The blog for Mets fans
who like to read
ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. (Sorry, but we have no interest in ads, sponsored content or guest posts.)
Need our RSS feed? It's here.
Visit our Facebook page, or drop by the personal pages for Greg and Jason.
Or follow us on Twitter: Here's Greg, and here's Jason.
|
by Jason Fry on 21 August 2012 11:43 am Because we’ll all be happier if we don’t dwell on the wreckage of the 2012 Mets, I thought I’d expand a tweet about my bandwagon teams. (If you want to wallow in last night’s unpleasantness, post is here.)
This part of August is a funny time: If you root for a good team it’s still early, like terrifyingly early. And if you root for a bad team it’s hideously late. But with the early caveat out of the way, let’s rank some potential bandwagon teams.
Quick standings review: In the AL, the Yankees are up four games over Tampa Bay, the White Sox are up two on Detroit, and Texas is six games ahead of Oakland. Your AL wild cards right now are the Rays and Orioles, with the A’s a half-game out and the Tigers 1.5 back. In the NL, the Nats are up six over Atlanta, Cincy is up 6.5 on the Pirates, and the Giants are half a game ahead of the Dodgers. Your NL wild cards right now are Atlanta and Pittsburgh, with L.A. half a game back and the Cardinals 1.5 back. (The Angels and D-backs are still vaguely in the mix, but we’ll leave them out for now.)
Here, right now, are my bandwagon teams in order of preference, with a bit about why. If you’re game, do the same exercise in the comments.
1) Pirates — If you have to ask why, you apparently have a heart of stone — and it’s not a soft, workable stone but the granite stuff that bends bulldozer blades. Anyone without a rooting interest should be singing some AutoTune’d remix of “We Are Family” at the top of their lungs. No other answer is acceptable. BE HUMAN, YOU!
2) A’s — Downtrodden, kept from a decent home by the selfishness of the Giants and the sluggishness of MLB. Smart and resourceful — Moneyball is still a worthy rallying cry all these years later. Great tradition — have always loved the white elephant.
3) Rays — Moneyball East, the triumph of the thoughtful over the rich. Joe Maddon is hugely entertaining. A Rays win would make Jeffrey Loria look like an even bigger tool and piss off Yankees fans.
4) Nationals — I still love Davey Johnson, and if the man had had the wild card available to him, he’d never have left and David Wright would have had to wear some other number. Bryce Harper is an enormously fun player to watch. Good core they’ve built the right way. The Strasburg drama is fascinating. But if they win, they must immediately restore the Expos’ retired numbers and other heritage. Because for shame, people. Speaking of which, points off for the presence of Jayson Werth.
5) Rangers — A powerhouse, but they’ve never won anything, and five decades in the wilderness is enough. Plus can you imagine having to live through last fall’s heartbreak?
6) White Sox — Fun out-of-nowhere team, and I’d love to see Robin Ventura drenched in champagne as a rookie manager.
7) Braves — CONTROVERSY! To my surprise, I have a soft spot for Chipper in his final go-round. Plus Bobby Cox is gone. Totally understand if your mileage varies dramatically.
8) Orioles — Major points added for a downtrodden fan base, a la the Pirates. Minor points added for the potential to make Yankees fans gloomy. Major points subtracted for the presence of interfering troglodyte Peter Angelos. They wind up in the middle.
9) Tigers — Getting into meh territory, but great team, town and tradition. I love Jim Leyland though I despise Miguel Cabrera.
10) Reds — Another great team and town, and it’s amazing that they’ve stepped on the gas harder without Joey Votto. But I really dislike Dusty Baker. A Reds win would let him destroy young arms and chew toothpicks for another decade. Shudder.
11) Dodgers — Would be a nice comeback story from the horrors of recent years. But their fans are either entitled, ditzy know-nothings or thugs trying to beat people to death in the parking lot. And they now employ both Hanley and Victorino. We’re definitely in “enemy of my enemy” territory now.
12) Giants — Still too drunk on Cinderella memories to be an acceptable bandwagon team. Plus Brian Sabean is a cretin. Still, fabulous park and town.
