I love our apartment in Brooklyn, but it has one nasty design flaw: The downstairs plumbing can back up during torrential summer storms, turning the toilet and tub into geysers of dirty water until the city’s sewer system catches up with all the water falling out of the sky.
It’s gross, y’all.
As you might imagine, this has made me a bit edgy during bad weather. When I know potential trouble’s coming, I fire up the computer, monitor the radar map and start asking frantic questions. Is the water in the toilet starting to shimmy and shake? How hard is it raining? How long will this last? Do I get the pump ready? No? How about now?
Weather.com’s radar shows light rain as pale green; downpours that could do us harm show as red. But Weather.com only updates every five minutes, which is annoying when you’re a paranoid bathroom defender.
Another site, Weather Underground, updates every minute. Much better! But here’s the thing — Weather Underground’s color gradient is more … let’s say alarmist than Weather.com’s. Weather Underground’s red is the equivalent of Weather.com’s yellow, which is a level of rain I keep an eye on but not enough to be a problem. Weather Underground’s yellow is the same as Weather.com’s green, which is routine if-you’re-going-out-grab-an-umbrella stuff.
I’ve lived in this apartment for nearly two decades. I know how this works. But knowing it doesn’t help when I load Weather Underground during a summer storm and see a wall of red coming at Brooklyn.
My heart pounds.
My breath gets short.
Even though I know that the red I’m seeing is not actually red.
So Matt Harvey was pretty good for five innings. Then he left and the Mets commenced to play stupid, to quote a man who saw a lot of that. Daniel Murphy yakked up a ball he should have ate; David Wright made an error; Hansel Robles gave up a whole lot of runs. The back end of the bullpen then gave up a whole lot more. Meanwhile, the Mets weren’t hitting. They let a shaky-looking C.C. Sabathia off the hook in the first and never put him back on it.
As things cratered, there was a lot of bile directed at Scott Boras (I contributed my share on Twitter), which wasn’t really relevant considering what went wrong in the game, but at least made us feel a little better. And then there was the collective nervous breakdown one expected, which I tried not to contribute to but probably did anyway.
The radar looks red — the crimson of anger, of BLOOD, of DOOM. And my trying to tell you to flip over to the other, more sedately colored app showing the exact same weather isn’t going to help. Because we remember, and we react.
The Mets are not phoning it in or lacking cojones or choking or trying to kill us or anything like that. The problem is several talented members of the team are simultaneously not getting hits. This is an unfortunate confluence of unfortunate things that happens to baseball teams periodically. We — the poor blighters who live and die on the outcome of games we can’t affect — call this thing a slump. And then we desperately try to make that slump conform to our insistence that everything has a reason and is part of a larger story.
And, well, when we’re laboring under the collective memory of some bad shit, the story we tell ourselves is a tragic one.
I get it. I do it too. But check back at mid-week and we’ll see what the radar looks like, OK?
* * *
First the New York Times, now New York magazine! It’s a Faith and Fear media bonanza!
Thanks to longtime pal of mine and reader of the blog Will Leitch for his kind words. Here’s hoping Will has a reason to check in on us to get our dazed reaction to confetti and champagne. He’s familiar with our dazed reaction to less happy events.
Ok, so I’ll be the first one to say it.
One more inning would have killed him? ONE MORE @!#/^& INNING???!!!
There. I feel better now.
Come to think of it, no. I don’t really feel better now.
Don’t fret all ye timid mice. Cespedes will not go 1 for his next 25, we won’t commit 4 errors every game, and Wash will lose some more games. A series win would have been nice, but we’re still sitting very pretty.
More plate patience is required. SezPayDay cannot continue to go fishing. But that goes for the lineup in general. Work the count when necessary. There’s pressing going on here. Breathe. Breathe. Then breathe some more.
You are right, of course, Matt. Though I’m hating myself for being up at nearly 4 AM because of MY TEAM. That sixth inning felt like when Buttermaker pulled Amanda Whurlitzer out of the championship game (also against THEM) and put in Rudi Stein. Can’t pin that all on Robles, but man, that game got turned around quick. And rightly or wrongly, Harvey bears a lot of that in my book. Dark Knights don’t come out of games like that.
He pitched 5 shutout innings. That’s pretty damn good for limited duty. If it was a do or die game then he would have stayed longer, but it wasn’t. Not even close.
Math says it wasn’t “do or die,” and I don’t want to channel Eric here, but that was more important than your typical “up by 7 with 14 to go” game. It was a pride game, it was a momentum game, and it affected a pennant race besides ours.
