You know because a loss like last night's induces something in between annoyance and seething.
Earlier in April each game still feels a bit like a pleasant surprise, a way to resume the proper rhythms of life after a long winter. Earlier in April, if Shawn Green failed to advance Moises Alou from second as the tying run with none out down 1 in the 8th (for instance), your reaction might well be muted by some part of your brain that's thinking, “Hey! It's Shawn Green! In a Mets uniform! The Mets are on!” Earlier in April, if Jose Valentin then followed such a failure with his own harmless fly ball (as a hypothetical), you might drift off into a reverie about Mets who changed uniform numbers.
But not now. With April running out, failures like those seem borderline criminal, part of a flat, lifeless loss to a team the Mets should overpower. The honeymoon period's over and the main business of 2007 is at hand, and no other considerations — not even thinking that Oliver Perez pitching pretty well except for one bad pitch or that Joe Smith is headed for bigger things — can change that storyline.
I actually scouted the Mets' website for a “SMITH 35” jersey.
They're not for sale. I can make my own for, oh, a few hundred bucks.
I don't love Smitty that much yet. Yet.
By the way, I learned last night by pure accident that Jose Valentin was born in 1969 on the day the Mets won their first ever World Series game. Tht's kind of cool.
I hate that “grizzled veterans” were born after me. I guess I root for the right team if that bothers me, there are still three Mets older than I am. Maybe four, depending on El Duque's real age.
Two game situations I was foaming too much over to discuss coherently last night:
1) Keeping Oliver in, bases loaded, one out, down by one, sixth inning. Willie did and I was all for it. Nice to see a starting pitcher who has found his groove be shown confidence. OP can swing the bat and even if he didn't there, somebody should be able to pick him up. This might also be a reflection of my belief there is no Rusty Staub on our bench who felt like a sure thing to drive a run home (or “go for the throat” as Mazz put it in the postgame).
2) Alou not tagging up on Green's medium-deep fly to right in the eighth. At the moment it happened, I was “don't risk it”. With the benefit of hindsight and replay, he should have gone for it. It was deep enough that it takes a perfect throw (maybe two) and tag to get Moises, even if he isn't the fleetest of foot. Hindsight's very cooperative in these matters. Valentin's next fly ball only made it more “obvious,” putting aside the reality that who knows if Valentin hits that exact same fly ball in that situation if Moises is on third. Brought to mind the whole thing about Davey not bunting in the ninth inning of Game Six, though since we lost last night, I was in no mood for “isn't baseball wonderful in that it makes us remember…”
Baseball wasn't wonderful last night. At least not the game we played, nor the game the Braves played in Denver, nor the game the Phillies played in Miami.
Other games in other leagues…not my biggest concern, but…let's just say losing two in a row and dropping into second place isn't the worst thing a New York team with great expectations could do on the last Friday night in April.