Go back to sleep. Nothing to see here.
This is the West Coast game I remember, the one whose inevitable return I've been dreading for more than four months. It's the one that ends with Roger McDowell balking somebody home or Dave Telgheder giving way to Doug Linton giving way to utter dismay. (Brian Bohanon and Barry Manuel also work in this equation.) I knew it was coming sooner or later. Yeah, the last game in San Diego was horrible, but that was a different kind of horrible. This was standard-issue Chavez Rotten. It's part of the package. You don't want it but you have to accept it. It's an integral component of nearly every Mets season.
Think of the Dodger Do-In as a rite of passage.
Since you tuned out and turned in, let me fill you in on what you missed:
Total fucking bullshit is what you missed. Do the details really fucking matter? Just know that it started late, it went long, it wound up in a walk-off, it revolved around somebody nobody ever heard of flinging his batting helmet in jubilation like he's David Ortiz (which he may as well have been) and it probably finished, for the eighth or ninth time, our chances to advance this season.
Friday night's/Saturday morning's game sustained itself far enough for the keen-eared listener to understand just how obviously in the offing the loss was. Gary and Eddie (great guy, wonderful guy…announcing's just not his strong suit) kept going on about how endless the game was and how it was going to lap the Saturday afternoon start, ha-ha. When Eddie made that point one too many times, I could feel a Dioner Navarro home run off Braden Looper in my bones. Actually, I could sense something like that coming when the guys insisted the Mets couldn't win until Cam came out from under anesthesia. Nice thought, but don't say shit like that. It never, ever leads to any good.
As for the rest of the series, Jae Seo is scheduled to come back to Earth later today and the Mets will attempt to win a game started by Pedro Martinez for the first time in more than three weeks on Sunday. We figure to have a short bench and an interminable flight home.
Sweet fucking dreams. I hate L.A.
I turned it off in disgust when yet another brilliant Willie decision to take out Zambrano resulted in yet another undeserved blown game for the unluckiest pitcher on the planet. God forbid you should leave the guy in with a 3-run lead and let him either win or lose the game on his own. If his ERA is going to be fattened up, he should be the one to do the fattening. It's a man's game, Willie. Let the men be men once in a while. Pitchers put runners on occasionally, it's part of the game. And yeah, they also are capable of leaving them there. No, really!
Zambrano deserved better than the typical Willie “this never happened in the ring-laden Bronx! Whatever shall I do? Oh my God! Get him out of there!!” knee-jerk reaction… with a 3-run lead. Memo to Willie: There's no Mariano Rivera in our bullpen. Our relievers are not likely to hold anyone on. All you succeeded in doing last night was losing an important game and signaling to Zambrano that you didn't think he was capable of holding the runners and the lead. And every time you yank a guy–especially one pitching in hard luck–in that situation, you erode his confidence that much more. Real genius, aren't you? What you did last night was the last thing Zambrano needed right now. Why can I see that and you can't?
I'm tired of this clueless Yankee and his bonehead decisions. He's in way over his head. Any manager who panics whenever a pitcher puts guys on really doesn't have the stones to manage the Mets. He should go back to the Bronx.
Planet Seo is, happily, still inhabited by young Jae. Earth will have to do without him for a while.