You can’t win them all? Seriously? That’s a thing?
That’s a thing. It may be an unwritten rule, but it appears inviolable. Despite five consecutive days during which it felt as if the Mets would never lose again, they lost on Friday night. The defeat unleashed a sensation previously experienced less than a week before, yet I had forgotten how much it sucks.
It sucks a lot. Not just losing, but losing by one run in a low-scoring game in which your ace of aces is going and a tie is in effect until there are two outs in the bottom of the ninth and your least-desired relief pitcher (though that’s a close call) appears ever so close to pushing the night toward morning, which you wouldn’t mind, considering how well it worked the night and morning before.
But nah. Noah Syndergaard was effective instead of overwhelming; Josh Edgin was Edgin instead of anybody else; and the Stupid Marlins, as they are referred to in the league charter, pushed across the tiebreaking run to win, 3-2, and end our heretofore presumably endless winning streak.
Rats.
You know a loss is coming eventually, but you’d prefer it plop itself down with a dose of “oh well” Them 11 Us 3 fatalism as Montero, Gilmartin and (of course) Edgin sacrificially lamb it so the likes of the shall we say real pitchers can get an extra day of rest en route to starting a new and longer winning streak tomorrow. In the loss we got, Noah was fine for his six innings, fine being a modest disappointment in Thorworld. He was undermined early by an infield fling gone wild and taken down ultimately by a couple of rogue fingernails. Between nails and blisters, you wonder if Syndergaard can just have his undefeated hair do his throwing for him or just dominate by force of personality.
Difficult to not notice the two-run ration with which Thor and his successors had to operate. The Mets placed runners on base by the multitude but the timely hits needed to convert them to runs were confiscated by security. Bright spots — a Duda bomb, a Conforto peg, Edgin fanning Ichiro — dim when the final montage consists of some Stupid Marlin doubling and another Stupid Marlin dashing home and all the Stupid Marlins embracing as Stupid Marlins will when given a reason.
Stupid Marlins. Furshlugginer Mets. Not the most optimal of matchups.
Yours truly visited with the crew of acclaimed Queens-based podcast Live From The Barrage, an episode on which hosts and guest spent an hour being rabid about the Mets. I was on, ostensibly, to talk about Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star, but we meandered merrily all about Metsopotamia, starting at the 1:11 mark. I encourage you to listen. Chalk up the part where I look forward to writing up the game in progress as a Mets win to the intoxication of highly engaging conversation.
Yes – the high point was Conforto’s strike from left field to nail Rojas – only to have Rojas return and score the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The Mets were as flat as de-carbonated club soda.
Montero isn’t wild in the Mitch Williams sense of the word – he’s just afraid of the strike zone.
As I’ve said for 2 weeks–why isn’t Montero starting in minors if he is now the lone emergency starter???? He’s a crappy relief pitcher anyway–maybe not a major leaguer at all, but they tell us he is still a starting prospect. Familia needs to be back–and effective. Especially if Thor is going to be a 6 inning pitcher for much of year due to whatever.
That one hurt, especially since Volquez was on the ropes. You can’t win ’em all, but you could have won that one.
Coming off the exhausting 16 inning affair and minus Yo in the lineup, it was always a long shot for us to win that game unless Thor went 7-8+. Just bad luck he tore the fingernail. Absolutely no reason to think he’ll be a 6 inning pitcher all year, as blisters and fingernail tears are fluke things that go away.
And the Marlins coming in off a 16 inning loss WASN’T a longshot???
The Mets offensive is still troubling. Home Run or nothing. Team BA is .233 which is 18th in the majors, even though they lead MLB in homers. With men in scoring position and 2 out, they are hitting .206.
I think that team BA, for now, is getting dragged down a bit by Reyes (currently .100), and Walker and Granderson (both below .200). All three of those guys should heat up eventually.
