The Mets are in the NLCS!
Really they are.
I know I heard it somewhere.
I think I did.
It does feel like a month of Mondays since we last played, when in fact it’s been only five days. It’s way long, but it’s not unprecedented. This matches the interval between the day we clinched the division in 1973 (24 hours after the season was supposed to end, it always bears repeating) and the day the NLCS began. We lost Game One to the Reds but won the ensuing series. In 1999, there was virtually no time between the night we clinched the Wild Card (more than 24 hours after the season was supposed to end, it always bears repeating) and the night the NLDS began. We won Game One over the Diamondbacks and the series that ensued.
The last time the Mets had a wait of more than five days between games and won both was March 31, 1998 when the Mets beat the Phillies 1-0 on Opening Day. It had been 184 days since the Mets beat the Braves 8-2 on Closing Day, September 28, 1997.
Makes five days seem like five minutes.
What does it mean for what lies ahead? I have no idea…though I’m a little amazed to realize it’s been nine years and counting since the Mets ended one season/postseason with a victory and started the next the same way.
Juan Encarnacion — dangerous guy I forgot to mention yesterday, so I’m making up for it today — and the Cardinals have waited four days, which is long enough. That was the stretch we had from the Sunday before the All-Star break to the Friday afterwards. We won both of those games, too. I sense that’s fairly irrelevant, but when you’re winding down your fifth Mets-free day, you tend to vamp.
If this reminds me of anything for real, it was the decision in April to send Victor Diaz (remember him?) to Norfolk about a minute before neither Cliff nor Carlos B could play and we were strapped for outfielders because we didn’t DL either of our starters. We muddled through and it all proved highly irrelevant in the scheme of things. Right now, the scheme of things is quite concentrated, so I don’t know if the decision to lop off a pitcher (Ring) and add an infielder (Hernandez) will impact us in a tangible way. Much is being made of playing five consecutive days, though I’m pretty sure that’s what baseball teams do consistently through the year. The difference is doing it with four starters instead of five. Of course our starters don’t exactly exhaust themselves with complete games, so perhaps there’s not a ton to worry about there.
Chris Carpenter might get moved up? So did Bruce Hurst. It’s twenty years apart, they’re different pitchers and these are different circumstances, but the Hurst thing was supposed to scare us back to the Scott age. We got by.
No fear — not even of these interminable delays.
Ask me how surprised I am that Cliff didn't last three innings.
FEAR Cliff
FAITH Endy
Office politics shouldn't dictate roster moves in the playoffs. Willie should have known that Cliff would not be able to play and acted accordingly, no matter what Cliff wanted. It was pretty obvious. Don't get me wrong… I love Cliff but he can't do a whole lot on one leg unless every at-bat is a HR and every fly ball lands directly in his glove.
Cliff is the first one to publicly chastise a guy who plays through injury and refuses to admit that he's hurt and sit, for the good of the team. Time for him to take his own harsh advice. And time for Willie to make him.
A tip of the cap to Tom Glavine. Well done.
Yeah, boy, that pitching staff is in such a shambles, ain't it?
Win or lose tonight, I'm proud of them.
HELL. YEAH.
Tonight was awesome! Is it possible that we've won the first four games of the postseason? Can it be true? I've been pinching myself all the way back from my friends house and all that happened was I got some weird looks on the subway.
Said “friend,” and I use the word liberally, who happens to be a fan of a team that I wish everyone would shut up about now that they got beat by the Tigers, spent the whole game insisting that Glavine was pitching terribly, and it was just a matter of time until the defense couldn't save him. He kept insisting the Cardinals were about to erupt, even though he claims to be “rooting” for the Mets. Also, he WOULD NOT STOP extolling the virtues of the scrappy underdogs/unstoppable force called the Detroit Tigers. Around the time he was foaming himself into a state of sexual ecstacy over Joel Zumaya, my other friend (no quotes this time, he's a Met fan) turned to him and said… “Dude. You have Stockholm Syndrome.”
Then some guy named Beltran managed to hit a fly ball out of the park, and the best team in the N.L. clumsily stumbled to a win despite the terrible pitching of their ace starter and their total lack of Joel Zumaya.
I hate Yankee fans.
BUT I LOVE THE METS! LET'S GO METS!
p.s. As of this typing I shall never mention the word Yankee until the post season is over.
Dude, don't be hatin' on Joel Zumaya… loony friends happen to good people (right, Greg?). It's not Zumaya's fault your buddy is a tool.
That being said, I am no fan of Tom Glavine. But he brought it big time tonight. Your buddy is indeed a tool.
You don't like Tommy? YOU'VE SWORN FEALTY TO THE WRONG BRAVE!
I got nothin' but love for Joel Zumaya, and all my brothers and sisters (even you Laurie ;) ). Until we face him in the World Series. Then it's death to all exotic animals!
Then once the season's over I can be close friends with this jackass again. Why must he have the largest television on the eastern seaboard???
OK, your buddy is a big-a**-TV-havin' tool.
Glavine: It's not business, it's personal.
Zumaya: Talk about bringin' it!!
Exotic animals: We owe them, but yeah… gotta do what we gotta do.
Fealty: Not nearly strong enough a word.