13) Cardinals — Just won. Tired of the whole “best fans in baseball” wankery. Yadier Molina. On the plus side, Carlos Beltran with a ring would be a nice sight. And at least La Russa is gone.
14) Plague/Famine/A Rain of Asteroids — I don’t have to explain this, do I?
by Jason Fry on 21 August 2012 12:54 am Annie, I’ve got a lot of time to hear your theories, and I want to hear every damn one of them. But now I’m tired, and I don’t want to think about baseball and I don’t want to think about quantum physics. I don’t want to think about nothing. I just want to be. — Crash Davis, Bull Durham
There are very, very few things that I love more than baseball. My family, my friends … that’s probably it. Baseball is the filled-in spaces on my calendar for the nine months of the year in which it’s around, and the unhappy absences when it’s not. Baseball is, for all intents and purposes, my religion.
Yet as with all religions, there comes a time when heresy shoves aside faith. Watching baseball played ineptly and tepidly for day after day after day after day does not inspire love. It does not make you look forward to 1:10 and 7:10. It makes filled-in spaces on calendars seem like extra trips to the DMV and or dentist. It makes “I got recap” sound like a chore.
That’s being a Mets fan right now. They are awful — reliably bad in the box score and the standings. But worse than that, they are boring. They aren’t a tragicomedy like the clubs overseen by Casey Stengel or Joe Torre or Dallas Green once upon a time. They’re Art Howe boring and bad — they darken the room.
I was at a wedding this weekend, which was a wonderful time — but by the end I missed my Mets, and never mind that they were getting beaten by the Nationals. I was happy to have a game to take in tonight — for about an hour. By the end of that hour I was mad, and spent the next two tweeting mean things about the team. It didn’t make me feel any better. By the time Mike Baxter flied out, I was just glum and tired.
It’s a familiar feeling, given that the Mets are a horrifying 11-25 since the break, even worse than I’d feared. Given that, I can think of exactly three reasons to watch the Mets until 2013 gets here:
1. David Wright is a home run away from 200. Wright is, of course, a fine player having a good year at the plate (despite a second-half swoon) and an excellent year in the field. More than that, he is decent and patient and loyal — at our last blogger event at Citi Field, I kept my eye on Wright and was amazed at how many times he was asked to sign something or shake hands with someone or chat about something or do this one more thing. It was exhausting to watch, and we weren’t even at game time yet. Wright did it all without complaining or looking like his energy was flagging. It was, in its own way, as superhuman as being able to hit a fastball traveling 95 miles an hour or managing to spear a sizzling grounder that’s already behind your glove. He deserves our thanks and recognition for a well-earned milestone.
2. R.A. Dickey could win 20. At the moment it looks like winning 16 will be a struggle, given how little help Dickey’s getting most nights. But if the Mets step up their mighty post-All-Star-Game winning percentage to a cool .333 or so, that ought to get R.A. to 18 wins or so, and hey, who knows? Dickey is having a remarkable year, one that might be significant not just for him but for the evolution of the pitch he throws. Win or lose, he is a ferocious competitor and a fascinating thinker, and always worth watching.
3. Matt Harvey is good. Harvey is an old-school power pitcher with tremendous potential. He’s got a ways to go, but he looks like he’s learning quickly on the job, and his mindset includes that certain arrogance that comes with being an effective power pitcher. He’s a preview of a better future, and God knows we all need as much of that as we can get right now.
The rest? You can take it. I’m no longer interested in grading Ike Davis’s tantrums after his latest horrible at-bat, or wondering what numbnuts thing Andres Torres will do next, or surveying the pitiful ruin of Jason Bay’s once-proud career. There’s nothing left to see except further evidence that what we see now better not be what we see next April. Which both we and our front office knew some time ago.
