The blog for Mets fans
who like to read

ABOUT US

Greg Prince and Jason Fry
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.

Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.

Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.

Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. (Sorry, but we have no interest in ads, sponsored content or guest posts.)

Need our RSS feed? It's here.

Visit our Facebook page, or drop by the personal pages for Greg and Jason.

Or follow us on Twitter: Here's Greg, and here's Jason.

When You Forfeit You Only Lose 9-0

That was going through my head as the Mets trudged to the plate for the top of the ninth: Gee, we’d have been beaten less badly if Terry Collins had run up the white flag a while back. The fact that Ike Davis and Jason Pridie held down the pig and rubbed some home-run lipstick on it before everybody got to go back to the hotel didn’t make me feel particularly differently.

Ryan Howard demolished us. So did somebody with the no-really name of Vance Worley. Ronny Paulino made his Mets debut, possibly after being coaxed back from standing alongside the highway with his thumb out and a sign reading ANYWHERE BUT HERE. Because yeah, it was that kind of night. A Mike Pelfrey Doesn’t Have It kind of night. A Dillon Gee Doesn’t Have It Either kind of night. A Why Am I Wasting a Perfectly Decent Friday Night On This Goddamn Debacle kind of night.

Those kind of nights happen when you’re a baseball fan. If you’re committed enough (or perhaps just numb enough), you stick around because you want to see another backup catcher make the all-time roster, or because it would feel like the smallest of moral victories to deny the other guys a shutout, or because a sophomore player’s modest hitting streak might become slightly less modest. And I suppose these are good things, even admirable in some way. Perhaps they’re money in the karma bank for use in games like the win against the Nats. Or perhaps they’re just evidence that we’re hopeless addicts. Either way, it’s too late. The Mets win and we watch and cheer rapturously. They lose and we watch and cheer for whatever we can find. It’s why I’m writing this and why you’re reading it. It’s what we do.

But even addicts can make good choices now and again. And I’m going to make one now: The Mets lost, it was bad, and we’re going to stop talking about it. Tomorrow’s another day.

4 comments to When You Forfeit You Only Lose 9-0

  • Andee

    Seriously, though…is Pelfrey toast now? Yeah, I know he had the flu, but he did last time too, and he wasn’t this bad. He’s been terrible in every start except one; yeah, probably unlucky too, BABIP fairy, etc. etc. But also bad. And since he’s a Boras client, will probably refuse a Buffalo assignment, since Boras will take every possible opportunity to burn us. Bah.

    • He’s no longer a member of Jaison D’Etres, at least. Replaced him with Mike Leake. Yes, Pelf, you’ve been bumped for someone with a shoplifting issue.

  • Florida Met Fan Rich

    Well that run was exactly what I expected it was!…We can beat the really crappy teams then we are going to “Get Run” by the real teams!

    It was fun and exciting to go on that winning streak but it was the ASTROS-D-BACKS & NATS!

    I guess we are back to “Let’s try not to get swept mode”!

    Pelf has been bad since spring training! He is off with his mechanics and I’m sure by now it is way in his head!….Take some pressure off him, he was never a #1 pitcher anyway.

  • Dave

    Butt ugly. My wife and daughter wanted to watch the royal wedding postgame show all night and our other TV is on the fritz, and I didn’t mind missing most of this one.

    And why is it, no matter what year it is, no matter who’s in the lineup, no matter where we are in the standings, one surefire way to completely silence the Mets’ bats is to bring up a guy from the minors…doesn’t matter if he’s even a real prospect or not. We’ll make him look like Koufax.