In fact, I would like my money back, please.
What’s that? I listened to it on the radio, which is free?
Oh. WELL, THEN IT WAS WORTH EXACTLY WHAT I PAID.
/ fumes for a while
What’s that? You want a discussion of significant events? What on earth for?
Posterity?
Yeah, there is that, though I have trouble imagining there ever being a time when I’ll think to myself, “I’d really like to remember that dull, teeth-grinding July 2010 game in Arizona in which the Mets lost by one and it felt like 100.” Perhaps not even if I’d done something really bad and was being fitted for a noose. But OK, posterity. Josh Thole and Angel Pagan hit home runs in the late innings to put a little lipstick on a pig of a loss. You know Josh Thole, right? He’s the young catcher whose roster spot is in the crosshairs, despite the fact that he can hit and get on base without hitting, unlike Rod Barajas who at the moment can’t do the former and has never shown any ability to do the latter. Yeah, so Thole went deep. And so did Pagan — the same Pagan who’s shifted over to right field for Carlos Beltran, despite ominous signs that Beltran is missing at least a step and maybe two or three, and we’d all be better off (at least for the moment) with him not trying to cover all that ground on a knee that isn’t 100% yet.
I am not being a bringdown. A bringdown is watching the Atlanta Braves vanish into a distant point of light against the darkening sky of the NL East. (Yes, the same Braves we once upon a time passed in the standings for a sunny technicality of an afternoon, but suddenly that was a long time ago.) A bringdown is hanging one-handed from the rickety ladder of the wild card while teams scramble past you, stepping on your fingers and head in passing. A bringdown is sighing about Jerry Manuel and wondering if Jason Bay will ever show up and worrying about Mike Pelfrey and bracing yourself for Oliver Perez. Those are bringdowns, not….
Actually you’re right, I am being a bringdown.
We could dissect this one further, but I could also knee you in the kidneys repeatedly if we were crammed into a crowded subway car together. You’d put up with that once, maybe twice, but definitely not a third time. You’d be like, “Dude, that really hurts — cut it out!” So even though we’re not in a crowded subway car together and I haven’t been actually kneeing you in the kidneys, you’re right that friends shouldn’t inflict pain on friends. So I’m going to stop, and we’re going to go our separate ways, and we’ll all meet up here tomorrow night at some horrid West Coast hour, and perhaps things will be better.
I woke up this morning at 5am to refresh my blackberry and start the new day only to find the Mets have blown the opportunity of a lifetime. 6 straight games against the D-BACKS while the Phillies have the Cards and the Braves have the Dodgers? I like our chances! So what do I do next, like I do every morning? Check out the box score, to discover trends. Sure enough, there’s Thole, who when I watched him against the Nats (Yes, the game that Francisco Rodriguez, as I refuse to call him “K-Rod”, blew), we all laughed, “He’s batting .500! Sure, he only had like 4 at bats at the time. Well, he’s STILL batting .500, he’s young, he’s a CATCHER, he hits for power, hits in the clutch, and get’s on base even when he doesn’t hit! So what’s the logical solution? SEND HIM TO THE MINORS AND BRING UP THE WORST THING TO THE METS SINCE… well, a lot of shitty things happen to the Mets so I can’t come up with a witty anecdote, but I can deal with fate screwing us, or bad luck, it’s part of the charm of being a Met’s fan. But bringing this pain on US, well, more so brought to you Manual, Manaya, and the Wilpons (or as I refer to them, the Axis of Moron, honestly, is there a more detached trifecta of leadership in the league today leading a SHOULD BE competitive baseball team?)
Thole wasn’t sent down, Justin what’s-his-nose was.
But yeah, I’m on the West Coast, and *I* don’t want to watch this shit either. I do know, however, that they can’t be this bad; it’s just that Beltran is rusty (as we probably suspected he’d be) and almost everyone else is slumping too. You don’t win a lot of games scoring an average of 1.5 a game.
The Dodgers are pretty much our mirror image (or is that doppelganger?) right now: lots of talent, very streaky, key injuries, wobbly starting pitching, questionable managerial strategy (did you see where Don Mattingly “forgot” he’d already been out to the mound once and had to take Broxton out the second time he went up there, even though he wasn’t planning to?). This weekend’s series could be the ultimate baseball war of attrition.
