A funny thing has happened since I admitted that I don't particularly like the 2007 Mets — they've started growing on me.
No, the just-concluded three-game set with the Padres wasn't good for the W-L record or the heart. But the Mets beat Trevor Hoffman once, then came leaping out of the coffin twice more. There is the small matter that they didn't win either of those games, but for me, the larger matter is that they didn't do what the '07 Mets were doing far too often earlier this season. They didn't listlessly take a beating, but went out biting and snarling. Much better.
The other thing was that, well, I missed them. With Joshua at DisneyWorld this week with his grandparents, Emily and I sacrificed the last two Padres games for the social ramble. I caught the last two innings of the middle game in a bar, tuning in just after Guillermo Mota finished sucking. As for the finale, I heard the first two innings, then tuned in after dinner, heard the score was 6-1 San Diego and shut the radio off with an I-don't-need-this-shit snap. Slapstick followed when we got home and I had to process that a) we'd lost 9-8 and b) we'd somehow led that game on the way to 9-8. That's great! Wait! That's horrible!
So by tonight it had been too long. I shook my head over the little LOS on the uniforms (it's not like the regular ones say THE), but didn't particularly mind. And I was eager to beat B(r)ad Penny, whom I've despised ever since his Marlin days for his Clemenseque troubles with impulse control as well as on general principles — somehow the combination of his being a messy, sweaty hulk and that fussy pageboy 'do annoys me beyond measure. Watching Penny wilt in the heat and on the scoreboard was satisfying. As was watching Oliver Perez gather himself (the opening of every Oliver start just has to be a cliffhanger, doesn't it?) and then regain his worrisomely absent velocity and cruise.
Reyes continues to run wild, David Wright packed a month's worth of highlights into a single game, and somehow Mike DiFelice got three hits. And we even got to see Endy in the dugout and Lo Duca via remote, not so far away wearing Cyclones motley. Incredibly, come Monday the 2007 2.0 lineup (with Castillo for Valentin and Milledge for Green) might actually all be on the field at the same time.
Was everything perfect? No. Delgado is lost in his own personal dark forest again and Wright's comment that Billy Wagner “looked good” proves that David knows when it's more important to play teammate than scout. Because Billy was certainly not good — first he was sloppy, and then he threw Jeff Kent a slider with a big fat target on it, one that Kent just missed driving over the fence. (Which I don't want to even think about right now. Because I'd be in the fetal position under my desk, and it's filthy under there. I'd be trying to smother myself with dust bunnies. I might even succeed.)
Anyway, all was well enough when the credits rolled. One more tick off the late-August clock, one more night to watch the Braves and the Phillies and the standings and wonder if now is the time to think about the end of the season and what may lie beyond. Not yet — it's still too early. But it's not too far off now. Keep rolling like this and we'll be discussing it soon enough.
Well, I opted to sleep instead of following the game and they won. But I agree, they've definitely had a lot more fight in them lately. It's refreshing.
Speaking of guys with plenty of fight in them, the above-mentioned newest Cyclone, that Brooklyn-born tank of a man, Paul Lo Duca hit a home run. I was just telling my brother how crazy it would be if he had–and bam, I checked and presto.