So were you doing your job this time, or is this another fake recap where you use fancy writing to dress up the fact that you only watched half an inning?
This time around I listened to half an inning while in a rental car on the way to Logan Airport. Does that answer your question?
It does. Which half-inning was it?
The one in which Noah Syndergaard [1] somehow walked in the tying run.
The bad one, then.
One of the bad ones.
Were you aware that Jacob deGrom [2] had gone on the DL at that point?
No, not until Howie and Josh told me. That was the same inning in which I learned Yoenis Cespedes [3] had come out of the game with hip tightness or imminent death or whatever the hell it was. Oh, and Josh made much of the fact that Syndergaard apparently no longer gets swings and misses with his 97-MPH fastball.
And what was your reaction to all that?
Despair, and a reminder that one baseball game was not worth launching the rental car off the expressway to end as a flaming wreck somewhere in Medford.
What do you make of all this buzzards’ luck we’ve having?
That the season is long. That streaks happen and we are helpless to control our emotions while inside them. That the Mets might quite possibly be cursed. That I am an utter fool for letting what they do dictate any part of my happiness.
Did you note that we got beat by two solo shots hit by Ian Desmond [4]?
I did note that … wait, where are you going with this?
Is it true that Ian Desmond is on your fantasy baseball team?
It is.
Did you start him today?
I did not.
Did you not start him because he was facing the Mets?
No. I don’t do that. I let my fantasy team be my fantasy team. I don’t bench guys against my real team. Nor do I do that despicable bullshit of saying, well, “I hope the Mets beat my starter, but only by a 2-1 score and the one is a solo shot by that other guy on my fantasy team.” People who do that are terrible and should be horsewhipped.
So why didn’t you start Desmond?
Because I didn’t, OK?
How’d your fantasy-baseball matchup turn out?
Last I checked I was tied for home runs and down one in both runs and RBIs.
So if you’d started Desmond…
Just shut up.
Sorry, it’s just that —
It’s just that WHAT? That the Mets are so fucking Metsy at the moment that they got Metsiness all over my fantasy team too? Is that what you want me to fucking say?
Dude, calm down. And anyway, I don’t think ‘Metsiness’ is a word.
And I don’t think that was a question.
Fair enough. Still, you did predict the appearance of P.J. Conlon [5]. That’s a little spooky, isn’t it?
Possibly.
And you invoked Hansel Robles [6] as Ol’ Point to the Sky. Also spooky, no?
Predicting Hansel Robles will do something negative isn’t exactly the stuff of oracular greatness.
Did he point to the sky on Desmond’s second homer?
I was too disheartened to check. Hang on, let me look.
And?
He fucking pointed to the sky.
So should we believe you’re some kind of prophet?
If I could see the future, I would have found some other team to root for the moment they finished cleaning up after the World Series parade in October 1986. But I can’t, so I didn’t. And now I’m ride or die with this miserable fucking ballclub as they lose and get hurt and lose and walk in runs and lose and fail to hit and lose and point to the fucking sky and lose and lose and lose and lose [7].
Well. You seem like you need a moment. Maybe we should leave things there.
Yes, I think we’d better.