Several times this winter, I’ll sigh and tell my wife how I’d do anything to watch any baseball game — even say, a June snoozer pitting the Brewers against the D-Backs. I’ll mean it, of course — nothing comforts me while staring out the window and waiting for spring. Not winter ball, not Mets Classics, not hot-stove talk, not tending to The Holy Books.
Still, if I had a choice between watching today’s Mets-Phillies game and sulking at the window, I actually think I’d sulk by the window.
The game clocked in at a tidy 2:23 but seemed to take three times that long. Sean Gilmartin was fine but Jerad Eickhoff was better, Darin Ruf hit a massive homer, no Met other than Kirk Nieuwenhuis hit much of anything. Plus it was freezing and I think the uniformed personnel may have outnumbered the spectators.
The amazing thing? I almost went to this game. I hit a big book deadline on Wednesday and have a couple of days before I have to move on to the next project. On Wednesday night, with a little too much prosecco imbibed, it seemed like a grand idea to take the morning train down to Philadelphia for a Mets matinee. This morning, thank God, it seemed like an excess of fuss.
Proof that not every opportunity passed up is one you’ll regret. (Or, as someone put it on Twitter, this was my Carlos Gomez trade.)
So here are the Mets, freshly swept by the Phillies but not booted out of their division title by way of punishment, trying to get all hands healthy and unsuspended and used to bullpen work. They’re tied with the Dodgers for home-field advantage in the NLDS, though recall that a tie goes to the guys in orange and blue. The next three days will settle that, weather permitting. (And if we think a Monday or Tuesday extra game would be inconvenient bordering on cruel, just think how the Nats and their fans would feel about it.)
It would be good to finish even with or ahead of the Dodgers, seeing how they’re much better at Dodger Stadium. But it would be better, I think, to be as healed as possible. We don’t like to admit it, but three games out of five is a crapshoot — just as we don’t like to admit that the entire postseason is a crapshoot.
If the Dodgers get home-field advantage, Mets fandom will of course have a collective stroke. But then that’s going to happen anyway over Yoenis Cespedes‘s fingers and Steven Matz‘s back and Wilmer Flores‘s back and Juan Uribe‘s sternum and Matt Harvey‘s innings and whether it’s Gilmartin or Erik Goeddel or Jon Niese or Bartolo Colon and Juan Lagares or Nieuwenhuis or Eric Young Jr. And Twitter will be the frantic heart monitor paging nurses and doctors with electrified paddles.
Until next Friday and first pitch at a park to be determined, it’s silly season. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a whole heckuva lot better than stale season, when you’re trying to convince yourself that the last dregs of a losing season are to be savored even though you’re secretly ready for a break from baseball. But it’s still silly. We’ll play life-and-death games in a week, but that week of waiting is going to feel even longer than this lost series in Philadelphia did.
So hang in there, rest up, and be kind to each other. And, of course, Let’s Go Mets.
I can’t believe closing weekend is finally here. I got tickets for Sat and Sun about 6 weeks ago, hoping like hell I’d be cheering for the Mets to make the playoffs. Despite the relative lack of drama (other than HFA), I’m still extremely excited. I’ve never seen a live Mets game despite being a fan for over 30 years now. I’m picking up my brother, a fellow fan, in D.C. on the way up from Richmond. Hope that bastard Joaquin will head out to sea without wreaking too much havoc. LGM!!
Enjoy Matt……..hope the weather cooperates for you!
i have a vested interest in hfa: airline tix to bring son home for a weekend nlds game have been purchased. while it’s never a sure thing, at the time it didn’t look like a terrible idea. and i thought, you gotta believe! so i did.
lgm!
My vested interest in HFA is that my wife and I have tickets for a 3rd game at Citi…something that isn’t happening without HFA.
Hope TC gets the memo that the NLDS starts on October 9, after 4 days without any scheduled game. There’s the rest period. Next 3 games should be for keeping sharp, not giving guys garbage time minutes.
This last week has been like the last week of spring training. You just want it to end and move on to the real games.
I think the most important thing about home field is that, given that DeGrom is #1 and Harvey HAS to be #3 (since he can only pitch once per series), that makes Thor #2. And we all know about his struggles (at least, until just lately) on the road.
