If you had plans Saturday night that didn’t involve watching the Mets, well, I applaud your life choices.
Robert Stock was unlucky at first and then had no one to point the finger at unless a mirror was involved, which led to him being left out on the Pittsburgh mound to take a beating. (The modern game being what it is, postgame talk was all about whether the lack of pity for Stock means Jonah Tong will be summoned to apply whatever he’s learned in Triple-A.) Meanwhile, the Mets did basically nothing against Bubba Chandler. The final score was 9-0, the same tally applied in case of a forfeit, which would have saved Stock’s arm some wear and tear and the rest of us some time.
Luis Torrens did pretty well, all things considered, in his two innings on the mound. Is that something? No. No, it is not. I did have to laugh when I saw Torrens get called off on one play: Does a position player pitching mean he too has to be treated like a mildly interesting visitor to the diamond, there more as a tourist than a full participant? It’s not like Torrens had to really bear down and concentrate on his craft.
Oh, and have a thought for poor Gabriel Arias. We just saw the Cleveland utilityman when we were playing them; he botched a play against us, got booed by the crowd (which frankly seemed a little overdone) and wound up watching as catcher Austin Hedges was pressed into service. Now he’s a Met, and in his first game he winds up watching as catcher Luis Torrens is pressed into service. Things have got to get better, right?
Oh, and Carson Benge seems to be OK. That really is something. Not much, but something.
Five straight didn’t happen. Beards are safe. Don’t say no to interesting Sunday afternoon plans. The season chugs along.
I turned it off before Luis started pitching. It was only 8-0 at that point. Don’t believe I’ll watch the replay of the rest of it.
Stock is 50/50 when it comes to having a good start. That’s above the average for this team so I suspect he’ll get one more.
I wish the Mets had been able to push a couple runs across last Sunday for Stock, because I see a DFA in his future. He pitched so brilliantly then, and the Mets have scored a total of zero runs for him in his two starts, while in-between they won four games and scored a bunch of runs in every win. Life simply isn’t fair, and baseball isn’t either.