Six on the Coast, six back at home, then back out west for seven in Arizona and San Francisco. Buckle up!
I'm out of the business of making predictions about what this maddeningly crazy team will do next, beyond the rather obvious remark that these two trips should have a lot to say about which way the season goes. (The really frightening road trip on the calendar is 9/2-9/11, when we hit Florida and Atlanta before four in St. Louis, but first things first.)
Time to confound some numbers. We're 21-31 on the road this year, which is fairly dismal, and 2-7 in Pacific and Mountain Time, which is fairly dismaler. All-time in Pacific and Mountain? 345-472, for a .422 percentage, compared with our lofty-by-comparison .475 all-time mark. These West Coast trips, as Keith Hernandez taught me in the '86 highlight video, are never easy: We started off our existence going 3-15 on the West Coast in '62 (worst mark: 1-8 in '81), didn't win a series on the West Coast until 1965 (when we somehow beat the Giants), didn't sweep a series on the West Coast until 1968 (the first year we played .500 out that way), and didn't post a winning West Coast record until '69, when we went 11-7. (We also topped .500 in Pacific/Mountain in '72, '75, '85, '86 [13-5, best mark ever], '87, '88, '99 and '02.) Postseason (included above), we're 4-7 in Pacific and Mountain, though we might be 5-6 or even 5-5 if Yogi Berra had been thinking clearly. (Is 32 years long enough to let something go? Hell no!)
A last interesting bit of numerical trivia: Based on Ultimate Mets Database plus my calculations, tonight is the 7,000th game that counts in the history of the New York Mets. 6,934 games, which includes eight ties, through July 26; 11 games since then for 6,945; 54 postseason games (in which we're 37-27) for 6,999.
Sheesh. You'd think somebody would throw a no-hitter once every 7,000 games.
* This blog entry comes with a healthy portion of Jace Math (TM), meaning everything in it is probably wrong.
** I so wasn't kidding: Embarrassed correction here.
Now calculate hours sleep lost as an expression of time wasted on Mets games going to seed after midnight Eastern.
Pedro…pitcher's park…7,000…thanks for planting the no-hit bug in my head. Now I'll be disappointed when tonight's not the night.
ESPN Classic is right now showing the first-ever Wrigley Field nite game, Mets-Cubs, 17 years ago tonight (yet they're showing it during the day, go figure). Joe Garagiola just came out against these new, modern scoreboards that give you more than just the score. I'm tellin' ya he and Morgan are the same guy.
I'm always disappointed when tonight's not the night. Even when the first batter of the game hits a single, I'm briefly but thoroughly pissed. Remind me of this when 8,000 rolls around and we're talking about how Humber or Pelfrey could be the one to break the jinx one of these years.
Think Humber will be a Met in late 2011? You're an optimistic sort. I'm thinking we'll be looking at a rehabbing John Patterson by then.