Finally!
The Mets got the Justin Verlander [1] they paid $43 million for — the fireballer who made opponents look silly as a Houston Astro, the no-doubt-about-it Hall of Famer, the top-of-the-rotation ace. And what a difference it made.
I was there, in surprisingly good Excelsior seats behind home plate (a crummy year has some silver linings), close enough that I could see location and pitch speeds, instead of peering at distant stick figures and cheering or groaning based on how quickly and in which direction they had to run around. And I could see the White Sox had no chance against Verlander — none whatsoever. Verlander could do whatever he wanted with them, and so he did. It probably helped that it was a more temperate evening than it had been for Verlander’s last start, when he was woefully inefficient and ill-used by the Mets [2], with a rocky seventh wrecking his chance at both a shutout and a complete game.
Not biggie, since Verlander handed a four-run lead over to the bullpen with just three outs to get, which meant they didn’t have enough time to screw it up, as they almost managed to do in whatever the hell that was [3] on Tuesday night. The Mets didn’t set the world on fire, doing most of their offensive damage through walks against a wild Touki Toussaint [4], that long-ago Atlanta Brave, but we’ll take some fortunate sequencing after a season that’s been mostly buzzard’s luck. Not to be a bringdown, but I’m more than a little worried about Pete Alonso [5], whose frustration is a flashing neon sign visible from the uppermost row in the Promenade. Alonso’s body language has always been crystal-clear — the Polar Bear would be advised to never, ever take up poker — but he looks draggy and defeated, as you might expect considering he’s perilously close to the Mendoza line. (To say nothing of Jeff McNeil [6], whose trademark rage has curdled into a constant, simmering dismay.)
Not ideal, but once again — they won [7]. Amazing what good starting pitching can do, isn’t it?
* * *
The night was a little warm but nothing like the smothering evenings we’ve had of late, and I think I would have enjoyed myself at Citi Field even if the score hadn’t been so favorable.
Still, it gives me no pleasure to report that the non-baseball part of my night at the park was consistently off-kilter. It started when I went to get a Nathan’s hot dog and fries and a beer, only to discover that the beer taps were mysteriously offline, a development reported with the kind of world-weary, whatcha-gonna-do shrug that was standard operating procedure as Shea crumbled. I secured a Plan B beer somewhere else and was most of my way through my hot dog when I noticed that the bun was spotted with gray-green. Yep, I’d been served a hot dog in a moldy bun, and I’d rather not think about the part I’d eaten without inspection. Later, the problem was broken soft-serve machines, resulting in one stand having a strangely long line for ice cream, to the bafflement of its beleaguered attendants. (Please note that we were in the semi-restricted part of Excelsior that’s sort of a club, where one would expect things to work a little better even though there shouldn’t be a difference in experiences.)
The folks who run the Mets can’t stop the pitchers they pay from hanging sliders or make the hitters they pay live up to what’s on the back of their baseball cards, but it should be within their power to ensure that hot-dog buns aren’t moldy, ice cream machines dispense ice cream and beer taps actually have something in them. That doesn’t seem like to much to ask.
On the other hand, though … for once there was no “Piano Man” to bring down the mood. Would I eat a moldy hot dog bun at a game in exchange for not being subjected to the moldy hot dog bun of self-loathing confessional ballads? I’d at least think it over.