I don't want to say winning in Arizona is getting too easy, but come on.
How did we not lose last night? Mind you I'm very happy we did not lose, even happier that we won our twelfth in a row at Home Away From Shea Stadium, but that thing had streakbreaker written all over it.
• There were bad calls: at second on Reyes stealing in the fifth; in left where Chavez was robbed by a smug kid with popcorn in the eighth.
• There was bad coaching and baserunning: Green thrown out at the plate in the seventh with Sandy Alomar lethargically waving him home.
• There were mental hiccups: Beltran picked off in the first with Wright up springs to mind.
• There was good if not customarily great starting pitching: Maine looked like his shirt had too much starch in it.
• There was Burgosian mischief: Orlando Hudson should not have been awarded a home run, given that Endy kept his buttery ball in play, but Hudson sure did hit it hard.
• There was scary limping: Endy! Get up!
• There was that surest sign that all was about to go to hell: Billy Wagner walking the leadoff hitter in the ninth.
But nope. Little of it materially helped the Diamondbacks and none of it penetrated the Mets' bulletproof exterior inside Chase Field. Even the intangibles, the stuff you can feel is going to backfire, never came back to haunt. You know those voices you hear in your head? The ones that recap the game with lines like “…in the loss, Julio Franco became the oldest man to…”? That voice was silenced. Julio Franco became the oldest man to homer, oldest man to homer into a pool, oldest man to homer and steal in the same game, oldest man to homer off the oldest pitcher to give up a homer to the oldest man ever to homer…and the Mets won.
The Mets touched if not roughed up Randy Johnson pretty good and Johnson never got off the hook. That was another one I suspected. Beltran driving in the first run off Johnson was delicious for reasons rapidly becoming obscure. Franco teaching his junior a lesson was of course delectable. Lo Duca, who doesn't much go deep, going deep off the middling Unit was also a treat. But the future Hall of Famer, who always seems to have trouble with the Mets, avoided defeat when… Didn't happen. All the setups that seemed so trap-laden never opened to swallow us or our streak.
Twelve in a row at the ol' BOB & Chase. Neither of this year's contributions to the streak have been as tense as the 1-0 Glavine/Matsui/Open Roof triumph that sparked this sensational skein three years ago nor have they been as decisive as the accumulated ass-kickings of 2005 and 2006. They've been two exciting ballgames that have tilted, once late and once early, in our favor. I was convinced Thursday night would go against us. It didn't. I just waited for last night to turn foul. It wouldn't. Seems waaaaaaaaaaaay too good to be true.
Tonight it's National League Cy Young Award Winner Brandon Webb versus New Orleans Zephyr Jorge Sosa. If that adds up to a thirteenth consecutive Mets win in Arizona, then maybe I'll just lie back and enjoy.
You forgot Beltran lethargically throwing in Young's single to Reyes who wasn't covering the bag when Young tried to get a double out of it. That one turned around real fast as Reyes applied the tag when he overslid..
The problem is you're used to those things sinking the Mets. This team is different. Look at that game against Colorado. Ninth inning, down 2-1, getting bad calls all night. Wright gets a walk but Alou immediately grounds into a double play. one out left. Normally you might as well turn off the tv at this point, but not this year.
David Wright's coming out of his funk. He was stymied yesterday by the Shrinking Unit and I fully expect him to blast a 2-run homerun off of Brandon Webb tonight. Unfortunately I won't be watching, it's Spidey-3 on IMAX for me tonight.
entered my info wrong, i'm sleepy.. Why is there no 'edit/delete comment?'
entered my info wrong, i'm sleepy.. Why is there no 'edit/delete comment?'
have to say, i'm worried about endy. the way he slammed his right leg against the wall and then how he landed on it scares me. could be a big problem with the knee. no way he should have stayed in, especially not for his at bat. he couldn't push off his right leg for anything.
i'll be interested in the report on him tonight.
Endy stayed in because he knew the option was David Newhan. I watched David Newhan try to field during spring training. It was not a pretty sight.
i agree, though, he shouldn't have stayed in.
All right, maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention. I kind of knew that the Mets had moved their AAA affiliate to New Orleans for some reason. Dunno why they abandoned Norfolk, and I was still calling it Tidewater anyway, but okay, New Orleans.
But now I look in on 'em to see who might be doing something in the outfield, should Endy's knee be in bigger trouble than initially indicated after that popcorn play (we wuz robbed, by the way, but nevermind). And what do I see but that the highly touted young starter Philip Humber is the pitcher of the week in the Pacific Coast League.
The Pacific Coast League?
Why on earth would the Mets want their top farm club in the Pacific Coast League? At least on the east coast there is some hope of attracting fans who might also root for the big club, and occasionally playing close by.
Besides, as far as it is from Shea, New Orleans is even farther from anything resembling the Pacific Coast, which is why they didn't call it Cyclone Katrina, and anyway the Cyclones play in Brooklyn. Now instead of crossing bats with the top farm clubs of our familiar Big League rivals in the International League, like Columbus and Memphis and Richmond, our Mets phenoms are now doing their tuning up against the likes of the Salt Lake Bees (Angels) and the Sacramento River Cats (Oakland). Feh.
Of course, they do also play the Marlins-affiliated Albuquerque Isotopes (Lawdy, there's a name for you).
Personally, I like it better when AAA affiliates are at least reasonably close to the big club (like Buffalo for the Indians, Sacramento for the A's, Syracuse for the Blue Jays, etc.). For the Mets, the New Orleans Zephyrs of the Pacific Coast League might as well be in Ecuador.
Weirdly enough, though, one of the stated reasons for the Mets moving the team to N.O. was that the players could go back and forth on a single direct flight, rather than having to change planes. Even though Norfolk is closer as the crow flies, it evidently wasn't faster to fly to/from there from/to New York.
The PCL is now kind of misnamed anyway, being that they also have affiliates in Nashville and Memphis and Iowa, in addition to N.O. They really should call it something else.
I saw Spidey on IMAX too.
Turns out it was a different player smacking a two-run homer off the defending Cy Young Award winner. Doesn't seem to matter how Brandon Webb pitches, he just can't beat the Mets and, above all, the Mets can't lose in Chase Field. I feel bad for the guy. But not too much. We rock.
Nice to see Delgado swinging the bat with a little more authority and Green giving it to his old team. Not to mention Jorge Sosa looking a lot sharper than I've ever seen him. What a difference 10 feet in the first inning can make.
the mets didn't want to leave norfolk. iirc, the local team wanted affiliation with the washington nationals, for all the very sensible reasons you cite.
the mets scrambled for a triple-a team. it could be a lot worse. for one thing, it's a temporary gig — probably no more than two years. for another, ron swoboda is the local broadcaster. and jetblue has cheap nonstops. i can definitely see heading down there one weekend, and trying to contribute to the local economy in my own gourmandish, inebriated way.