That Stupid Team

I know there's a thing about every great pitcher having one team that always gives him fits, and unfortunately for Matt Harvey, it's the Mickey Mouse Marlins.

Thursday's game was another Radio special for me, so I wasn't fully cognizant of what was going on (case in point: I was asked multiple times what the score was, and after answering 0-0 a couple of times reflexively, I had to pause for a second, pensively, before saying, as matter of factly as I could, "I don't know."

At that point, I didn't. But it was still 0-0, and the game was dragging along, as these weekday afternoon games usually do, because when the Marlins finally broke through against Harvey, I was convinced it was the 7th inning and not the 6th. The Mets were doing their usual "no runs for Harvey" act, and Harvey was pitching the way he usually pitches, until he got himself into a jam in the 6th and, at least as far as Howie and Josh would lead me to believe, just expended too much mental energy striking out Giancarlo Stanton and eventually, the Marlins just sort of vultured him to death. I couldn't be bothered to watch any replays, but it seems to me that a flare hit, a hit batsman and another flare hit led to 3 runs and that sort of took the air out of everything. The Mets couldn't hit Tom Koehler or anyone else the Marlins plopped out there and the end result was that the Mets lost and ended up 2-2 in what is fortunately their final series in Miami this season.

It's the 3rd such start that Harvey has made against the Marlins where they've just sort of nicked and pecked him to death this season, and I'm sure he's had more than enough of it. I'm sick of it, but then again, I'm sick of anything that has anything to do with the Marlins. Of course it's the Marlins. They're the team that seems to just bedevil the Mets the most, even when their leadoff hitter is the President of San Marcos.

I have nothing else to say. I'm thoroughly exasperated. At least the Mets don't have to go back to Miami this season. They went 3-7 this season in the Aquarium of Horrors, but it felt like 1-13. I wish that place would just sink into the ground.

One Of Them Nights

Logic, I suppose, would dictate that there was no way in hell the Mets were going to go into Miami and sweep a 4 game series from the Marlins, no matter how well the Mets are playing, or how bad the Marlins have looked at times. Somehow, the Marlins would find a way to win, and that win would happen to come last night.

It wasn't so much that Jenrry Mejia pitched poorly. Really, all Mejia did wrong was hang a pitch to Leonard Zelig, yak on a grounder by the opposing pitcher followed by a double from Fielding Mellish followed by two fly balls. But, some nights, that seems to be all it takes to sink you. He didn't have a bad game, at least as far as I'm concerned. But he wasn't as spectacularly effective as he was in Washington last weekend, and he also didn't have the backing of an 11-run explosion from his offense. Instead, the Mets had one of those nights where they get guys on base all night long, and then hit into 6 Double Plays, thus submarining any particular chance they had for a rally.

What bothers me about this game is I could see it coming. I could see all those Double Plays happening before they happened. I don't know if it was just something about Henderson Alvarez, because he just looks like he's one of those pitchers that's going to give the Mets fits for years. I don't know if it was because I thought Josh Satin had already pinch-hit twice before he actually pinch hit, or if it's just because I think I've seen a little too much of Omar Quintanilla to feel comfortable with him anymore, but I knew what was coming. Mejia takes too long to lay down the bunt, Double Play. Omar Quintanilla when the Mets need a baserunner, Double Play. Ike Davis, infield hit? Double Play. And so it went all night long. Even when the Mets rallied, it felt like pulling teeth.

Hopefully, this is just a one-night thing for the Double Play Brigade. The Mets have managed to avoid things like that for the most part this year. Harvey this afternoon.

My Aquamarine Heaven

For the second night in a row, the Mets played one of their patented "Stupid Games Against The Marlins." You know the kind of game I'm talking about all too well. This one had all the elements. Mets pitcher takes No Hitter late into the game while nursing a slim lead. Slim lead evaporates amid a flurry of dinky singles. Mets let golden opportunity to regain the lead pass by the wayside. Marlins win on another series of dinky hits, the last of which probably traveled about 65 feet and came with 2 outs.

Only for the second night in a row, the Mets didn't lose the game. They won the game, and they won it because in spite of losing their lead, the bullpen came in, held the line, kept the game tied and kept it tied long enough for the Mets to re-awaken and finally re-gain the lead. Then, Bobby Parnell, who doesn't have that late-game ennui that used to eat guys like Scott Schoeneweis or Aaron Heilman alive, kept the lead and closed out the game, thereby giving the Mets two things that they've been sorely lacking this season: A win in Miami and an Extra Inning win.

I suppose Wheeler is the star of the game, although by the end of things, his very solid outing appeared a distant memory. Wheeler has performed at about the level you would expect out of a 23-year old rookie to this point; lots of promise and some hiccups. But he's also shown just how good he can be when he puts it all together, and Tuesday was one of those nights when he put it all together. In his 7 innings of work, Wheeler allowed only 3 hits to go with his 3 walks and 5 strikeouts. It's only his poor fortune that those three hits and one of those 3 walks happened consecutively, saddling him with 2 runs and a no-decision.

