A day game right after a bad loss is often a good thing — right back at em, rinse that bad taste out of our mouths, and what-not. The Mets will put that baseball truism to the test in a couple of hours, and most likely give us a reason to doubt it the way this season’s made us doubt all sorts of conventional wisdom. (Turns out an 11-1 start, while recommended, is less help than you think.)
We’ll record the particulars out of historical duty and then decorously move on. Zack Wheeler [1] looked pretty good but got undone by some soft contact and then got tired. Paul Sewald [2], once thought of as reliable in a reasonably good way, gave up a game-killing grand slam to Ozzie Albies [3] and cemented his new reputation as being reliable in Roblesian fashion. Albies, we were told, was slumping and going through young-player doldrums, which now seems fixed. Jay Bruce [4] had a good game in a way that no longer matters. Johan Camargo [5] made a beauty of a double play. Dominic Smith [6] is here and still thin. Mickey Callaway [7] was ejected for the first time for arguing an overruled hit-by-pitch that Brandon Nimmo [8] leaned into, a call the umps made correctly.
And I think that covers it [9].
The most interesting news came from Sandy Alderson, quizzed by the beat scribes about various and sundry. Noah Syndergaard [10] and Yoenis Cespedes [11] aren’t coming back as quickly as we’d like, which if translated to Latin would make an appropriate Mets motto. A.J. Ramos is dead, basically. Sandy is aware of Peter Alonso [12]‘s minor-league heroics. The Reyes decision will be made on the merits, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And, reading between the lines a bit, while the Mets aren’t considering a full teardown, they’re going to be evaluating where they are.
It was that last that made me sad. I don’t think the Mets should go full rebuild, actually — they still have the young, cost-controlled core a team tries to find as a foundation for more. But it is pretty clear that this year will be like last year, ending with veterans sent off for lottery tickets, potential prospects standing on the field looking wide-eyed, and injured guys returning to tepid acknowledgment. That’s not the end of the baseball world — it happens, even to teams that aren’t the Mets, and it’s not an illogical course of action. But it’s sad to have that scenario already creeping into view in mid-June, in a season that started with such promise.
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If you want to feel better, watch this [13]. It’s video of Terry Collins [14] losing his mind after Syndergaard’s 2016 ejection for throwing behind Chase Utley [15], with umpire Tom Hallion trying to defuse the situation. I love it because everyone involved acts exactly the way I’d expect: Terry swears with impressive venom and is adorably old school and unhinged, Noah would rather just get back to hurling baseballs, and Neil Walker [16] is weirdly polite. Baseball, man.