Actually, my bad. What happened (per True Blue LA) in the Dodgers-Giants game was this: Mattingly (filling in for Torre, who was ejected during a beanball war) went to the mound to talk to Broxton and then headed back toward the dugout. But when he got to the infield grass, James Loney asked him a question, and Mattingly turned around to answer him, and Bochy claimed that that counted as a second visit to the mound and therefore Broxton had to be removed. The umpires agreed with Bochy.
How embarrassing. And this was in LA, too. I’ll bet the fans there lost their shit over that one. Possible Mets-related repercussion: Could be some Dodger suspensions this weekend over the beanball war.
Personally I have stopped watching until they come back home..Really there is no point to it.It is literally a waste of my time..Life is too short.
Rich P
I don’t think anyone can be surprised that this bout of bad baseball has coincided with Beltran and Castillo’s return to the team with Ollie looming in the near future. The Mets may look like a more talented team with these guys on the roster but as the first half showed they are simply a better team without these guys around. I wonder how long it will take Jerry and management to realize it. If they do at all.
How dead is dead?
As dead as vaudeville, that’s how dead.
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“I listened to it on the radio”
Hi Jason,
So did most of us since technical difficulties KO’d the game on TV for at least the first two innings which caused me to turn on the radio and close my eyeballs. Those on SNY began just before the first pitch, shortly before the Mets developed their own technical difficulties being unable to score after Reyes and Pagan led off with singles and eventually loading the bases with only one out.
Unless they get things fixed real soon, looks like the season will also go down due to technical difficulties as well.
I tuned in late at the end of the technical difficulties and decided to stick with radio. The Mets’ technical difficulties offered no such choices.
A healthy Carlos Beltran makes that play 99 times out of a hundred.
You know, the losses to Lincecum and Zito were tough, but at least you could tell that those two guys were pitching really, really well. But Barry Enright holding the team scoreless through 7 innings with only 85 pitches?
No disrespect, but who?
This whole thing about Reyes being the sparkplug for the team–sure he brings energy and enthusiasm. But, more than that, when he gets on base, he seems to remind everyone to be patient at the plate, to give guys on the basepaths a chance to do their thing, and to focus on moving guys over and getting one run at a time.
I swear, lately it’s like everyone is swinging out of their shoes at pitches in the dirt with 1-2 counts. Hitting into double plays at 3-1. There’s several legitimate power threats in this lineup, but lately it looks like they’re all trying to hit solo home runs for seven innings every night, and it’s just really damn ugly to watch. This team just isn’t built that way.
I see this team returning to the bad old days of 2008-09
1) The lineup consists of nine individual batters that have not worked in concert with each other. The high OBP guys aren’t really getting on base. The power hitters have less juice than a an orange left in the Arizona sun for two days. Our home runs, when they come, are solo shots because the people in front of them are hitting lazy pop-ups and routine grounders. Our halves of the inning are just three outs till the pitcher re-takes the mound. We’re making has been veterans and rookies look like Cy Young favorites.
2) Our pitching has been spotty at best, except in a few cases where stellar performances are matched up with flaccid bats at the plate. When was the last time our closer put two three-up-three-down ninth innings? I still believe in Pelfrey, but woof. Dickies and Niese have been a big piece of luck, but, as Cohen pointed out the other night, without their surprise efforts this team would not even be in contention for third place in the NL East.
3) In May and June this team felt like a team. A tight team more than the sum of its parts. Everyone pulled their weight and looked to pick up the other guy. Now it feels that everyone is looking for the other guy to pick them up.
I don’t have the answers for these problems. I doubt Jerry and Omar do either. All I know is that the trade deadline is coming up without much room to make changes. The Phillies are in tough shape but they have the room to make trades, including for players that might help us. That and that we’re a horrible road team for no really good reason.
Barry Enright’s performance (alas) should have generated some allusions to the game show producing team of Barry & Enright, e.g., he had great “Concentration” and was hitting the “Bullseye” all night. Mets were hoping for something more like “The Joker’s Wild.”
[…] I Did Not Enjoy Tonight’s Baseball Game » […]
@ Rich P: I agree. The team is unwatchable on the road. And..Oh goody..we get the 4 PM Saturday FOX game…..As B&C said on the FAN this AM, we’ll know by August 13 or so, what this team is gonna do. personally, I’ve said 80-82 since March, so the early season success was a nice surprise. Like I tell my son, they’re only 6 1/2 out and it’s not even August. Everyone needs to chill.