Settle Down, Beavis

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

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

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

In Retrograde

I was back at Citi Field on Tuesday night for my 14th game of the season, and what would finally be my first against the Texas Rangers. This should have happened nine years ago, but for a biblical rain storm that washed out the proceedings before they ever got started. It should have happened again three years ago, except that the Rangers came to town the same weekend I was getting married, so needless to say I was a bit indisposed. But, finally, the timing was right and the weather was right, and so here it was, my first-ever Mets/Rangers matchup, crossing them off my list of teams I've never seen and leaving only the Cleveland Indians, and that only sort of counts because I saw them in their own stadium, just never against the Mets.

Then again, just based on my experience at Citi Field, I wonder if I still really haven't ever seen the Rangers.

I was at Citi Field more or less on time. Maybe a little later than I would have liked, but if I was on my usual route I might have been in my seat after the first batter or two. But I knew I had to detour to the ticket booth and take care of an exchange, so that might delay me a little. I also had to battle my way through the security line, which on some nights moves pretty quick, but on this night did not, probably because I ended up in one of those lines where the guy was being "thorough," and as such picked through every individual item in my bag, including my house keys, my office keys, my chewing gum and other assorted papers that I have in my bag for no apparent reason. So that took some time. But I was still in the building before first pitch.

My ticket booth of choice is the "secret" booth to the left of the escalators in the Rotunda. Unfortunately it's not so secret anymore since there is usually a line there. Those of you loyal readers who aren't plan holders probably don't go through this often, but it is a perk that you can exchange unused plan tickets for future games. But there are restrictions as there is with anything, but nothing I'd deem too complicated. I try to exchange several times a year also, because one such restriction is that you can't exchange after September 1st. It seems a lot of plan holders don't realize this. I got on line and saw a husky fellow in a David Wright jersey standing there berating the poor girl in the ticket booth for whatever reason. Apparently he was exchanging about 20 tickets, and he didn't like the games, and he didn't like the seats, and he didn't like anything, and bear in mind there were several people in front of me already, many of whom were about to go through the same ration of bullshit. And then me, who was exchanging two tickets for one game and knew exactly what they were doing. So I stood and waited. And the game started. And things were happening. And I was checking my phone and talking tickets with the other people on the line. And then there was a Home Run by Michael Conforto, which I only knew from my phone since this appears to be one of the few areas of the stadium not within range of a TV or radio broadcast. And then there was another Home Run by Yoenis Cespedes. So now we were getting annoyed because this doofus was still arguing and this girl was clearly ready to shoot herself. Finally, he finished and the remainder of us in line broke into mock applause—except me, because I knew that the other 3 people in front of me were about to do the same thing. Fortunately, they were a little more expeditious, but it was well into the 2nd inning by time I got to the window, where the girl, whose name escapes me but whom I'll commend for her fortitude and continued politness, apologized and did my exchange rather quickly. So I'll say I spent probably 30 minutes holding my jock and 3 minutes doing my transaction.

Then, I had to stop and pick up a gift for someone in one of the little concession stores. I came out just in time to see Travis d'Arnaud's Home Run land in the seats in Left Field, which put the Mets ahead 4-0. Then, I went upstairs, where I wanted to get food, because standing on line like that really works up one's appetite. And, for whatever reason, on a dopey Tuesday night, every concession stand line was miles long. I can't figure it out. I thought everyone crammed in line for Shake Shack but now it's happening upstairs too at the plain old Burgers & Dogs stands. So I stood in line some more, where I eventually realized that Andrew Cashner was not pitching for Texas, it was A.J. Griffin, whom I was only vaguely aware of as a Major Leaguer in general. Still, it was creeping later and later into the game, into the bottom of the 3rd and I was still waiting on a line that seemed to be held up by more people who were either indecisive as to what they wanted or were somehow unhappy with what they got, but either way, the line moved at a crawl, until it was my turn and I ordered and was served in probably under 2 minutes.

Finally, I hit my seat with two outs in the top of the 4th. If you're keeping score, that's about 65 minutes standing on lines, 5 minutes actually conducting transactions, and another 5-10 minutes in transit. And none of the game actually watched, and if you know how OCD I am about being in my seat and keeping score, you can understand how nuts I was getting.

