This week's sign of the apocalypse: The Mets have to win a game.
If the Mets don't win this afternoon, they will have been swept by their closest pursuers. They will still be in first, they will lead the Phillies by two games and they will enter September no worse than ahead of the pack. But a five-game losing streak is no springboard for a trip to Turner Field.
Must-win games are Game Six and such. This isn't that. But the Mets really oughta win today. I don't mean that in the betting line sense. I mean they would do themselves a world of good by scoring more runs than the Phillies and concomitantly surrendering fewer. They might remember the sensation from the last time El Duque pitched. It wasn't really more than five days ago. It just seems like it.
Time to stop pussyfooting around. Lead by four, not by two. Go to Atlanta on a one-game winning streak, not amid unfolding disaster. Play like the team we know you are.
There. That's the pep talk. I'll most likely be finding out after the fact whether it's done any good, for I am off to do a little advance scouting. I've left a couple of heat & eat posts in the fridge for the weekend. Just take 'em out, stick 'em in the microwave and dig in.
Good advice as to how to handle the Phillies and Braves.
Have a great trip!
I went to see Hall & Oates last night and didn't watch any baseball. That must be why I'm in such a good mood today.
Must say, though, that although I'm pretty sure Daryl Hall barely knows what a balk is, he performed a song off one of his solo albums that he probably hadn't sung in about 20 years, that couldn't help but remind me of the Mets: “You're living in dreamtime, it's time to wake up…”
Greg,
You make it sound so simple.
Does Willie read FAFIF?
They gotta change the name of that ballpark to “W.C. Field.” At this point,. Mets fans would rather be dead than in Philadelphia.
Well, I hope the Mets have been listening to the radio while in Philly. This from today's gloating email (and there have been several this week, as you can imagine) from my friend Gina the Phils Phan:
“They're now talking about broom etiquette while riding the subway to the game tonight on our news radio station. SWEEP! Can lightning strike 4 times in the same park?”
I want to think that makes them as alternately nauseous and angry and embarrassed as it makes me.
What a friggin' nightmare.
Oh my God we fucking suck.
I'm going to go drown myself in the Hudson River. Greg will take you the rest of the way to Hell. Good luck everybody.
I'M RIGHT BEHIND YOU.
“Play like the team we know you are.”
Well Greg, I think we know what this team is–an overpaid, underachieving, passionless, aging yet at the same time inexperienced collection of players who seem to think that a playoff berth is their destiny and something they've already earned with what happened in 2006.
Best thing that could happen is that they get swept in Atlanta too. Maybe that will wake them up.
MEMO
To: Willie Randolph
From: Common Sense
Re: Pat Burrell
WALK… HIS… A$$. EVERY SINGLE TIME.
See also: Jones, Chipper
In-game posts are Teh Shizzel, especially those that threaten immediate self-defenestration into roiling bodies of water. Keep it up, Jason and Laurie! I'll see you two drownings and raise you a purposeful choking on spoiled shrimp.
This game is making my doctor very happy. He's always worried about my low blood pressure.
Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE ENDY???
Man, this game has turned into one heck of a barnburner!!
If my doctor knew I was following this game, he'd totally tell me to stop. I'm gonna get a stroke for damn sure.
Careful, Laurie, it's not over yet. We're still on “Billy Wagner sucks” until he records five more outs.
And Pat Burrell makes me wish beanings didn't result in instant suspensions these days. ARRRRRGH.
Billy Wagner doesn't suck. PAT BURRELL SUCKS.
Dude, there is NO excuse to EVER pitch to that S.O.B. unless bases are loaded with a tie score in the 9th of Game 7. How many years of this will it take before SOMEONE finally gets it?!
Question: How the F**K are we ahead of this team in the standings to begin with? Mother of God, they're frightening. I kid you not when I say I am on the verge of throwing up.
[is slowly being eaten by fishes]
Dude, all you gotta do is swim to LBI by the day after tomorrow!
How can it be less than a week ago when the Mets were the all-conquering, “running away with the division” guys?
This season has given me vertigo & nausea.
Sweet Jesus, I need this week off…
Has anyone else noticed the team hasn't been worth a shit since they mailed out the playoff tix vouchers?
I blame Newsday and their fucking Magic Number countdown. Somehow it's Wallace Matthews' fault.