The Mets do nothing, and then they do bad things, and then they do dumb things. That’s their blueprint for most games now, as you saw tonight. Dickey pitched well, with the exception of a lone floating knuckler that Tyler Colvin banged off the facing of the Pepsi Porch to tie the game at 1-1. He got no help other than that lone run, and was pulled for a pinch-hitter (the affably useless Justin Turner) in the seventh. Josh Edgin came in for the eighth and in rapid succession made a dismal throwing error, passed up an out at third and then fired a wild slider past Kelly Shoppach to give the Rockies the lead. The Mets tried to fight back in the bottom of the eighth, and Jordany Valdespin came within an eyelash of driving in the tying run with a grounder past first, but he inexplicably slid into the base, slowing himself down enough to be nipped by Colorado’s Matt Belisle on a bang-bang play that Adrian Johnson (he of June’s momentous gift call on Carlos Beltran) got right — and stuck to with quiet dignity while Valdespin raged sufficiently for most umps to throw him out. Good moment in a bad year for MLB umps; bad moment in a so-so year for Valdespin.
So here’s your blueprint for the rest of season: Start figuring out your bandwagon team, wait for Wright to hit No. 200, and then check and see if Dickey or Harvey is pitching. And if they’re not? Go ahead and date that nice woman from the bar, whether she’s proposing Tuesday night or any other evening. Your doctor’s right that you have no time to waste — hell, not mooning over this shipwreck of a team will probably improve your health anyway. No-fly list? Pffft — except for a tasteless Red Grooms montrosity or two, Miami’s awesome. Get on the plane, Ashley.
Or, if you must, get thee to StubHub — we’re probably one more bad homestand from $1 seats at Citi. Look at it as the cover charge for getting that awesome new Pat LaFrieda steak sandwich the bloggers keep going on about. Get there early and eat up. Then figure out something more worthwhile to do with your evening.
by Greg Prince on 20 August 2012 2:25 pm  Thursday night at 6:30, SNY favors us with the 25th installment of the Mets Yearbook series, the 1974 edition. If the editing hasn’t been too fierce, you can look forward to not just highlights not of the 1974 Mets season, but the Mets’ postseason trip to Japan (during which the recently acquired Joe Torre made his Mets quasi-debut). Why would a fifth-place, 71-91 team be invited to represent Major League Baseball? Because the invitations for such things would go out well in advance, and when the Mets were invited, they were still defending National League champions.
The aura of that crown wore off after about three seconds of 1974, the first losing campaign I ever experienced as a Mets fan (but, oh, surely not the last), yet as we’ve seen most of the 24 other times we’ve gazed lovingly upon a freshly revived Mets Yearbook, highlights are in the eye of the beholder of the highlights film viewer.
Which is to say bring on Mets Yearbook: 1974, the greatest public service any regional sports channel has ever rendered to its loyal viewers. Then stay tuned for an SNY special visiting with one of the kids who no doubt watched those 1974 Mets, recently inducted New York Mets Hall of Famer John Franco. It airs at 7:00.
Image courtesy of “Mario Mendoza…HOF lock” at Baseball-Fever.
by Greg Prince on 20 August 2012 1:44 am “You again, my man! What can I do ya for?”
“Cut the crap. You know what I need.”
“I thought I setcha up last night.”
“I need more. C’mon, c’mon…”
“What’sa matter? Last night not enough?”
“It wore off. I need more. C’mon…”
“I dunno…”
“Whaddaya mean you don’t know? Set me up!”
“I’m just playin’ with ya, bro. I knew you’d be back.”
“Great, great, whaddaya got? It’s raining, I’m going crazy waiting.”
“Nothin’ wrong with a little rain. Helps the crops, right?”
“Don’t gimme that! Rain means I gotta wait! The delay is killing me!”
“How about some of this fresh batch of ‘Pregame’? Got it straight from Eddie C.”
“‘Pregame’? That shit’s weak! I need the real stuff!”
“Patience, my man. I think we got some ‘Howie and Josh’. Yeah, tarp’s off this shipment, bro. Help yourself.”
“‘Howie and Josh’? Wasn’t it ‘Howie and Jim’ last night? ‘Howie and Jim’ was real good last night! What happened to ‘Howie and Jim’?”
“Relax, amigo. This stuff’s better. Street name’s ‘Flagship’. Just came in overnight from San Diego. Give it a taste.”
“Oh yeah…oh yeah! ‘Howie and…’”
“‘Howie and Josh,’ that’ll get ya through ’til Monday night.”
“What else? What else? What else ya got?”