But then I did sit and get to see the rest of the game mostly undisturbed. I missed the three Mets Home Runs, but I did at least get to see Chris Flexen pick up his first Major League hit in the 5th, a double off the wall, and I also got to see him nimbly work into the 6th and not get outright hammered like he had his first couple of times out. He actually looked comfortable and in a groove, you know, more like a Major League pitcher should look. He had some trouble in the 6th and was removed, as the Rangers trimmed a 4-0 game down to a 4-3 game, mostly because the Mets were having a Joey Gallo problem and also because Adrian Beltre hit a Home Run, but from there, Erik Goeddel and Jerry Blevins did fine work, Asdrubal Cabrera drove home Conforto with an insurance run, and the Mets went to the 9th up 5-3. The game was then turned over to A.J. Ramos, who gave back the insurance run by allowing a 2-out Home Run to Robinson Chirinos, but he then got the final out to finish this 5-4 victory, pick up his first Met Save and close out Chris Flexen's first Met Win.

So, I missed most of the relevant or interesting action, but in the end I still got to see a win, which I think is what matters most in the big picture. Still, it would have been nicer were it not for the fact that Citi Field seemed to be in retrograde all night. Or maybe it was the other fans. Probably both.

Real Live Victory

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

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

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

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

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

Turning In Early

I mean, I'd like to go into games feeling a little more confident, and when you come into a game and tell me that the pitching matchup is Jacob deGrom against Dillon Gee, I feel like the smart money is on deGrom. Dillon Gee left here rather ignominiously two years ago and hasn't really found a toehold since then, and I mean I wish him well since he toiled reasonably well here in some generally hopeless situations but, you know, it's Dillon Gee. And, well, the Mets are still in a hopeless situation without him.

Neither Gee or deGrom pitched anything resembling well on Tuesday in Texas, where the Mets haven't visited since...well, I'm not sure, but it's Texas and it's the Summer and the ball was just flying out of the park to the tune of there being 7 Home Runs for the game, and 5 of them were hit by the Mets...and yet the Mets still figured out a way to lose the game, 10-8.

I was actually around on time for this, because I guess life has better geared me for 8:10pm games, and the Mets hit Dillon Gee early and often, but the problem was that deGrom basically handed those runs back to the Rangers almost immediately, and so 1-0 Mets became 2-1 Rangers, and 3-2 Mets became 4-3 Rangers, and so on and so forth until somehow it became 8-4 Rangers, and deGrom was getting some desultory pep talk from Terry Collins, and Texas had put in a pitcher with the uncomfortable name of Austin Bibens-Dirkx, whom the Mets couldn't figure out.

Later, and I mean much later because it was the 4th inning at close to 10pm, I was fading. Josh Smoker had come in and thrown gasoline on an already-smoldering fire, and at 10-4 there was a Neil Ramirez sighting, and the best thing I was able to come up with at that point was some weird assertion that Ramirez bears a striking resemblance to halcyon Montreal Expos mascot Youppi!

When the Mets got some runners on in the 8th and failed to make the score anything closer than 10-5, I decided I'd had enough. It was late, I was tired and the game was done, so I shut it off. Some time passed and I figured I'd get some kind of buzz on my phone that the game had ended, but it hadn't come, so I checked in on Gamecast and was surprised to see that the Mets had cut the deficit to 10-8 and had men on base...and then of course the dreaded "In play, Outs" line popped up, Jay Bruce hit into that Double Play, and the game was done.

So, you know, I didn't miss that much after all. In fact, maybe I spared myself an extra 40 minutes or so of misery.

Restoration of Faith

Fittingly, the guy who was supposedly the best player on the better team, who at one point savaged the prospects of the supposedly lesser team, looked at strike 3 to close out the 2010 ALCS.

With that, some of my faith in the game of Baseball was restored after a long summer that tested my patience.

Congratulations, and Thank Yous are in order to Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, Michael Young, Ian Kinsler, Colby Lewis, Cliff Lee, Ron Washington and the rest of the Texas Rangers organization for winning the American League pennant, kicking the Yankees in the nuts and making me believe in Baseball, just a little bit, once again.

The Plot Sickens

By splitting the Single-Admission Doubleheader on Sunday, the Mets managed to take 2 out of 3 from the Texas Rangers.

My, how benign such a sentence sounds. I suppose to tell that to someone who had no idea about Baseball, or didn't live within the Media Vacuum that is New York City, it wouldn't mean much.

If the Mets managerial and coaching situations were unstable before the Rangers came into town, now, it appears to be even more of a mess.

