Pour yourself two fingers of your favorite morning beverage (or perhaps something stronger; no judgments) and drink to the digital flexibility of Yoenis Cespedes…and to the postseason not being over before it begins.
Cespedes is nursing a bruise that covers his left ring and middle fingers after his hand got in the way of a Justin De Fratus pitch in the third inning of Wednesday night’s Citizens Bank slog. As he knelt in obvious pain, the 2015 NLDS flashed before our eyes and it was over in a blink. When word emerged three innings later that the X-ray review ruled it a contusion — and that contusion is a fancy word for bruise — it appeared the republic would survive to fight another day.
Let’s hope Yoenis followed Keith Hernandez’s sage advice and iced the fudge out of those fingers overnight. And let’s hope Cespedes responds to this HBP the way characters on your Gilligan’s Island-type sitcoms would respond when conked on the noggin a second time. Our slugger/savior, it will be recalled, was merrily bopping along, having blasted 17 home runs in just over a month’s time (enough to lead nine previous Met squads in homers over the course of their full seasons), when he took a pitch to the hip on September 15. He hasn’t homered since.
“If hitting him with a pitch turned off his power,” the Professor might have theorized to the Skipper, “Hitting him again might turn it back on. I know it’s unorthodox, but it may be our only hope.” At which point the Skipper apologizes to his Little Buddy before whapping him on the coconut with a coconut. And somehow the radio works again, even if you probably can’t get WOR very well in the middle of the Pacific (or many other places) and even if nobody is rescued until somebody thinks to make a TV movie more than a decade later.
The crew of the S.S. Minnow set out on a three-hour cruise, or for one hour fewer than Wednesday night’s ball of contusion lasted. Otherwise, the whole affair seemed to be an uncanny remake of The Flushing Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island. A tropical storm loomed; every Mets baserunner from the second inning onward wound up a castaway; the “I’m telling you, Steven Matz is going to be seaworthy when the time comes” plot point sprang another leak; and Hansel Robles portrayed a pretty unconvincing headhunter.
Hard to believe the episode started frothily enough, with the Mets plastering five runs on the scoreboard in the top of the first, as Daniel Murphy and Michael Conforto each took Alec Asher on a tour of the many lovely areas beyond the Citizens Bank Park outfield fence. At 5-0, it shaped up as the most laughable of laughers. The audience simply assumed that against the bottom-dwelling Phillies we’d soon have a 90th win (not quite); an additional leg up for home field advantage (nope, though the Dodgers lost, so we still lead that mini-race by one length); and a relaxing evening to enjoy that rare state of grace between clinching a title and battling for a bigger one (alas, Wednesday’s 7-5 loss dropped the Mets’ lifetime record to 34-17 in regular-season contests they’ve played as a playoff qualifier — why, yes, there is a stat for everything).
When the shining highlight of your baseball game is your best player being hit in the hand but not so badly that anything was broken, it can be definitively stated that nothing good happened. Except that the game eventually ended. That was pretty good. And a week from today, should Cespedes find himself gripping a bat free of pain in playoff competition, that will be a victory.
At least this confirmed that we don’t ever have to watch Bobby Parnell “pitch” again, right? RIGHT?!?!?
Not after October 4 and not before April 4.
I don’t want to come off as a Parnell sympathizer (I’ll throw O’Flaherty in here as well) — they have been AWFUL. But sometimes guys like this take a little longer to make it all the way back from surgery. The two guys I’ll cite here are Pat Neshek and, closer to home, J.J. Putz, both of whom struggled similarly during their recoveries before pulling it together and reeling off a few all-star caliber seasons (Neshek being a key part of Houston’s pen now).
It has been painful to watch, and these guys clearly are not going to help in the post-season, but I would hesitate to run them out of town just yet because if they get closer to their healthy performance level they can help the 2016 Mets, and it’s happened before.
I’d be willing to sign Parnell to a non-guaranteed contract, bring him to Spring Training on an invite and see if maybe after another few months of recovery he can become a useful major league pitcher again. But part of that is just loyalty to a guy who has served the organization well in the past. Not sure I’d show O’Flaherty the same courtesy though…he’s the closest a lefty can get to a dime a dozen.
Great point about Parnell, Rob. As a fan, it can be frustrating at times to see a player when he’s struggling, but you have to take each of these cases separately and realize that not everyone of them recovers the same way. For one thing, I’ll never criticize any of these guys, since they are playing at the highest level possible, something I’ve never come close to doing. Second, when you consider that they have had their arms cut open, rehabbing for over a year, and striving to perform like they have in the past, its almost mind boggling the expectations put on them.
While Parnell is a no-go for the play-offs, I agree it’s too early to write off Parnell in terms of his career. I could see him resurrecting his career as soon as next season, and if he does, there’ll be room for him in the Mets bullpen.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the same can be said for lefty Parnell, who’s a few years removed from his TJ surgery.
It’s also a cautionary lesson about setting expectations for Wheeler’s return from TJ surgery next summer.
I really don’t want to be mean here, but hasn’t Parnell become this year’s human surrender flag? The only thing he did this year that I liked was chuckle at my Thor’s hammer and horned helmet when I visited the Trop in August.
Good lord, was last night a bucket of cold water or what?
Time for Terry’s little talk…similar to the end of July one when he told them to produce in order to be on the line up. Time to focus and play like division champs, not chumps.
My last remaining regular-season goal for the team is 90 wins. I had hoped they’d check it off in Philly.
I wonder how much of a fight the Nationals will put up for pride’s sake in order to prevent the Mets from reaching 90 wins.
Boy, am I glad that my wife and I had dinner plans with friends last night at a place that, like any good French restaurant, allowed you to linger over your meal. Otherwise I would have been home watching that dumpster fire.