It’s true they lost that game for other reasons besides Harvey coming out (a couple of guys gagged here), but he OWNED them for five innings, and then POOF – it was gone. For five innings that was EXACTLY what the Mets needed, and then for four innings it was the LAST thing the Mets needed. And for reasons no one really knows.
It’s true they’re not doing what Washington did with Strasburg, but they’re just writing chapter two of something ELSE you shouldn’t do.
The Amanda/Rudi comparison cracked me up. I needed that.
Couple of things…
The Mets didn’t lose last night because Harvey came out of the game. They lost because they couldn’t solve the Mystery of CC Sabathia”s Bloated Carcass and then collectively developed a case of dinosaur brain.
As for the bigger picture, here’s the bottom line: if the Mets can’t muster a 7-6 record in their last 13 games — while Washington MUST go 13-0, mind you! — with 10 of those against the likes of Atlanta, Cincinnati & Philly, then they won’t DESERVE to win a damn thing.
What he said.
Glad this week is over. I was dreading Marlins and Yankees coming in and thought it was a strong possibility that they could lose both series. So, I don’t think it will be the easiest run to the title, I do think the worst is behind us. Still rather be us than them.
I’m not the first person to point out that lots of guys play through injuries all the time because of their singular focus on helping their team win games. Wright played with a broken back for a team that couldn’t see the pennant race without a telescope. I wonder what the clubhouse atmosphere is really like…not the “hey, we’re all working hard and staying positive and everybody is contributing” party line, but the *real* atmosphere.
And to those who insist that what team they played when turning a 1-0 lead into an 11-2 loss is irrelevant, well, you’re not from ’round here, are ya?
Sometimes you DO need to win games 1-0, on the road to greatness. Now we’ve had our Zimmerman moment (a few throughout the year, actually).
Why Sandy caved in to Boras for unprovable nonsense is beyond me. TC has a chance to be named ‘Puppet of the Year,’ if Mets hold on.
We turn(ed) to Robles-Niese-Verrett (who needs deGrom?) for 3 important games.
This organization is brainwashed and is losing sight of what the goal is here. Why cause angst where none was necessary?
TC admitted he ‘manages to win’ when the Nats lose. Nats won, so we do not need to win, then. Is that rational reasoning?
Sometimes you do. Last night was not one of those times. Last night was why you build a big lead, so that you can afford a few clunkers on the way to the postseason.
My supervisor is back from his vacation and I was going to apply for a few mornings off during the NLDS so I can sleep in after the (here past midnight) games, but … I’ll wait for a few more days. When they blow it up, I don’t want to be sitting at home crying over the Nationals’ sweep of the Dodgers until noon.
The Pope couldn’t get here soon enough.
Part of the panic stems from this: We can’t really look at this as a 6-game lead with 13 to play. It’s really a 3-game lead with 10 to play, since the last three are head to head against the Nats, and God help the Mets if that series begins with Washington still holding a mathematical chance.
No, you are wrong. Mets have owned The Nats head to head this year.
Not with their season on the line and playing in front of anxious fans ready to press the panic button, they haven’t. The Mets are NOT going to be in a good place if they haven’t clinched before that series begins.
It’d be intense, though.
Good point, Guy. These games are just as important as playoff games, since the playoffs won’t exist for us unless we can win now. I don’t know how much of this to hang around Harveys neck, but i saw that game ending much better before harvey left. Poop or get off the pot, harvey. We have pitchers than can and will win if you need to look out for number 1.
What Guy said. Our team needs to snap out of this ugly flashback to May and June. Looking at you, Michael Cuddyer, with the bases loaded. And at Daniel Murphy, who can always be relied upon for a boneheaded fielding misplay. This is not acceptable right now. The Mets need to clinch before the Nats come to town.
Is that the first ever use of the color RED in this blog?
If so, did it have to be the word DOOM??
(PS, if there’s a way to use red typeface in a reply, I couldn’t figure it out)
PPS: I never know what I might learn from this blog. I’m something of a weather buff, but I wasn’t aware of the difference in the two radar reds. I’m a WeatherBug man myself.
Plus this blog, which is to NY weather esoterica what you guys are to NY Mets esoterica:
http://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/
I am concerned about how this team seems to over-rely on the home run to score. Even in Friday night’s win, four of the five runs occurred via the HR. The only run that did not came via a passed ball/wild pitch. Tonight’s first inning was a prime example.
In the playoffs, where you’ll be facing quality pitching ever day, you need to be able to manufacture runs, and this team needs to improve in that regard.
