26 innings pitched against 5 walks. For a guy who was sort of regarded as talented trade bait for the past couple of years, buried behind the big names, this is a pretty damn good statement that he belongs in the Mets rotation for this year and beyond.

deGrom did most of the job himself, only allowing a run on a Dustin Ackley double that nearly got really ugly when Daniel Murphy's cutoff throw landed in the disease-covered Puget Sound. On the offensive side, the Mets didn't exactly generate much in the way of fireworks off of non-entity Erasmo Ramirez (non-entity in the sense that he was called up from the minors to start one game and then promptly get sent back to the minors for today's starter Taijuan Walker). Travis d'Arnaud had the big hand in things when his line drive to Center did kind of a knuckle and sailed past James Jones, who made an ill-advised slide and saw d'Arnaud's hit sail past him and all the way to the wall for an RBI triple. Jones probably should have just pulled up and played it on a hop, or dove for the ball rather than slide, but I suppose when you play to the immediate left of Endy Chavez, you feel you need to try to be as flashy as possible—Jones got burned on this one and it cost the Mariners 2 runs, the one that d'Arnaud drove in and then d'Arnaud himself when Ruben Tejada singled one batter later. Lucas Duda hit a non-Lucas-Duda in the 8th inning—that is to say that his moonshot of a Home Run off of Tom Wilhelmsen was actually useful because it provided an insurance run as opposed to padding a safe lead. Jenrry Mejia finished the job in the 9th inning while I was snoozing away.

The Mets have but a few more of these late-night, West coast games this season. I know there's a trip to Oakland and Los Angeles looming next month, but for now, they're done with 10pm games. Today, a 3:45pm start which once again means I won't be able to see the game—not because I'll be sleeping, but because I'll be at work—but I'll be home to catch the replay so maybe I'll get to see more than 4-5 innings of today's affair. Hopefully, it'll be worth staying awake for.

Sleeping In Seattle

I lack the general fortitude I had in my younger, sprier days, and as such a 10pm start time on a weeknight has become a bit of a dicey proposition for me, at least from the standpoint of my ability to make it through the duration of the game awake. Last night's game in Seattle was an extreme example of just how dicey these late starts are for me. As I'm still shaking off the effects of some jet lag, I managed to make it through the first inning of the ever-elusive Mets vs. Mariners game before dozing off. By time I woke up, the game was more or less over.

It seems, based on what I've read on the proceedings, that the Mets were about as awake as I was during last night's game. Though the Mets banged out 9 hits off of Roenis Elias (their second consecutive tilt with a crafty Cuban), one in each of the 9 innings of the game, but as usual, none of them were key, and their best chance at a key one—Travis d'Arnaud's deep drive in the 6th inning—was snuffed out by Dustin Ackley, who clearly has benefitted from having dear friend Endy Chavez as his teammate; his leaping grab was reminiscent of any one of Endy's greatest grabs during his Mets tenure. The net of all this was that the Mets marked the much-covered DavidWrightiversary with one of the more painfully boring efforts that seem to have pockmarked much of Wright's recent history with the team. It's not necessarily David Wright's fault; he's been whatever the Mets have wanted him to be, but without a decent supporting cast around him, Wright sort of sticks out like an island among the Lucas Dudas around him.

On the other side, there are the Mariners, a team that's suffered through their own particular wilderness, not having made a Playoff appearance since their 116-win 2001 season. They've had a rather Met-like arc over their recent run of forgettable seasons, but only now does it seem as though they've turned a bit of a corner. The Robinson Cano signing sort of brought them a bit of attention, but really, it's guys like Kyle Seager and Mike Zunino that seem to do a bit of their lifting on offense. Seager, who's one of these Jeff Cirillo-types that hits better than he looks, drove home a pair of runs and Zunino, a lunch-pail Catcher, hit a Home Run off of Jon Niese, who had a forgettable return from the DL in this eminently forgettable 5-2 loss. Something tells me that if I hadn't fallen asleep on my own, this game likely would have bored me to sleep.