I don't think anyone is expecting Zack Wheeler to go out throwing No Hitters, and certainly not in his 8th Major League start. And even after he'd made it through 5 innings without allowing a hit, I didn't really think it particularly likely that this, of all nights, might be the night of the 2nd No Hitter in Mets History (certainly not after what I saw Matt Harvey do earlier this season, only to get turned away at the altar). Perhaps, after Johan Santana accomplished the unthinkable last year, we, as Mets fans, don't have to pay attention with baited breath every time someone takes a No Hitter past 4 innings anymore, and that's why I wasn't so into Wheeler's potential gem. Then again, once you get into the 7th inning, you can't not start dialing in. Of course, that's when the Marlins finally broke through, with Boring Ed Lucas doing the honors. And, once that happened, the Marlins ended up rallying to tie the game. But, just as disaster appeared imminent, Wheeler got Jeff Mathis to ground into the DP and get him out of the jam.

The Mets appeared primed to get Wheeler a win after Marlon Byrd tripled to lead off the 8th, but then again, just because you hit a leadoff triple doesn't mean you're going to score, and we've learned this the hard way many times over. But, if nothing else, it set the stage for a moment that typifies these Marlins: Chad Qualls strikes out Omar Quintanilla to end the inning Qualls is so gassed up from getting out of the inning that he rears back, pumps his fist like he's Francisco Rodriguez in the 2002 World Series, and slips and falls flat on his face. I could only think that it serves him right for acting like another idiot Marlin, but then again he seemed to take it in stride, so maybe not.

Comedy relief aside, there was still a game to be won, and once things moved into Extra Innings, one couldn't be blamed for feeling skeptical. But, the Mets did what they had to do, thanks to David Wright and Marlon Byrd for getting on base, Steve Cishek for being wild, and John Buck for taking advantage of all of this, singling to plate the two winning runs and turning the game over to Bobby Parnell. Parnell once again managed to inexplicably walk Fielding Mellish with 2 outs, but this time Mount Rushmore wasn't the on deck hitter, so it was OK, and the Mets once again escaped with a win.

I give the Mets no style points for these last two games, because they haven't especially been classic wins, but any win, particularly when it's against the Marlins, is a little gem in its own right.

Escape From Alcatraz

Visiting the Puke-Green Hell Hole more formally known as Marlins Park has hardly been pleasurable for the Mets this season. Not that visiting their former home in the football stadium was any great joy, either. Usually, no visit to South Florida has been complete without something stupid happening to the Mets, with the end result being Marlins players jumping around the field like they just won something worthwhile. But this season has been particularly bad, because for the most part the Marlins haven't been able to beat anyone except the Mets, and as usual, they seem to find ways to beat the Mets that border on the excruciating.

Monday night's affair seemed to have all the makings of another such affair. The Marlins, who had started off with a lineup consisting of youngsters mixed in with aging retreads, have gone through a makeover of sorts, benching the retreads in favor of more youngsters, which sort of gives them a roster composition that, if you take away Cool Papa Pierre, Greg Dobbs and that Ed Lynch fellow, looks like they should be on their way to Social Studies class, not taking the field in a Major League Baseball game. To make this situation even more absurd, it appears that they now boast a roster comprised mostly of people named after characters in Woody Allen movies.

So, what happens? Well, after the Mets spotted Jeremy Hefner a 3-run lead early on, thanks to Daniel Murphy (who appears to be on one of his sporadic hot streaks)'s 2-run single and another key hit from David Wright. Jeremy Hefner in June might have locked this one down, but his recent regression to the norm reared its ugly head once again, and that 3-0 lead was gone lickety-split in the 4th, courtesy of a bunch of walks and some ringing hits, and capped off by a disgusting error from Omar Quintanilla. The Marlins got to Hefner again in the 6th, courtesy of more walks and more hits and the result was 2 more runs that knocked Hefner out of the game and appeared more than likely to sink the Mets.

But, the Mets responded to this particular adversity by striking back in the 7th. Eric Young, Jr led off with a one out double and scored on a floater from Murphy (exactly the kind of hit that usually works against the Mets). One out and a wild pitch later, there was Marlon Byrd, who has been in the thick of pretty much everything for the past several weeks now, coming up with the 2-out hit to tie the game. And one pitch later, there was Marlon Byrd, moving at a speed far beyond what you would expect from a husky 35-year old veteran of 12 Major League Seasons, making it all the way home with the lead run thanks to a long hit from Ike Davis. Ike Davis' long hit was probably a story in and of itself, since that's the first time we've been able to say Ike Davis, who was already named after a character in a Woody Allen movie, came up with a really clutch hit in months. But, if there was ever a spot to do it, this was probably it, in Miami where nothing ever seems to go right for the Mets.

