Luis Rojas might as well be loping along with a rod and reel over his shoulder, ambling to the creek down yonder to see if the catfish are biting. That’s how much urgency he seems to commit to managing in a game in the middle of September, a game in which his team’s chances are not so slowly drifting out to sea.
No more than six innings out of an effective Marcus Stroman? No more than one inning from any reliever who’s getting the job done? Freshly recalled rusty Jake Reed in the top of the eleventh? Albert Almora in the bottom of the eleventh with two out and somebody else (anybody else) on the bench?
Well, shoot, if we don’t get ’em this month, I reckon we’ll get ’em next month…or the month after that.
Snuffy Smith in the dugout seems very concerned about preserving his players’ energy for the Rock ‘n’ Jock classic or some such event to be held at a later date. They don’t hold the Rock ‘n’ Jock anymore as far as I know, but you know who excelled in that celebrity softball extravaganza of yore? Roger McDowell. You know who once threw five innings of shutout ball in relief in a must-must-MUST win National League Championship Series Game Six? Roger McDowell. There’s a whole second half of a tremendous documentary about it airing on ESPN tonight. I hope somebody records and shows it to Rojas. He might not believe that pushing a pitcher who is recording out after out was and is not illegal.
I was and am too distracted to delineate all that went wrong in the Mets’ eleven-inning 7-6 loss [1] to the Cardinals from Tuesday night. It went so long I was able to slip away for two hours of much more satisfying viewing [2] and come back and still find nearly two more hours of live baseball. Well, the Cardinals were alive. The Mets’ pulse was barely audible.
Rojas’s decisions were baffling. His explanations were infuriating. His ballclub drifts ever farther from the shores of contention. But, boy, will everybody be well-rested.