Was it that there was no need for this, not with Duaner Sanchez doing just fine and it not being a save situation? All afternoon I'd been thinking how weird it was to watch a Subway Series game and feel totally relaxed. I should have known.
Was it that I'd already let my mind skip ahead to Sunday night and how sweet it would be to arrive at Shea for my 2006 debut with my co-blogger awaiting me and little bands of overexcited Met fans shouting “SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!”, knowing that the worst-case scenario was we took two out of three and fell short reaching for the cherry atop the sundae?
Was it wondering afterwards, “What's wrong with Billy Wagner?” If that had been his first appearance since Milwaukee, we'd be talking bravely about rust while wondering about the finger injury and what it may mean. But he was ridiculously dominant last night — just undressing the meat of the Yankee order. I don't know much about finger injuries, but if that's what's wrong, how could he be untouchable one night and unbearable the next day? This is the reason Heilman is such a dilemma: Julio could become the 7th-inning guy (he pitched OK today) with Heilman going to the rotation, but what if Wagner needs to go on the DL? One assumes Sanchez becomes the closer, and in that situation are you really going to trust Julio as your 8th-inning guy? If that happens you need Heilman in the pen, and if you made him a starter two weeks ago, how on earth do you reverse course?
Was it having to think of John Franco and Armando Benitez and Braden Looper, and wondering if they've got the Shea Stadium mound so screwed up that nobody can close from it? With a power pitcher like Wagner, you have to accept that every now and again a 97-MPH fastball gets hit just right and achieves escape velocity. But this was the death of a thousand cuts that we saw so often from Franco and Benitez and Looper — bad location, mental struggles, hits falling in and ground balls that couldn't quite be double plays.
Was it the fact that afterwards Joshua (lying on my chest) asked me, “What's wrong, Daddy?” and I replied “I'm unhappy that our team lost,” and he said, “Don't be unhappy, Daddy. They'll win the team next time they play”? It's a cruel game that can so unman a 37-year-old that he needs comfort from a three-year-old.
You know what? It's a five-way tie — all of the above has been churning around in my guts, and will do so for days to come. If this isn't the worst loss of the year, I don't want to know what the worst loss of the year will feel like. Sorry, kid, but I'm beyond comfort right now.