Score Remains The Same

Sunday's Mets game in San Diego was the first game I'd had the opportunity to watch since returning from my European Vacation. I already had kind of an ominous feeling about this particular game, for several obvious reasons. The Mets had swept the Marlins going into the All Star Break, which finished off an 8-2 homestand and kind of got people feeling a little optimistic about the team. Coming out of the break, the schedule gods got cute and socked the Mets with a 10-game road trip to a few places they rarely fare well, among them San Diego, Seattle and finally Milwaukee, where they have won games once in a while, but have also had moments where they look like a bunch of horse's asses. Seattle, the Mets only go to once every 6 years or so (or at least it seems that way, a closer look reveals the Mets and Mariners haven't met at all since 2008 and only visited Seattle once, in 2005, where they were promptly swept). Then, there's Petco Park in San Diego, where the Mets usually lose every game 2-1.

Fittingly, the Mets nearly got themselves no-hit by the latest crafty Cuban Odrisamer Despaigne, got up off the mat and tied the game after Zack Wheeler pitched his ass off, and ultimately lost the game, shockingly, 2-1, on a Seth Smith single that went about 45 feet and somehow ended up winning the game because Josh Edgin fell off the mound and couldn't recover in time to make a play. The kind of ending that generally leaves most Mets fans either shaking their head or smacking their head in general disgust.

Despaigne pretty much tied the Mets up in knots for a majority of the day, to the point where I was actually beginning to think he was going to finish the job and throw the first no hitter in Padres history. But Daniel Murphy took care of that by doubling with 2 outs in the 8th, and David Wright, who very quietly has had a very un-David-Wright-like Season, snuck a single through the middle to tie the game. This got Zack Wheeler off the hook in the game after another fine outing in which he made one bad pitch, the Home Run that Yasmani Grandal lofted out, and his team gave him nothing in the way of run support. Those more optimistic among us might have believed that this rally would have spurred the Mets on to a win and a series victory to get the second half off on the right foot, but sadly that was not the case. Instead, it just set the stage for the Padres to win another 2-1 game at the hands of the Mets in typical annoying fashion, taking 2 of 3 from the Mets and putting that sinking fear back in the hearts of all Mets fans.

So, the Mets now leave the beautiful town of 2-1sville in favor of Pearl Jam, Starbucks and canned crowd noise...oh, wait. They're playing the Mariners, not the Seahawks. My bad.

That's Enough Of That

I said last week that if the Mets couldn't figure themselves out against the lousy Cubs, then things stood a very good chance of getting quite ugly once they went out to San Francisco to play the Giants, a team that not only had a sizable lead in their division but also the best record in Baseball. And boy, things got pretty damn ugly.

At no point did the Mets make me or probably anyone watching these games think that they had a realistic chance of winning any one of the three games, and that's even at moments when they took a lead and things were looking up. Every time the Mets had a chance to cut the Giants off, the Giants did something a little extra and got that break to swing the game in their favor. It's sort of early to pin this label on them, but perhaps the Giants have grabbed back the mantel of The Hot Team and the mojo that comes with it.

Friday night, the Mets could conceivably have done themselves a greater good had they just let Matt Cain throw a No Hitter at them. Ruben Tejada ended that with a 6th inning single, but he was summarily erased by a Travis d'Arnaud Double Play that had become so ROTE by this point that d'Arnaud found himself back in AAA by weekend's end. Jon Niese did his own yeoman's work in a basically hopeless situation, and actually found himself in the lead when somehow Daniel Murphy stuck his bat in front of a breaking ball and seemed to just kind of flick it over the right field wall at Pac Bell Colin Kaepernick AT&T Park for a 2-run Home Run. But Niese gave the run back in the bottom of the inning thanks to a predictable string of 2-out hits, and then lost the game in the bottom of the 8th thanks to the predictable 2-run Home Run by Buster Posey. All things you could pretty much see coming no matter how you sliced it. Much better than the alternative: Playing 14 innings and having Posey hit the Home Run at 3am EDT.