Agreed Matt. All have shown signs of heating up recently. Grandy has several crushed outs, Walker just had a big RBI double and Reyes has been on base 4 out of his last 5 plate appearances. We’re all going to have to get used to some inconsistency as the club is geared mainly toward home runs and we have no speed outside of Reyes. Ultimately though, when you’ve got someone as talented as TDA hitting 8th, you’ve got a pretty damn good lineup.
Note: Rich Hill missed two months for Dodgers last year because of blisters and is already troubled by them this year. Other pitchers over the years have also lost many starts and/or been ineffective because of them. No reason to assume the worst but also no reason to shrug it off.
I must admit that after watching yet another great pitching performance get no reward (or A WIN!!) I have gotten numb to it after watching for the past few years guys like Harvey, DeGrom and Syndergaard pitch lights out and the club just posts another “L”. It’s almost to the point where I’ve come to expect it.
I still can’t figure out why Collins didn’t have Blevins pitch to Yelich. Sure, he’d pitched 4 of 5 days, but mainly to just one or two batters. If fatigue is an issue, wouldn’t it be more so with Salas (8 appearances in 12 games), who pitched at least a full inning every time? Once again TC’s reasoning makes no sense. Just like pitching to Ozuna in the 16th!!
Terry may have already “Henderson-ed” Salas. We’ll see. Terry and the Hendersons?
Just when I was warming to the guy, “He pulls me back in.”
TC’s treatment of Salas last night was sickening. Salas has been overworked, and was ineffective, and should have been removed after the 4 pitch walk.
Then he leaves him out there for two more hitters, like he’s some scrub being asked to take one for the team before being sent to the minors.
TC proves again just what a dope he really is. He let the whole team down, and cost a game in the standings.
I don’t think Terry is a dope, but I do agree with you. I also understand that it seems that every starter across MLB is now given a 7 inning limit, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason why deGrom couldn’t have at least started the 8th inning. He was in a groove at that point.
I only wish the Marlins had invested this much energy into beating the Nationals in their season-opening series. They failed on all three occasions. That’s what irks me about them as much as anything. Next weekend series vs. WAS, the Mets will have to take care of business themselves.
The only thing more predictable than what happened last night is the learned post game analysis from our fan base. Yep, it’s the old “when in doubt blame the manager” tune. Couldn’t be the fault of the closer who put us in this position by engaging in domestic abuse could it? Nah. Couldn’t be that the team has played a bunch of days in a row leaving our manager with nothing but poor choices? Nah. Maybe he thought a little deeper than the average fan and considered that if he brought in a lefty to face the ice cold Yelich and he didn’t get him a out then he’d really be screwed when Stanton came up so maybe he was better off hoping for ONE MORE OUT with the reliever who’d been perfect all year? Nah. He’s a bum and an idiot and the fact that this team is off to a good start and is coming off an unlikely WS run and an arguably even more unlikely playoff appearance is totally in spite of him. If only the drunken loudmouth on the subway could run the team we’d all be better off. Oh well.
We don’t have Matt Williams managing the Nats anymore, as he was always worth a few games in the standings. We’re on our own, with TC In charge…. scary.
Luckily, we have better players than they do,, and that’s our saving grace.
Yup, Dennis, these guys are all getting over injuries, so 8 may be too much to ask for.
Fernando Salas took full responsibility for the loss. Despite being obviously arm weary, he insisted that he was not tired. Additionally, he apologized to the team because “they fought so hard every inning”. His comportment defines the idea of honorable behavior.
Contrast that with Collins’ angry, ugly petulance when lashing out during the post-game presser.
A bit disheartening that fans have so quickly grown so entitled that they go into full on meltdown over one loss in April. No matter that if we win today we’ll have a 5-2 road trip. No matter that we’re in first place despite not having our closer. No matter the near unprecedented success we’ve enjoyed the last two years. Perspective is out the window. Cynicism and joylessness reign.
Post regarding Saturday night’s game up here. Please direct your relevant comments there.
[…] it would have been nice to have gotten ’em yesterday and the two days before, even accounting for the silly rule about not winning them all. Sunday’s game seemed maddeningly just out of reach all day, despite the work of yet another Met […]