Personally, I’d be OK with Matz in Game 2 in LA. The Dodgers lineup scares me not. But I doubt TC would do that.
I frankly am very disappointed that they are not going all out to secure home field. Why rest guys now, when they are going to have four days off next week? Bad decision.
And damn those National League All-Stars for ruining our HFA in the World Series. (That is SO dumb.)
I think the Cespedes HBP and the Phillies’ chippy play affected the lineups that ended up out there more than anything else. They came mighty close to a HUGE loss. No reason to risk something stupid against an inexperienced team (who they should have beaten anyway).
Home field advantage might well kill me, since the road games would be during the week in the early morning hours in L.A…. I do love sleeping, y’know?
And please no game 5, kill them in four at most, looks like I have to be someplace (where I have no interest in being) at ten in the morning on the 16th.
Does anyone else feel like Ruf is going to be a burr under our saddle for a while to come?
My husband and I have tix to my first-ever game at Citi Field (and his first live Mets game ever) for tomorrow night. I went to so many games at Shea but this has been such a busy period in my life it has just not been possible to make the trip from Albany until now. We have to get on a bus at 2:30 and will probably have to make a call one way or the other by noon tomorrow. Go away, Joaquin and take your rain and gale-force winds with you!
We knew it would be cold but we never thought about a hurricane
You should say hi to Skid Rowe.
I don’t think the 3rd game in Philadelphia was entirely a throwaway game by Collins. Many of the players in the line-up, including Gilmartin, are fringe considerations for the post-season roster. If the Nationals series will be used mainly for final reps for the shoo-in players, then the 3rd Phillies game was the last chance for an extended look at the fringe considerations.
By and large, Mets fans appreciate that we’ve already won the 2015 season: winning the division resolved unfinished business from 2007 and 2008 and the fairytale way they won the division countered the nightmarish 2007 Mets collapse. We’re at next level now playing with house money. Our current scrutiny of the Mets with Greinke and Kershaw looming and likely to pitch 4 of the 5 games is play-off fun.
Top priority this weekend is fitness to play.
Next priority is dress rehearsal, in other words, last looks for roster decisions, keeping players sharp, and focusing on play-off roles. It’s not either/or between the priorities, but if a player can benefit from extra rest for a nagging injury, that’s the priority. Otherwise, best for them to get final reps.
HFA would be good, but it’s not crucial. The team isn’t designed to favor Citi Field, like the Yankees are often built to hit fly balls to right field. The 2.0 version of the 2015 Mets have played well on the road. I think starting the DS on the road as an underdog can help focus them. Dodgers stadium is a pitcher’s park, which favors the Dodgers aces, but doesn’t disfavor the Mets’ young stud starters.
If the Mets secure HFA, a game on Monday to help players stay sharp closer to the DS can be helpful. 3 days off if the series starts at home is plenty. However, if the Dodgers have HFA, then 3 days off with a travel day to the West Coast, while still enough, would be less helpful.
As far as Harvey’s innings limits, pitching him once per series isn’t a big deal for the DS.
Maybe later in their careers, they would pitch game 4 on short rest, as Kershaw or Greinke likely will, but at this point of their careers, only one Mets pitcher was going to pitch twice in the DS.
If Harvey wasn’t on an innings limit, game 5 would have been a coin flip between he and deGrom anyway. As is, it’ll be deGrom.
Not pitching Harvey twice is a bigger deal for the NLCS and WS, but pitching deGrom, Syndergaard, and Matz twice, and maybe deGrom 3 times with all hands on deck for game 7 isn’t a bad back-up plan.
I wonder if Harvey will be limited to 1 start per series only or if Harvey will start once and then work out of the pen. Any help plugging the gaping hole in the Mets’ middle relief would be good. For that matter, I’d feel better about Harvey setting up Familia than Reed and Clippard.
Harvey striking out McCutchen looking to end the NLCS would be a nice way to close the book on the ending of the 2006 NLCS.
That game was disgraceful. That was an insult to all Met fans. They owe it to the fans to try to secure home field.
I’ve seen better line ups in spring training games then the Mets put out there yesterday! That was a disgrace to all three fans
that were there. That was as bad a lineup as they could possibly put out there.
Were the starters to tired to at least pinch hit and at least act like they were trying to win?
Was Terry afraid of the Phillies and maybe a bean ball war?
