Another night, another loss.
At this point the bad losses — like the two HBP gag job in Philly — are hills breaking the flat endless plain of the more mundane losses, the ones where you have to furrow your brow and remember the details of what exactly sucked more than the background sucking that’s present all the time.
Like oh yeah, that was the one where Justin Verlander once again looked like the $43 million fourth starter he’s inexplicably become, only he somehow emerged from an off-kilter, inefficient outing unscored upon. (I suppose you could say Verlander battled or found a way or some horseshit, but does anyone really believe that?) It was the one where Pete Alonso and Tommy Pham kept hitting bullets right at guys and Jeff McNeil — let me check, yeah he really was a batting champ last year — once again didn’t hit a damn thing, which you could be angry at McNeil about except he’s already so much angrier about it than you are that what, exactly, would be the point?
All that sucked, but it was background sucking. No, the way to remember this mundane loss before it’s displaced in memory by tomorrow night’s mundane loss is it was the one where we got Drew Smith back and Smith kept leaving pitches too high in the strike zone and the Brewers somehow didn’t hit them until oops one of them did — a two-run homer by Joey Wiemer, whoever the fuck that is, was enough to beat Smith and the Mets. Two runs. Ballgame. A 2-1 loss sounds close except the 1 that went on the Mets’ side of the ledger was a gift and 2-1 in the ninth with the heart of our order felt like 20-1.
The Mets look not just bad but also meek and beaten. They have thousand-yard stares affixed to their faces before the horrors ensue, said horrors take place, the Mets slink away looking purse-mouthed and grim, and the next day it all starts again. How many games can slip by simultaneously horribly and in utter anonymity?
What’s the point of recapping this? Of watching it? Of being connected with it in any way? It isn’t fun or edifying, and even the flashes of hope for the future are hard to discern amid the dull smear of defeat after defeat after defeat.
I hate this team. I hate their chronic grinding failure, as inevitable as watching a glass that’s slipped out of your hand shatter on a tile floor. I hate their inability to get out of the way of each night’s slow-moving but inevitable disaster. And most of all I hate the way they make me feel about something I’m supposed to love.
I have uttered those exact 4 words. Amazing to see how this infection of losing has spread throughout the entire team and affects everything they do. I wonder what caused this cellular transformation from a team that used to seem pretty competent?
Jason, no one could blame you if, like a few weeks back, you channel your inner Bartleby and “prefer not to” recap this dumpster fire for the remainder of this season.
…But then, who would brilliantly convey our collective pain? Now is when you’re needed the most!
The Escobar trade is the most encouraging sign so far this season; an acknowledgment of reality, that there will be no October baseball in Flushing, no 2023 flag flying. Keep Lindor, Alonso, Nimmo, the babies, Diaz (remember him? Good times) and I guess Senga…everyone else is fair game. Stock up on arms and OF’ers, reload for some other day. At least Cohen is willing, unlike M.Donald Wilpon and Jeff DeRoulet, to eat contracts in trades, so they don’t wind up with…Drew Smith.
Whose suspension, btw, the Mets should have appealed. They should have asked for 20 games.
Someone should have told Brigham that that was not the time to get even with the league for all those hit-batsmen.
Dave, great line on D.Smith, but the guys you name to keep are all culprits this year.
If those guys don’t play well, we are sunk.
And Baty has shown little.
Too bad.
Eric – the guys I named are the best players on the team, even when they’re not at 100%. Alonso and Lindor are still among the league leaders in RBI’s. Baty is learning, he’s a child. The culprits in the lineup are Marte, Canha, Vogelbach and the guy with a strong facial resemblance to last year’s batting champ.
Dave, Agree with you 100%.
Just can’t win when these 2 stars play like this, no matter how good or bad those other scrubs play.
I can’t say that their seasons are a success.
I think Batting Average matters, too, no matter what the analytics says.
Buck made a shocking comment at the end of his SNY presser, which appears to have gone unnoticed:
“You do what they tell you.”
Kinda says it all, for all the Buck-bashers out there.
I don’t hate them. Just feel sorry for them. They have to wear on their backs the ignominy of being a really lousy team with the highest payroll in baseball. Hence the sleepwalking death stares and increasingly sloppy play. But it’s not really their fault. It’s the fault of management that threw around money stupidly and constructed the team badly.
What I found instructive about yesterday’s game, in contrast to the Philly debacle, is how the Brewers, an above average team without an impressive lineup, can win games by trotting out a sequence of consistently competent pitchers. A contrast to our over-hyped team with our big name (over the hill) future hall of famers, soft bullpen and dearth of young arms to provide hope for the future.
So I’ll watch the rest of the season with a half an eye, laugh when it hurts, and hope some of the players who I don’t hate but actually love (Nimmo, Alonso, Lindor, McNeil) can pick their heads up, accept that the team sucks and play with a little verve before the season is over. It’s hard to do when they’re always playing from behind.
I feel many things, but “sorry for them” is not one of them. Boo hoo, the “ignominy”. Poor babies, cashing checks to play a game.
