The Mets lost, this time not with the thunder of a bullpen avalanche but with the merest whimper. Steven Matz had one of his games where he shows up for duty in the second inning instead of the first, the offense began and ended with a solo home run, and Amed Rosario had a wretched inning at shortstop. That was enough for them to be beaten rather thoroughly, slinking home after a 2-5 West Coast trip that saw two agonizing bullpen collapses, the usual number of Mickey Callaway head-scratchers, and altogether too much uninspired play.
Sure, you might, argue, take away those two bullpen meltdowns and the Mets would have been 4-3 on a tough West Coast swing. But that’s not the way this works. With June upon us, the Mets have the look of one of those bad teams that always has excuses within reach — they’re not so much hopeless at any one aspect of baseball as they are serially inconsistent at all of them. Iron out those inconsistencies and they could be good! Which isn’t wrong, and such a straightening out isn’t impossible — the 2015 Mets pulled off the trick and rode the results straight to the World Series, before tragically turning back into the team they’d been in the early part of the summer.
But it doesn’t happen very often. Teams like that tend to stay maddeningly inconsistent all season as they stumble their way to 74 or 76 or 78 wins, or else they get consistent the way you’d prefer they didn’t and lose for weeks on end.
In the meantime, well, a team that could desperately use a day off finally gets one. They could use a week off, honestly. Or a month, or a year, or the rest of eternity.
As could we all. Go do something with your Monday that makes you happy.
It’s not a good sign when two bloggers who’ve doubtlessly seen some **** in the last almost 15 years more or less run out of words for consecutive days, and June has barely begun.
Random thought #1: good thing there’s no draft pick trading in MLB or Brodie Van Waffleton would packaged the Mets’ top pick with Andres Gimenez to snatch Jay Bruce away from the Phillies. Third time’s the charm, right? Right?
Random thought #2: too bad the Angels-Cubs makeup today isn’t on earlier… would have liked to see two good(ish) teams play for a change…
Random thought #3: I really do think Captain Brodie has another stupid trade up his sleeve to “right” this ship once and for all… let’s trade for Albert Pujols!
Exactly, guys, great Angels-Cubs game at Wrigley followed by the NHL.
Required reading:
The new Shamsky book about the ’69 Mets, 50 years later. It is absolutely terrific.
After that, a re-reading of the Maury Allen book with the same title, ‘After the Miracle,’ written in 1989, only 20 years after. It mentions how all the guys are now reaching middle age, at age 45.
I heartily recommend Erik Sherman’s book “Kings of Queens” (about the ’86 Mets 30 years after), as well as his books about Mookie Wilson and Davy Johnson.
Well, here’s some good news – given that’s it’s been only about 2 weeks since we’ve been informed by The Brass that absolutely, no way, no how would Mickey Callaway be fired, we’ve got at most another two weeks or so before he’s dumped unceremoniously, probably being informed by a bunch of reporters before hearing it from the team, leaving either Mr. Riggleman or Mr. Eiland or Mr. Davis (probably Chili, but don’t rule out J.D. or Rajai or Eric Jr) to helm the club for the sad remainder of the season, when we will have the satisfaction of having the players actually yelled at when they play atrociously. And that’s the good news. And a happy Monday to one and all.
Well, they mixed it up a bit. Wasn’t a bullpen implosion this time, just another standard-issue Sunday where they literally do nothing well. Mets should perhaps adopt the same Sunday policy as Chick-Fil-A, albeit for different reasons.
I second eric1973’s endorsement of Shamsky’s new book, will finish it on my evening commute tonight. You would think there’s nothing left that hasn’t been said, but the reflections of some of the guys – including a few that Art gathered before they sadly left us – include some insights and stories about little details that I’ve never read or heard before…we all have these “I don’t know why I still remember that, of all things” memories, but the rest of us didn’t play for the 69 Mets. By now these are the elder statesmen and we need to give them every opportunity to tell these stories, because they won’t be around forever, and I’m glad Art did just that with this book.
A few days ago I brought you the unhappy news of how well Kelenic is doing in A-ball, at age 19, so now more of same on the other tops Mets prospect in Cano deal (hey we also unloaded Bruce who is now…headed to the happy Phils):
“Dunn, 23, allowed just three hits and put two batters on via walk. The defense was not so good behind the 2016 first-round pick, but Dunn still had a solid start, and lowers his ERA to 3.17 in the process. Acquired in the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz trade, Dunn has also struck out 61 hitters to go along with 14 walks in the Texas League, and he’s given up just two homers over 48 1/3 innings. Jarred Kelenic appears to be the star of the deal from the Seattle side, but Dunn is a legit top 100 prospect who could pitch in the Seattle rotation at some point this season.”
Darling back v Giants. The Zeile curse ends. Have Faith!
LGM
Yeah, the Mets are your stereotypical borderline .500 team with all the ups and downs that come with being good one day, and bad the next.
^^ i think you’re being too kind. i doubt most .500-ish teams subject their fans to the outright dumpster-fire-decision-making we enjoy so much. they might even be a few pieces from something better. many may get the most out of a roster of limited talent.
the mets do it in a big market way. bringing in as GM someone as apparently clueless as the returning manager.
like giving 3/30M to a failed closer when we all know how fickle even succesful bullpen arms are…
how nice would it be to release brody and make him take all of his signings with him. i’m sure he could find an ownership group that would take on all of his crap contracts.
oh wait. the cat’s out of the bag.
i predict brody walks and the mets will be left with so many awful contracts. the former GM will go back to being an agent, having unloaded so many toxic assets on the same guys that got hosed by madoff.
maybe the wilpons can find their own career changes and get the hell out of baseball.
that is my hope.
in the meantime, can brodie do the decent thing and let callaway spend his summer fishing or playing golf?