The Mets beat the Angels (!) Sunday afternoon to take the series (!!), looking impressive in all aspects of the game in doing so. And, as is usually the case when a team that’s been struggling unstruggles, the reaction was, “Gee, was that so hard?”
(Well, my other reaction was “Fuck you, Kurt Suzuki,” but I don’t say that after every Mets win. Though perhaps I’ll start.)
The answer, of course, is that everything is hard when you’re lost in the baseball woods, followed by a reminder to a fan base sighing with relief that not every little run of competence is the start of a renaissance. After all, the Mets’ last series win, against another Why Are We Playing These Guys Again? AL team in the Twins, was followed by the horrors of having to face the big, bad Colorado Rockies. And well look at that, hostilities recommence against the Rockies this afternoon in the vaguely existent air of Denver. (PSA that game time has been moved up to 5:40 pm on account of, yes, snow.)
So that’s a lot of caveats. But still: The Mets pitched, with Clay Holmes as solid as we’ve come to expect and Luke Weaver and Brooks Raley capable behind him. The Mets hit, with two home runs from Mark Vientos, an RBI double from Carson Benge and some solid ABs from Bo Bichette and Brett Baty. And the Mets played defense, with outfield sparklers from Benge and MJ Melendez alongside solid infield work from Baty and Bichette.
(OK, Vientos still plays first like he’s fighting off a swarm of bees, and it would take a committed optimist to imagine there’s an achievable ceiling one wouldn’t have to knee-walk beneath, but in situations like that the formula is for a guy to outhit his mistakes, and on Sunday Vientos did.)
It all worked out. For one day. But enough caveats. Because what’s a season — or a life, for that matter — but a succession of days?
The usage by Gary Cohen of the adjective “pulchritudinous” to describe a baseball catch was neither an appropriate description (first rule of any communication is to know your audience) nor an example of profundity by any means. It was an unctuous, snobby, tortured way to talk down to his audience, and this observer thinks he should be ashamed. A repairman may have a lot of tools in his toolbox, but that doesn’t mean he has to use them. Instead, perhaps he should try to say something that is insighful and not just spout meaningless statistical oddities — and that would be a first. Hey, Gary: Good luck on the SATs!
I’m thinking that was a spontaneous oral emission that didn’t get a lot of forethought applied. Look, the guy has to watch every inning of this shipwreck and make it sound exciting, so I’m cutting him some slack.
Gary Cohen is an unprofessional, annoying schmuck, who has lost any talent he may have once had.
Moreover, he now misjudges many many fly balls hit off the bat. Like the fans at the game, he will shriek excitement at a fly ball that is just a regular fly ball out to the outfield.
Finally, it was nice of this jerk to interrupt his own nonsense to broadcast Vientos’ home runs. He’s already lost his fastball, and now he is losing his curve.
I think we fans deserve better.
You’d prefer maybe Steve Gelbs and his moronic hot dog routines? Maybe we’ll get some better words out of the announcers when we get better baseball out of the players.
I actually do prefer Gelbs in the booth, as he is less of a moron than Cohen when doing a game.
And BTW, as I thought, the word ‘pulchritudinous’ applies to PEOPLE, so Joey G. is correct in saying it was an inappropriate description.
So Cohen just made himself sound dumber than usual.
The anti-Gary jihad is becoming wearying.
Please adjust accordingly.
Thanks.
Rats! Guess I’ll just have to forego my online petition.