Sure, there’s plenty of blame for management, but management doesn’t make baserunning errors, flail at pitches, and completely forget how to play competent defense. Show some f**king pride out there.
Last night I forced myself to watch last few innings telling myself, this collection of millionaires can’t really be as bad as I knew they were 3 weeks ago.
The 9th inning said it all–
Took 6 pitches from the Brewer closer to end game!
6 fucking pitches to close out 9th inning?
No working counts, try to bunt, slap the ball someplace (like last saeson?)–NOTHING-just wild swings like they are at a driving range.
6 Fucking pitches?
Shit, the 1965 Mets had more than this team–I know I was at Shea in 1965!
Jason & Greg–take a walk, a vacation, give yourselves a break–I (WE) need you guys after this clusterfuck is over.
Not getting enough attention is Verlander need over 100 pitches to hurl 5 innings. Hence, Smith in the 6th and ball game. Night before: Carrasco leaving with lead–but after 4 innings. Senga we know can only pitch once a week and even then only 5 or 6 innings. Scherzer is ancient. Megill and Peterson are awful. Quintana? He is 35 as well. This is on Eppler for constructing this–and then not getting bullpen arms when 2/3s of present guys should be in AAA. And I believe the pitch clock probably IS hurting older guys due to pace, but also younger guys trying to find themselves in the bigs….
“What’s the point of recapping this?”
Well, you’re doing it for us, and we need it. Thank you!
thank you jason.
i’ve been saying this for most of the season to fellow met fans (one who hilariously saw the first win in philly as the beginning of a turnaround!) but to see it in the title of your post gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
this is what passes for meaningful ‘fan experience’ for those of us who thought we’d seen it all with pitiful mets teams.
a new bar has been set.
at least in the later wilpon era we could blame madoff!
may the selloff begin!
verlander to the rangers. let him tinker with his mechanics (?!?) and replace degrom * there*
Note to Edwin Diaz. Don’t rush your rehab. You won’t be needed for a stretch run in September. Take your time and come back healthy next spring.
At 8 p.m. last night, in response to Keith Hernandez dismissing an analytics graphic by saying, “See the ball, hit the ball,” Jason Fry tweeted: “Oh great, what this horrible game needed was Keith Hernandez in Yelling at Clouds mode.”
Less than three hours later, Jason Fry uploads an entry titled “I Hate This Team.”
If Bob Klapisch is still around, he could write a book called “The Second Worst Team Money Can Buy”. The ‘92 gang are still the champs, because at least the current crew aren’t bleaching reporters, offering them a tour of the Bronx, or tossing cherry bombs out of moving vehicles. Small comfort.
At least that team was good at something. If the current crew threw cherry bombs out of moving vehicles, they’d probably miss.
Here’s a stat I’d like to see…
Take the historical payrolls of all clubs, don’t know how far back they can go… maybe to the 80’s or 70’s? Convert all those payrolls to 2023 dollars. Then, using those converted figures…
[Converted Team Payroll] / [Team Wins] = Price per win.
E.g., our 2023 New York Metropolitan Baseball Club:
[$364,000,000] / [73 Projected Wins] = $4,986,301/Win
That would HAVE TO stack up favorably against some of the all-time over-achieving greats: ‘92 Mets, assorted 80’s Steinbrenner clubs, etc.
Gotta get Statcast on line 1…
Thank you Jason.
You have a magical way of coalescing my feelings and allowing me to read them back to myself. Why do these guys make me hate something that I so dearly love.
There are not many things in life that I enjoy or look forward to more than the daily Mets games. They have taken my joy.
Let it be known that at this moment, I am wearing my LGM Tee Shirt and hoping for a win tonight.
Let’s dream.
Steve C. holding a press conference before tomorrow’s (6/28) game.
Let’s see how I do against the actual:
– He’s “angry”, “frustrated”, and feels our pain.
– He has “complete faith” in Eppler
– Buck’s track record and last year showed us what he can do. It’s disappointing, but that is no reason to get rid of a Hall of Fame manager. (Behind the scenes, I’m sure Steve has read Buck the riot act, which he will ignore, and there will be no consequences)
– INJURIES!!!!!11111!!!!
– No need to worry about Verlander. He’s a veteran and a Hall of Famer and he’ll figure it out. I trust him and Hefner.
– Bottom line, despite everything, he believes in his investment and “our” team.
Oh, not “I just fired everyone”?
I think our boy mikeski has probably nailed about 90% of it. Not sure what else Uncle Stevie can do for now, just a matter of killing time until he can legally pull trigger on Stearns.
I never thought I’d hate a team as much as the 2002 squad. But I do. And it’s only June. My mlbtv is blacking out my Met games again and I’m not even motivated to call and have them do whatever it is they do to see I’m not in NYC.
ha!
last friday i learned that the game was on apple …that little plus sign the difference between watching the game on my computer and having to subscribe to this ‘plus’ feature.
nah. a mets game missed was all the ‘plus’ i needed.
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