“Maybe you’d like to sample a little ‘Hefner’.”
“What? Whofner?”
“‘Hefner’.”
“Never heard of it. Any good?”
“They’re calling it ‘Sixth Starter’ on the street.”
“‘Sixth Starter’? I never heard of no ‘Sixth Starter’. Sounds weird.”
“No, man. Try a hit.”
“Ugh! That’s no good!”
“I’m tellin’ ya, bro, ya gotta let it kick in. In Washington, they get one hit off ‘Hefner,’ and then it’s like…BAM! One hit after another!”
“I can’t wait for something like that to work. What else ya got? I’m Jonesin’ here. I need somethin’ better. The shit I’ve been gettin’ lately ain’t shit! I used to see pictures, man. I used to turn on at 7:10 and see pictures! I ain’t seen pictures since Friday night! I need somethin’!”
“Hold on, hold on…try this.”
“What’s that?”
“Just got it in from my Boston connection. It’s called ‘Shoppach’.”
“‘Shoppach’? What’s ‘Shoppach’?”
“Its street name is ‘the UnThole’. Think of it as a change of pace. Like 7UP back in the day.”
“It’s good?”
“I’m tellin’ ya — it’s different. Not what you’re used to. It might take a second, but it comes highly recommended.”
“Enough sales pitch. Just gimme some.”
“Here ya go…”
“Whoa! This is different! Not amazing different, but different. I can feel it hitting…and kinda like…”
“Catching?”
“Yeah, that’s it, catching!”
“See? That’s why they call it ‘the UnThole’.”
“Whatever, man. Let me get some more of that ‘Shoppach’. It’s better than that weak-ass ‘Nickeas’ shit you were pushing on me earlier this year.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Thought it would be better.”
“How much? How much?”
“Just gimme back some of that bullpen stuff from last month if you still got it and we’ll call it square.”
“Done. Hey, can I borrow your phone?”
“My phone? What you want my phone for?”
“I dunno, man. I tried this ‘Shoppach,’ and now I gotta borrow your phone.”
“I’m not givin’ you my phone. Use your own phone.”
“No way, man! I gotta send a text but it can’t be from my phone!”
“Hey, you all right? There might be some side effects from ‘Shoppach’.”
“I can’t use my own phone! Then they’ll know it’s from me!”
“Yeah, one of the side effects might be paranoia or somethin’. Man, take it easy on that ‘Shoppach’. Try a little of this instead.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s good, man. It calms ya down.”
“What is it?”
“It’s, uh…”
“What? WHAT?”
“The street name is ‘Abyss’.”
“‘Abyss’? Didn’t you try to get me hooked on that before?”
“Ya got me. It’s ‘Bay’.”
“No way.”
“Don’t be like that, bro! You know how highly valued this shipment was?”
“Oh no way, man. You tried that on me before. Ain’t my fault you can’t get rid of that ‘Bay’ shit.”
“Bro, think of it as the equivalent of really good rum.”
“Rum?”
“You know, like 151-proof.”
“Really?”
“Well, more like .151, but c’mon, give it another chance.”
“I need somethin’. Fine. Gimme that ‘Bay’ shit again.”
“Here ya go. Now remember it works real slow.”
“I don’t feel nothin’.”
“Nah, man. That means it’s workin’.”
“Nothin’ I’m tellin’ ya. Total zero. What the fuck?”
“Hey man, you said you wanted it.”
“I didn’t want no ‘Bay’!”
“Too late, man. You just had a whole ’nother season of it.”
“I did?”
“Three-quarters of a season. Same thing.”
“Damn. I don’t remember any of it. What just happened?”
“Lost, 5-2. Sorry, bro.”
“Really? It’s all a blur.”
“See? It worked. You’re so into what I got that you probably didn’t even notice it’s 25 of 36.”
“Whatever. I got my fix. I’m good. I’m not messing with any of this anymore.”
“See ya tomorrow night.”
“You’re not hearin’ me. I told ya, I’m good. I’m done with you.”
“Sure, bro, though maybe you forgot about this week.”
“What’s so special about this week?”
“I’m getting some of that stuff in that you like.”