As to Harvey/last night’s game, can we make Boras the losing pitcher? ;)
Everyone who is griping about Matt coming out after 5 has really lost perspective. After he came out the Yankees got 1st and 3rd with no out on a high chopper to 2nd and a bunt. The Mets lost last night because of bad defense, bad back end of the bullpen pitching (which every team has) and no offense. They scored a run on the second AB of the game and nothing afterwards. As much as we all would have enjoyed beating the Yankees, this wasn’t a do or die situation. Be of good cheer Mets fans. We remain comfortably in the driver’s seat.
We lost 3 1/2 games in the last week on the Nationals. At that pace, we’ll be spectators in the playoffs, with nobody and nothing to cheer for.
Daniel, that’s how baseball goes. We will win again, they will lose again. There is no reason to be so pessimistic.
Improbable streaks and season-ending collapses are baseball, too.
I think players have a certain mindset when playing behind their ace; take him out after 5 as though this is March 20 instead of September 20, give the ball to a largely untested rookie and for some guys, that mindset changes. Did Murphy overcompensate by trying to throw Ellsbury out instead of putting the ball in his pocket because he was more anxious without Harvey in the game? Did Wright tense up when they tried to get him at 3rd? And once I saw that play unfold, knowing Beltran was up next, I correctly predicted how the rest of the game was going to go. And so apparently did Collins, resorting instantly to the dregs of the bullpen instead of trying to keep it close enough for a comeback.
Bottom line is that the Mets have conceded to quasi-Strasburg Harvey for the benefit of his big future payday with another team.
Totally.
The other thing is that the Mets are susceptible to lefties. Cespedes is not great against them, neither is Duda or Grandy. That said, I think TC is overdoing it with all the lineup substitutions. I would keep Granderson and Murphy in the lineup regardless, with Murphy at 1st.
And can someone explain why Terry trotted out a “B” lineup against the Yankees in an important game? Not the first time we’ve seen a baffling lineup from him down the stretch. Does anyone agree?
Far as I can tell, some guys didn’t have to take the bus ride to Kissimmee, they got to stay back in Port St. Lucie.
i was baffled. cudyer in right? wrong.
uribe at 2nd? to compensate for having the better
glove at short?
murphy and granderson on the bench?
conforto on the bench?
of course taking harvey out on short pitches was too weird.
showing enough to the yanks for an audition – but not enough to beat them.
i won’t be upbeat again til i see some hitting.
i don’t doubt the mets will prevail and make the post-season…i just don’t feel good about what they’ll do once they get there.
i have tickets for the 2nd…now wondering if that’s the day they clinch? no longer fearing a ‘c’ line-up…more than that to ponder!
jason: congrats/props on the new yorker mention!
I have tickets to October 3rd. Went from “That’s gonna be a huge game!” to “Eh, it won’t mean anything but at least I’ll get a blanket” to “Oh My God”.
I am trying to remain calm but I feel like I’ve seen this movie before.
My wife and I are going on the 4th. Had been thinking I’d see a lineup with Kirk, EY Jr, Herrera and Monell because they’d have clinched. Now I’m afraid I’m going to see that lineup because TC likes those matchups and thinks some of the other guys could use a day off.
Met fan since 1963-Polo Grounds-
At start of this season had 2 goals–have a .500 + season & get rid of Collins.
We won 84 games so far and with the Mets/Collins pulling a 64 Phillies 2.0 collapse, Collins will be gone.
When I saw the schedule in April with the evil ones playing us in April & DC Expos finishing in Queens–I thought–no…
Sure hope I’m wrong–but 50+ years of being a Met fan……
Let’s Go Mets!
So, wait, you *want* Collins to be gone so your pre-season hopes are satisfied? Come on, he’s not doing such a bad job. And, just as can be said about any player on the team, if there’s someone better available in the off-season, the Mets will try to acquire him. If not, he will be re-signed.
The good news and the bad news are both in the math:
If the Mets go 5-5 against weak teams and the Nationals go 8-2 against a slightly tougher schedule, then the Mets need only one win in the final three games to clinch the division.
That’s the good math. (And it means my tickets for 10/2 might be pretty meaningful.)
2.18 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, 11.4 K per nine innings– that makes Clayton Kershaw just the second best pitcher and Game 2 starter for L.A. If the Mets go 5-5 they will likely open the NLDS on the road and their young, tired starters might leave them down 2-0 before they even return to Citi. (And that means my Home Game 2 tickets may never get used.)
I wanted that win Sunday for nothing more than to get my Yankee fan friends to shut up for a few weeks. I know, I know…I need different friends. That’s why we all have each other here.