Rest? All starters has Sunday off. Monday was a day off. You have four frigging days off next week.
How would you have reacted if David Wright had pulled a hamstring in freezing weather pinch-hitting in a meaningless game against the Phils?
That’s a ridiculous statement to make. Any player can be hurt in any game. Maybe we should sit everybody out this weekend because the field will be wet?
C’mon, it’s not “ridiculous”. Of course, any player can be hurt in any game, but tempting fate when you don’t have to is a little much to ask. If we need a win on Sunday to clinch HFA, that’s a different story.
Everybody can be hurt at any time, anywhere. Anybody remember Ryan Braun striking Jean Segura in the head, swinging a bat on the dugout steps? So then our prized primaries should have stayed at the hotel right away, and far away from electrical appliances, pointy things, and places where you can fall down any distance. And it wouldn’t be quite un-Metsian for Yoenis Cespedes to be struck by a piano falling out of the third floor.
I just don’t know whether it is wise to just let go of even trying for a few games late in the season, then expect everybody to be mentally back at 100% on the 9th. I know they are professionals, and they know what to do, and how, but then everybody thought Papelbon and Harper were professionals as well.
In addition to the weather, Thursday’s game was an especially early day game following an especially late-lasting night game.
SOP is to sit the starting C under those conditions, let alone an injury-prone slumping C, so scratch d’Arnaud.
Several players are beat up and/or require special handling in an especially early day game following a night game in poor weather. So scratch Cespedes’s hand, Flores’s back, Wright’s back, Duda’s back, Murphy’s quad (plus Collins says Murphy’s been beat up by foul balls off his legs), and Uribe’s chest.
Without special consideration, it was reasonable for Collins to sit his starting C, 1B, 2B, 3B, CF, and platoon SS.
That leaves Granderson, Conforto, and the other platoon SS, Tejada, as regulars. Conforto and Tejada started the game. Granderson is the only starter who stood out for sitting, but he’s an older veteran, too.
Lagares, Cuddyer, Johnson, and Plawecki will likely be on the DS roster. Lagares and Cuddyer will likely have important roles against the Dodgers’ lefties, especially Kershaw. Thursday’s game was an opportunity to give them reps.
Campbell and Nieuwenhuis are fringe considerations for the DS roster, but if Uribe can’t go, there’s a good chance one of them will be the replacement. The Thursday game allowed a longer look at them.
Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s games were not well played. Wednesday’s game was especially ugly. By sitting them together, Collins also may have been delivering a slight rebuke with the implied message that his starters need to re-focus.
Nice analysis.
They owned the Phillies this year…You put your foot on the gas and keep it there!! There will be plenty of time for rest after October..The Dodgers are very beatable on the road but real tough at home!! All of the remaining games , after the clincher, are important..
This is a given..Fla Rich is right on the money…
They barely dodged Cespedes getting hurt, and were playing a team that was clearly up for a brawl (and was carrying a grudge from the last time they played). I understand the sentiment, but the Mets had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Actually, they have the home field to gain, but the risk was more than the reward.
I hope the Mets remember this NEXT year and pay them back accordingly (and they need to put a sock in Cameron Rupp), but I think they were right to play the caution card here.
Matz’s back is still hurting. Word is he won’t pitch again in the regular season, which places his DS role in question.
The tentative back-up plan is Colon picking up Matz’s presumed game 4 start. I wonder whether Niese is a candidate to pick up Matz’s start given his leftiness and his poor results so far as a lefty specialist.
I also wonder whether the Mets will reconsider doubling up in game 4 with the game 1 starter on short rest as well as in game 5 with the game 2 starter on regular rest.
I think HFA matters a lot, and it would give this team an additional confidence boost going into the DS. It is beyond me how anyone could not think it very important, and would rather treat these games like Spring Training games.
These crazy injuries are not due to over-use, including Wright, Duda, Murphy, Flores, Matz, Cespedes, etc., etc., etc. Take off the bubble wrap and let these guys play.
BTW, Flores now has strep throat. You can’t make this stuff up.
2nd or even 3rd guess:
How come no Colon in the Philly game where they blew the 5-0 lead? Isn’t he one of the ‘trusted?’
Colon started the day before.
I love it when I’m right. Thanks eric 1973!