Doubleheaders are funny beasts.
Lose the first game — as the Mets just did in the Bronx against some team from an arriviste beer league — and you simultaneously take solace in the fact that doubleheader sweeps are hard to pull off and are gripped with horror at the prospect of dropping two games in one day.
Win the first game — as the Mets decidedly did not — and you get the opposite bout of double vision. Sweeps are rare, so you have the queasy feeling that you’re being set up for watching the glass go from full in the eyes of any philosophy to clearly and obviously half-empty. On the other hand, win that first game and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to bask in the afterglow of a double-victory day.
And when it’s a day-night doubleheader, all these weird feelings get magnified as you grumpily kill time between games.
If doubleheaders are funny beasts, there wasn’t much funny about Game 1. Both teams played atrocious defense and sent starting pitchers out to get whacked around, but Zack Wheeler proved more of a piñata than Masahiro Tanaka. Wheeler looked sharp in the early innings, but was betrayed by his defense and his slider (oh, 2019) and saw a three-run lead turn into a five-run deficit that would prove fatal.
I’m tempted to drop in a paragraph about Yankee Stadium being a ridiculous arena baseball park, which it is, except none of the home runs struck Tuesday afternoon — the Yankees’ three, Jeff McNeil‘s briefly satisfying one — were cheapies. In fact, if you listen carefully, you might be able hear Luke Voit‘s drive bounce off the top deck of a Europe-bound cruise ship right about now.
Anyway, it’s over now, so cleanse your palate in time for whatever’s served in Game 2. The afternoon was no fun; here’s to a better evening.
This sherbet, is it available in 5 or 10 gallon tubs? I suspect we’ll still need lots more between now and game 162.
Don’t look now but Alonso hitting .210 for the past 6 weeks. Has gone HR or nothing. One might say Jay Bruce-like. And now he wants to be in the HR Derby and probably will be…
Wheeler should be Exhibit A when people clamor to sign pitchers to longterm contracts after half of a good year. Anyone still want to sign?
Naturally he then hits 3-run dinger…still, the point holds. I think.
Had all the windows open and startled some neighbors who were BBQ’ing across the street when #6 hit that really loud blast and in my excited ways I yelled out “JEFF MCNEIL!!!” and some choice expletives directed at whatever Stinkee happened to be on camera.
Yeah, me and my big mouth…
Alonso’s the last guy on this team I’m worried about. Prspective, folms: the rookie is challenging the all time team season HR record, and is making it look easy. I’m sure Cbili Davis will help him out of his “slump”, if that’s what it’s called. I do agree that I don’t like him doing the HR Derby, but only because the Derby is an abomination.
McNeil is a monster. The guy is a craftsman with the stick. Very under the radar, too. Wish he was playing second every day.
Home Run Derby???
EVERY frikking game is Home Run Derby. It’s totally absurd.
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