I agree with steve2916
terry went almost all righty again with the one big difference being duda over campbell. But even kruk mentioned that you cant. Stack the lineup with righties against Kershaw because he can pitch the same way to the whole lineup
at this rate I hope we get to face kershaw. Hard not to have agita right now
Collapse 2015 v. 3.0 is well underway.
It’s not underway yet.
The back-to-back Marlins and Yankees series were circled as a possible rough patch down the stretch, and they turned out to be.
For the Nationals, the back-to-back Marlins and Orioles series were their possible rough patch down the stretch. The Nationals took care of the Marlins better than the Mets did. Now it’s up to them to do better against the Orioles than the Mets did against the Yankees and hope the Mets’ cold streak carries over from a contender to one of MLB’s worst teams.
The Nationals are making a run of it and pushing the Mets to keep racing, but they haven’t caught up yet. If the Nationals stay hot against the Orioles and the Mets drop the Braves series, then we’d be looking at a gathering collapse.
Redemption watch, game 149: Nationals (78-71, magic number 20) are 2 games behind the 2007 Phillies (80-69, magic number 17). Mets (84-65, magic number 8) are 1 game ahead of the 2007 Mets (83-66, magic number 11).
The Mets are in better shape than the 2007 Mets who started this week in 2007 with a 7-game lead and leveled out with a 1.5-game lead after game 150. These Mets will have at least a 5-game lead after game 150. On the other hand, the Mets’ final slide in 2007 started with the Phillies. If the Mets drop out again in 2015, it will finish with the Nationals.
With the Yankees behind us, the schedule flips back in the Mets’ favor. Showalter’s Orioles, who should still be scrabbling for the 2nd WC, are better than the Mets’ next opponent.
I’m optimistic. Nonetheless, worrying about the division lead is part of exorcising the 2007 Mets collapse that featured our early hubris as fans when we did the math and looked past the Phillies. Making a point of not looking past the Nationals this time, whatever the odds say, is the right thing to do.
Baseball is a game of streaks that level out over 162 games, except there aren’t 162 games left. Nationals clicking on both sides of the ball, while the Mets hitting has sputtered with middle relief blowing up again and starters dropping off, plus a relapse of LOLMets-type errors, are reminders to worry until the division is won. The Mets’ remaining schedule is easy enough so that wiping out the Nationals’ hope for a meaningful final series with an 8-2 finish is a reasonable hope. But then, that’s how the schedule looked in 2007.
if everyone understood that harvey was only good for one more inning when his turn at bat came up in the fourth, he should have been pulled for a PH with runners on
I think an added inning of middle relief is riskier.
valid point, but we had a chance to pad our lead. i think harvey dent would have lost his shit if he was pulled with a head before the 5th but that may have been the right move with a limited starter.
Too much panicking going on. Yanks were going to be a tough out with them trying get a wildcard spot or catch the Jays. Braves for 3 should be just what we need while the Nationals have the Orioles which should be tougher than their recent set with the Marlins.
I’ve said it before, that being miserable is all a part of the fun, like in 1985 and 1987.
That said, I must now be the happiest man on the face of the earth.
The 1985 pennant race was fun. The 1987 race was not, not in the least.
Difference between a team on the rise and a team trying to hold onto the top.
Since August 1st, in 25 road games, the Mets have scored 182 runs. An average of 7.28 runs a game. During the same period, they’ve scored 81 runs in 21 home games. An average of 3.86 runs per game. Yes, ball park differences can lead to some discrepancy but that is a striking difference in offensive production during the last 7 weeks. The Mets seem to be more relaxed at the plate on the road. Seem to press and chase a lot more bad pitches at home. Their average in Home RISP situations the past 7 weeks has been just brutal. Don’t just look at the last week. Think back to the Red Sox & Pirate series. Even when the Rockies were in. Except for the last game of that 4 game series, they really didn’t hit but crushed the same pitching the next week on the road. Maybe, they feel they have to put on a show at home and press more in attempt to hit the long ball but they are just not generating much when at home.
3 v Braves, 4 @ Reds, 3 @ Phillies, 3 v Nationals.
Given the rollercoaster nature of this season, it makes sense they’d swerve side to side as well as up and down. The Mets flipped from a good-home/bad-road team to a bad-home/good-road team and good pitching carrying bad hitting to good hitting carrying bad pitching.
haha, well THAT’s a good reason to not pass the dodgers (as if we were)!
or worse yet, remember how the rotation was juggled for the HOME opener? i can imagine jeffie salivating at the thoughts of a do-or-die, all seats sold final home series.
meaningful games in october or something along those lines.
please, lets go mets!