As long as we don’t task the Professor with the job of fixing the damn boat, which never even seemed to occur to him, we should be fine. But I think the boat’s OK, just need to fine-tune the coconuts.
yeesh. feeling beat at game time the first indeed looked like a laugher…i woke up to conforto making a nice catch at the wall. only heard later about cespedes’ getting hit -though i did catch hansel’s buzzing of the tower.
what a waste of energy in an empty park, on a cold, damp calm-before-the-floodwatch evening.
greg, your gilligan’s island take on turning of cespedes’ power off – and then on again – made me laugh. nervous laughter, certainly, but it’s a start.
everybody knows about the anti-inflammatory and healing power of ice, right? even the mets training staff?
The only bit of levity in last night’s mess was Ron’s comment on the length of the game, delivered during late-inning crowd footage of an infant: “He’s Benjamin Button, he was 80 years old when he got here.”
Well, there was the part where Ron observed that he had never seen an umpire’s balls fall out of his sack before.
I laughed from the bottom of my teen-aged soul at that one. And I’m soon to be 51. Didn’t help that the camera guy’s closeup of Davidson’s “sack” brought to the forefront that it indeed looked like a sac.
Worse loss since that afternoon rain delayed debacle against San Diego…People ask me how I think they will do in the post season..I just say , its all up to the bullpen!!
Didn’t see this high speed wreck, but caught the sparsely attended lunch affair today. But…
Wow.
Mets rolled out their replacement level lineup again, and the Phillies seem to have more pitching than the Reds. Are we intentionally handing home field advantage in the NLDS to the Dodgers?
I agree it would have been good to bank HFA before the weekend series. But I think HFA would benefit us fans more than the team. The 2.0 version of the 2015 Mets seem like the type that would embrace taking the fight to the Dodgers, Kershaw, and Greinke in their house.
Since Saturday, Collins has been breaking new ground in his managerial career. This season is his first managing a play-off team, though he’s coached on play-off teams. It’ll be interesting to judge Collins as a 1st-time post-season manager. That includes judging how he finishes the regular season with an eye on the play-offs.
My take is the players didn’t need another day off today physically, but Collins pushed the button for a team-wide mental reset.
With 4 days off between game 162 and game 1, they don’t need more time off. They need reps. I expect them to play better in the Nationals series with the understanding that the it’s their dress rehearsal for the DS. I expect the ‘A’ line-up to accompany the ‘A’ pitchers.
If the Mets pull out the HFA, that’ll be good. If they don’t, not a big deal. The Dodgers are beating the Giants right now so it looks like they’ll pull even record-wise with the Mets.
Also, it stood out that Collins didn’t use Herrera, unlike the day after clinching, and the line-up included several players speculated to be on the bubble for the last 1-2 play-off roster spots.
I figured Collins rolled out the replacement lineup this afternoon because the team found out late yesterday that today’s game would be played seven hours early to avoid a potential rainout. Then last night’s game turned out to be four hours of hot mess. Man that game was the worst. It was nothing but injury scares, a billion pitching changes, a half-hearted ejection, and one of those new benches-clearing non-brawls, all culminating in a loss to the Phillies in front of no crowd. Ugh. Wasn’t it raining for most of the game too? I agree that everyone probably needs reps more than rest right now, but you’re also right about the need for a reset after that thing.
I’ll chalk up the position players’ malaise to post-clinch lack of focus.
I hope Matz’s fragileness is just a rookie phase.
I’m relieved there’s no broken bone this time like d’Arnaud’s HBP injury.
The spate of hurt backs is worrisome, but they don’t appear (yet) to be threatening play-off availability. Uribe’s more-serious-than-originally-believed injury, which is common with the Mets, is more worrisome.
What I got out of the game in terms of the play-offs is more corroboration that the Mets bullpen is the chief vulnerability. Niese does not look like the answer. Basically, the hope is the starters will go 7 and hand a clean 8 and 9 to Reed/Clippard and Familia.
No sense of urgency with Mr Collins..these are all big games down the stretch-or one would presume?Its a good thing the nats are having a crappy season..Another throw away pancake performance…
Fine, don’t blame Parnell (who lost his closer job 3 times when he was healthy —- love revisionist history). He didn’t put himself in the game. Did anyone really expect a different result?
Why would TC not go all out (or semi-out) to win that game (see use of Robles/Parnell, who are only used to mop up now and are no longer used in ‘high-leverage’ situations).
And then today trot out the MAY-JUN lineup. HFA perhaps not a priority —- so be it.
I think we would all enjoy working for Dennis and Rob E., where low expectations and even lower job production is praised to high heaven, and just showing up is good enough.
And we would also get job security for the rest of our lives.
In fact, we should have left Mayberry hitting cleanup, as certainly he would have come out of his slump, he being a major leaguer and all.
Sounds good eric…..you’re hired! I’m sure you’ve had plenty of MLB experience to know what it’s like to perform on such a high level. Remember……playing wiffle ball in your Mom and Dad’s backyard doesn’t count.
Not sure why you have such a problem with me and Rob ‘s objective opinion on Parnell. You might want to go back and see that neither of us suggested he should have been in the game or that he pitched well. But if this constant criticism of us and Mets players makes your day….then I’m glad to have been of service. I do have to ask……do you truly enjoy watching this team play?
For your information, I was the best back-up third baseman on my Little League team that won the PAL championship in 1977… So obviously I know what it takes. :)
More interesting, I was on the same team with Wayne Rosenthal, who pitched for a year and a half with Texas and Boston, and who was Jack McKeon’s pitching coach for the 2003 Marlins team that beat the Yankees in the WS. Great that he helped beat the Yankees!!!!!!!!