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 [1] proved more of a piñata than Masahiro Tanaka [2]. 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 [3].
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 [4]‘s briefly satisfying one — were cheapies. In fact, if you listen carefully, you might be able hear Luke Voit [5]‘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.