As far as the Harvey controversy, it strikes me as a PR failure more than a significant change to Harvey’s workload.
Before Boras spoke out, we already knew the plan from day one was Harvey’s workload would be shaved down with skipped starts, innings limits, and other measures. 180 innings were a target from the start. The difference is the 180-inning figure was a reference point, not the dismiss-all-else simple hard cap that Boras and Harvey later insisted it was.
Which is to say, I don’t think the original plan for Harvey, which was flexible, would have been much different than the revised plan. The details might have been different – say, push Harvey back like deGrom or an extra inning or two might have been squeezed out of his last regular-season starts – but I don’t think the Mets would have pushed Harvey much more down the stretch, if more at all, had Boras not spoken out. I also believe if Boras and Harvey had approached the Mets in private, the pitching schedule could have been reworked with little fuss because the difference in perspective amounted to a handful of innings only.
Subtract the PR mess, Harvey might have only pitched 6 innings with, say, 90-100 pitches anyway. I’m heartened that Harvey pitched a strong 5 innings, assuming his cap won’t carry over to the post-season. If Harvey is similarly capped in the post-season, that’s a problem.
Francessa is RIPPING the Mets about pulling Harvey. I generally don’t like him but he’s totally on point.
He also mentioned the Mets should not be taking their foot off the gas pedal with the division not yet clinched. Not sure if he also is referring to the B lineups, but I’m with him here too.
To analogize to running, if Meb Keflezighi is winning the NYC Marathon at Mile 24 (out of 26.2) by a good margin…do you think he’d start coasting? ;)
I’ve never seen a player who was rested, who was exhibiting no signs of an ailment, who was clearly dominating the game, who was not near the normal physical limitations of a player, and in a situation where there was no strategic reason to make a change come out of a game that mattered because he was afraid of getting hurt. If that was true, he had more of a chance getting hurt in his at-bat to end the fourth. Tanaka DID get hurt hitting. If you don’t want to grab the wheel and lead your team when it needs you, what’s the point?
At that point you’re compromising your team and you’re compromising the game. Harvey staying in that game wouldn’t have guaranteed a win, but that’s not the point. As a fan, I feel let down.
Elite marathoners sprint, relatively speaking, to the finish line.
13 games left with 1 more off day. Season ends on Oct 4. NLDS begins on Oct 9. That’s like the all-star break. Plenty of time to rest up for the play-offs and reset the rotation. From here on out, there shouldn’t be any more resting players for the regular season. Mets should be playing whoever gives the team the best chance to win until the division is clinched.
Hopefully, last night’s game is a wake-up call and the Mets come out tonight ornery and eager to stomp on the Braves, Reds, and Phillies to take the division out of reach no matter what the Nationals do. Niese should pitch like he’s auditioning for the play-offs.
I think the goal over the next 10 games should be a 7-3 record. This means one loss by the Nats will make the last 3 H2H games irrelevant. Can the Mets go 7-3? Here are things that need to happen:
1) Offense needs to put up runs EARLY in games. In this homestand we have started slow…either having 0 runs or 1 runs in the first 5 innings.
2) Need to score more runs without relying on the HR….be nice if we can get score when we have runners in scoring position
3) Big Guns need to get hot…Cespedes, Duda and TDA….
4) Starters need to get us to the 7th or 8th inning with the lead. This is partly on the O to get some runs early and for our starters not to get rocked (Niese..this is for you!)
5) Get to the bullpens early….ATL, Reds (outside of Chapman) and PHL have crappy bullpens..the sooner we can get in there the better we can put up crooked numbers.
I have faith we can get to 7-3….a win tonight is a step in the right direction!
The past is in the past. Nothing we can do about last night now. Odds are still in our favor, blah, blah, blah.. So let us look forward shall we?….. 3 games in front of us with the Braves that provide the perfect opportunity to really separate ourselves and allow us all to breathe easier; wait…, what? we have Niese, Verrett and Colon on the mound? I’m feeling queasy. This was all so perfect just one week ago!
Let’s take a deep breath, folks. Tonight is going to go our way. And this time tomorrow we’ll be talking about Al Weis, Wally Backman, and Melvin Mora.
But not Timo.
Please. Not Timo.
how about murphy? will murphy do it for ya?
talking about timo, murph took his watching-the-play-in-his-head-not-the-one-on-the-field one worse!
murph is making the likely goodbye less difficult.
Dave, that would be really funny if it wasn’t entirely possible.