Saturday was slightly a little more upbeat for the Mets, but in the end the result was the same. The Mets came out early and actually built a nice little lead against Tim Hudson. Anthony Recker actually drove home a couple of runs and so did Lucas Duda, and for a few innings there was a little hope as Bartolo Colon kept the Giants at bay. But you knew it wasn't going to last, didn't you? David Wright made an error that led to an Angel Pagan 2-run single to cut a 4-1 lead to 4-3, and that lead lasted until the 9th. But you knew that Jenrry Mejia and the Mets were fucked as soon as Recker didn't catch strike 3 to Pagan, and then couldn't make a clean throw to 1st. That pretty much sealed the Mets fate right then and there, because everything that happened subsequent to that always happens to a team that makes that kind of an asshole mistake. Before Mejia even knew what had hit him, the game was tied and then the game was over when Michael Morse hit the trademark "single over the drawn-in Outfield" to seal the inevitable 5-4 Giants win.

Sunday, the Mets did a great job, if you consider greatness somehow managing to screw up every possible fundamental way to play Baseball. I'd like to give a well-informed breakdown of the game, but, really, who's got the energy? I know Curtis Granderson provided all the meaningful offense and Zack Wheeler had a regression game and that's pretty much all that needs to be said, or at least that's all that can be said politely. Everyone else may as well be flushed down the proverbial toilet. Burn the tape and never speak of this trip to San Francisco again.

Now, the Mets come home—and you know they play so well at home—and get to take on the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that I considered a total non-entity at the beginning of the season, so it makes perfect sense that they, like the Giants, have gotten off to a hot start and currently have the lead in the NL Central, or at least they did the last time I checked. I have tickets to Tuesday night's game. That should go splendidly. Hopefully it will rain. Or not. I don't know anymore.

Back In The Tank

It was, I suppose, to be expected that the Mets would have some kind of a letdown after their very long weekend putzing around in Philadelphia. But by all rights, they should have figured out a way to beat the Cubs last night. Zack Wheeler continued his recent hot streak, pretty much dominating the Cubs into the 7th inning. Meanwhile, Jake Arrieta did just about everything he could to hand the Mets runs, but for some reason, the Mets weren't taking the bait. Daniel Murphy has turned back into the Daniel Murphy that hits .248, David Wright is only drawing walks and nobody can get that hit to drive in a run.

So, after Curtis Granderson hit a 1st inning Sacrifice Fly, the Mets went in the tank, allowing Arrieta to continuously get off the hook, and after him Kurt Schwitters, Jeff Russell, Jeff Brantley and whoever else the Cubs trotted out there continued to let Mets get on base for the express purpose of standing there while someone popped out or struck out.

This was all more or less biding time before one of the Mets pitchers managed to screw up, and tonight Josh Edgin was the culprit. After taking over for Wheeler in the 7th, Edgin came out for the 8th inning with one job at hand: Get the left-handed batting Chris Coghlan out. So, what does he do? He gives up a Home Run to Chris Coghlan, on a night when the Wrigley Field wind dictated that nobody was going to hit many Home Runs. Lead gone, Wheeler win gone.

One inning later, Scott Rice was aided and abetted by David Wright in allowing the Cubs to score the winning run, as Wright bobbled what would likely have been a Double Play ball hit by Starlin Castro. Instead of turning two, Wright could only throw to 1st, while Anthony Rizzo moved into scoring position and subsequently scored when Nate Schierholtz, another left-handed batter, scalded a double into the Right Field corner.

On the one hand, I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate that Schierholtz and Rice conspired to end things right there in the 9th instead of playing 11 innings or 14 innings or however many innings the Mets have a habit of playing these days. On the other hand, it's the Cubs. The Mets should be able to beat the Cubs. Get your shit together.