Last year the Mets looked kind of OK in the early going. On May 26 they lost a horrific 5-3 game to the Pirates, dropping their record to 22-28, but then won six of their next seven, including three of four in Philadelphia, lifting their record to 28-29. So they rolled into Chicago to take on the hapless Cubs, and all in all we were feeling pretty good about things. Win the series and they’d be at .500, and then we’d see.
They lost all three games at Wrigley. In the opener Zack Wheeler [1] flirted with a no-hitter, which he didn’t get (if he had we’d all remember), but the Mets took a 1-0 lead to the eighth. Chris Coghlin hit a home run off Josh Edgin [2] and the lead was gone. In the bottom of the ninth some lousy Mets defense and lousy Scott Rice [3] pitching lost the game [4]. The next day the roof caved in on Daisuke Matsuzaka [5], Dana Eveland [6] and Jeurys Familia [7] in the fifth and the Cubs won 5-4. In the finale the Mets erased a 4-0 deficit, after which Vic Black [8] immediately gave up a home run to Anthony Rizzo [9]. Two more runs scored off Jenrry Mejia [10] in the ninth and the Mets were toast. They slumped off to San Francisco and lost all three games. From that point on, 2014 became a narrative about what would happen in some other year.
Which brings us to this year’s visit to Wrigley.
Matt Harvey [11] didn’t have a no-hitter to flirt with, but he was pretty amazing anyway, carving up Cubs and leaving with a 1-0 lead. Carlos Torres [12] came on in the eighth and gave up a game-tying single to Dexter Fowler [13], then got into trouble again in the ninth. The Mets summoned Familia, sent Johnny Monell [14] in to catch for the first time in orange and blue (he did fine), and even tried various five-man infields, but Familia gave up a bases-loaded, one-out walk to Coghlan and we were beaten [15].
We’ve lost three in a row at Wrigley (and, IIRC, the last 452,315), we’re scoring less than three runs a game in May, and the Nationals are just 1.5 games behind us.
Blame the cruelty Terry Collins [16] has inflicted on Torres’s arm. Blame the spaghetti-at-the-wall nature of relievers. Blame the inert bats. Blame the pretty decent ballclub currently occupying the DL. I don’t want to get into the blame game. I just want to not think about this game, or the Cubs, or Wrigley Field, or how this series feels exactly like the last time we arrived at Wrigley Field with pretensions of being something other than a first draft of something a long way from completion.
If you’ve had your fill of Wrigley like I have, too bad. They’ll be back at it at 2 p.m. tomorrow. So SNY told me while I was still reeling. The promo should have come with a trigger warning.