So, somehow, the Mets have now come back and taken the lead in Miami, which hasn't happened all season. It's now up to the bullpen to keep it that way. First, it was Josh Edgin, getting the Marlins in order in the 7th, including a strikeout of Fielding Mellish and a groundout from Giancarlo Stanton. LaTroy Hawkins got through the 8th with similarly little drama, save for a single from Leonard Zelig, but Zelig was subsequently thrown out stealing, even though he wasn't. But, hey, it's about damn time the Mets caught a break in that stupid ballpark.

Parnell came in for the 9th and immediately gave up a hit to Greg Dobbs, much to the surprise of nobody. But, he got two out and all he needed to do was get Mellish, who just last week was graduating High School. But, Parnell nibbled and nibbled rather than just going after him, and eventually Parnell walked Mellish to bring up Stanton, with 2 on and 2 out and a 1-run lead. And I'm sure I wasn't the only Mets fan flashing back to every horrible thing that's happened to the team in Miami since ever, because we all knew where this was...Oh. Stanton grounded out. The Mets win. That was oddly anticlimactic.

So, we can delay the full-blown panic attack at least for another day, because for once the Mets stoned up and beat the Marlins. Can you imagine if they'd stepped on the Marlins' throats like this all season? Maybe we wouldn't be in this mess.

Clothes Make The Game

At around 4pm on Friday afternoon, the optimism in Metville was overflowing. After a solid homestand, the Mets went into Washington and smoked the reeling Nationals 11-0, behind a shocking 7 shutout innings from Jenrry Mejia, 5 RBIs from Daniel Murphy and a 3-run Home Run from Ike Davis. This win put the Mets at 46-53, a mere 7 games under .500 and a far cry from the 15 or so games under that they were about a month or so ago. They were also mere percentage points away from leaping over the Nationals and into 3rd place in the division, something few thought possible. And, given the way they were playing, and the general listlessness that their division rivals had shown of late, maybe, just maybe, a second half run towards contention was possible. And to top it all off, they had Matt Harvey pitching the nightcap of the doubleheader, primed to step on the Nationals' throats.

Then, the Mets stopped hitting, Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off Home Run to win the nightcap, and the rest of the weekend went down the toilet from there. The Mets managed all of 3 runs in the remaining 3 games of the series and the optimism of Friday was pretty much gone by late Sunday afternoon.

While I was on vacation in Montreal, I'd purchased a Montreal Expos T-Shirt. I'm generally not in the business of supporting teams in other cities, but being that I was in Montreal and the Montreal Expos don't exist anymore, I thought I should get something Expos-related. Also, I think that the Mets and Expos had a good rivalry over their 36 years of existence, and, in general, the franchise got screwed over by a large number of people, not just Bud Selig and Jeffrey Loria. Montreal is a great city and they deserve a MLB team. They have the fan base. They just had a facility that was probably among the worst places conceivable to play Baseball in.

Preachiness aside, I hadn't yet worn this Expos shirt, and on Friday, I was about to snip off the tags and put it on, until I thought to myself, "Hey, should I really be doing this today? The Mets are about to play a doubleheader with the Nationals, and the Nationals used to be the Expos. Isn't that some sort of bad karma?" I put the shirt back in the drawer, saving its maiden voyage for another day. But I wondered if this really was the right thing to do. I posed this on Facebook and several people responded with a variety of comments, which bordered from insightful to completely irrelevant. Perhaps the most useful comment suggested that I should have worn the shirt, because it meant that I was supporting the Expos, and showing appreciation for their rivalry with the Mets. The Nationals, in spite of retaining the Expos team records and statistics, have made little to no effort to acknowledge their years in Montreal. They have even gone so far as to "unretire" the Expos retired numbers, #10 in honor of both Rusty Staub and Andre Dawson, and, of course, Gary Carter's #8. None of the Expos players have any particular attachment to Washington the way they did for Montreal. In the meantime, Montreal continues to honor the Expos by having their retired numbers hang from the rafters in the Centré Bell, where the Montreal Canadiens play, and recently, they named a street for Gary Carter (that said, it is surprisingly difficult to find any sort of Expos-related paraphernalia, and in the gift shop at Olympic Stadium, there is nothing to be found).

Ultimately, I probably should have worn the shirt on Friday. Though I felt pretty smart late in the day on Friday, I now think that by chickening out, I may have actually put a reverse jinx on the Mets by not showing my disdain and disrespect for the Nationals by acknowledging only their past, and not just their past, the past that they, themselves, do not seem to want to acknowledge. Washington comes to Citi Field in early September, and I have tickets to one of those games. You best believe I will be wearing this Expos shirt at Citi Field on that evening.