It's not enough to say that Willie kinda sorta might be fired, now, it appears that he won't be fired today, but two of his coaches, Tom Nieto and Rick Peterson, just well might.

Even so, as the Mets depart for what appears to be their 3rd trip to the West Coast in the last 2 weeks, calm is not the name of the game as far as the Mets are concerned. When the Mets return, after their games in Anaheim and Colorado, who knows what the team will look like. And if changes are made, who knows if they'll do any good.

I've done my share of Willie-Bashing over the past several months. That's no secret. Willie has taken the brunt of the criticism for the team's shortcomings. But while the blame that has been put on him is hardly unjust, it's now to the point where Willie has become the new Art Howe. We know he's a goner, he knows he's a goner, and yet this whole mess has been dragged out in such a sub-moronic fashion by Omar, Freddie and his Fan-Boy, that Willie is now the sympathetic figure in this mess. People are beginning to feel bad for him twisting in the wind. He's getting a raw deal, just like Howe got a raw deal. He's basically been given a team, the past two seasons, that was barely cohesive and just about past it. I know I've said it before (or it may have just been in an e-mail circle, I forget), but Omar apparently built a team to win now, only now was two years ago. Now is now, and now, the Mets are no damn good.

Yet, the changes are only happening at the top, as the bullpen is a shambles and the offense is a horrible mishmash of pressing young stars trying to carry the load left behind by aging veterans who can't hack it anymore. Omar has, according to "Rumors" and "Sources" close to the team (one such source is that bastion of drunken, asshole journalism, that dope, that Gin-Blossom Drunk Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, who should be having peanuts thrown at him, not reporting on Baseball), been given the green light to fire Willie whenever he sees fit. He's snuck onto the flight and is headed West with the rest of the team. The only quotes are given in cryptic, half-hearted endorsements, basically saying that Willie is the Manager on a day-by-day basis.

How the hell does he get off running a Ballclub like this?

The games right now appear to be a mere distraction from what has dissolved into a Circus Sideshow. And it's not a good sideshow. People continue to write about the games, but what's the point at this point? It appears to be the same story over and over again. The Mets played the Texas Rangers this weekend, and by Wednesday, who'll remember that? They may as well have played the Podunk Jerkoffs. You come, you show up, Ball 1, Strike 1, Home Run, Hit, don't hit, Pitch, don't pitch, Starter does well, Reliever X screws it up, Yay, Boo, go home. The Mets and Rangers played two games today, the stadium seemed relatively full at the outset, and when I turned on Game 2 in the 2nd inning, there looked to be about 10,000 people in the ballpark, at a game when Pedro was pitching. The Mets appeared to mostly stagger through the afternoon, winning the second game pretty much on dumb luck. Willie, figuring he's got nothing more to lose at this point—and he doesnt—just threw Robinson Cancel up with 2 outs and the bases loaded in the 6th, and somehow, Cancel pulled a Chip Ambres and knocked in the winning runs. Then, the game ended, and the focus went back to the coaches and the Manager and the rumors flying around.

Who starts these rumors anyway? I have a feeling that either the Idiot Boy-King might just have his lips too loose, or he's trying to bag a page from the Daily News, or something stupid like that. Knowing him, the situation just reeks of it. Why are there "leaks?"There's a time to talk, and a time to keep your mouth shut. Is this just a way to let the fans know that the people in charge are actually doing something, or that they just like to act like morons? There's a history of unprofessionalism within this organization, especially when it comes to leaking things that really should remain internal. I wonder if it has something to do with this team's inferiority complex dealing with the Yankees, or the insecurity of the Wilpons, or something else. It goes back to Mike Piazza finding out he was moving to First Base by reading the Post one morning. Art Howe got treated the same way. Now, there's this mess.

I forgot to mention something else El Guapo and I encountered last Wednesday at Shea. I didn't leave it out on purpose, I just forgot, since it was late when I was writing that, and I wanted to go back and put it in, but I forgot to do that too. Sometime in the 10th or 11th inning, there were two guys walking around the Mezzanine with paper bags on their heads. They were, for the most part, getting a positive response. They were each holding signs. One held a sign that said, "OMAR MUST GO." The other said "FRED, PLEASE HELP US!" El Guapo and I had, in a rather jocular fashion, discussed doing this ourselves earlier in the afternoon. When we saw them, we couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't because it was particularly funny.

I wonder if Fred is even conscious at this point.