“You mean…”
“Yup. ‘Homestand’.”
“‘Homestand’…nah, man, I don’t care about that. I’m done.”
“Got tickets for ya. Right here…”
“Not interested. Well, lemme just see ’em…”
“Go ahead, bud. Hold ’em for a minute. Feel good in your hands, don’t they?”
“They kinda do. Maybe I’ll take just one…”
“Seven games, bro…”
“Nah, that’s crazy. I’ll just take a couple. Who’s playin’?”
“Rockies. And Astros.”
“Hey, they’re not too good! We could begin to make up some ground! Gimme all ya got!”
by Greg Prince on 18 August 2012 10:52 pm Strange world we live in when the Mets game on what we used to call “free TV” isn’t readily available via the service millions pay for because…well, ya got me. Two corporations are in the middle of a pissing match and it’s the loyal customers who get spritzed.
So what else is new?
 When I took to Twitter to vent over the sudden Mets blackout in my coaxial neck of the woods, the company that owns the cable system to which I susbcribe reached out to let me know it was the fault of the company that owns the channel that airs “free” Mets games, while the company that owns the channel that airs “free” Mets games reached out to let me know it was the fault of the company that owns the cable system. Great moves — transparent, buffoonish PR maneuvers are so much more impressive to the Metsless viewer than cobbling together a settlement.
 Is this what it’s like to be the parent of petulant twins?
Well, the Mets played without my eyes on them but my ears all over them, just as if it was a contention-free Saturday night in August of 2002 or 1992 or 1982 or 1972. In 2012, the Mets weren’t going anywhere, but neither was I, except to my radio, which is not a bad bargain in the post-Hagin era. My devotion to Gary, Keith, Ron and live televised images notwithstanding, I’m always happy to be immersed for a few innings in Howie and Josh. Alas, Josh was off to do a football game somewhere (one that doesn’t count, at that), so it was Howie and Jim Duquette for a few innings and then some. Happy was downgraded to content, but Duquette is amiable and informed and he’s not Wayne Hagin. Plus Howie is always Howie, which is a godsend in any medium.
From what they were telling me, Jon Niese was fairly close to Jon Matlack, Ike Davis channeled the bright side of Dave Kingman, Mike Baxter patrolled deep right like Joel Youngblood and Frank Francisco Skipped in from the bullpen to Lockwood down a save for a change. Only the names of the Expos have been changed to protect the impotent, thus we’ll say the final was Mets 2 Nationals 0 and hope to listen to another good game on Sunday. It is being televised on that channel I suddenly don’t get, so I’ll listen to a bad game if necessary, same as it ever was in 2002 and 1992 and 1982 and 1972.
As Chauncey Gardiner said in another satisfying tale set in Washington, I like to watch. But I’m content to listen. For a true baseball fan, the radio is always like being there.
by Greg Prince on 18 August 2012 5:54 am “I can still play football. I look at films day after day, week in and week out, and I know I can still play. I feel good throwing — there’s not a pass in the book I can’t throw. My arm is good no matter what people say and my legs are okay. I’ve had problems with my knees just once this year. But what can people expect when you get knocked down eight out of 10 times? What the hell do you do?”
That was 33-year-old Joe Namath on December 12, 1976, following a 42-3 Jets loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Joe threw 15 passes that cold day at Shea. Four of them were completed. Four of them were intercepted.
“You know, my season has been a rollercoaster. A lot of ups and downs. Good days. Bad days. But I’m very positive about everything because I’m coming back from a major surgery, and I’ve been able to be out there every five games. […] Right now my shoulder is fine. I don’t have any issues with it. It’s just that it has been a long season for me.”
That was 33-year-old Johan Santana on Friday night, following a 6-4 Mets loss to the Washington Nationals. Johan set down all nine batters he faced in his first three innings at Nationals Park, but proceeded to give up six earned runs and nine hits in the fourth and fifth, including a grand slam to Michael Morse and a two-run homer to Bryce Harper. He’s allowed at least six earned runs in each of his past five starts, something no Met pitcher has ever done.
Namath, who led the Jets to their greatest glory before injuries overtook his brilliance, never played another game for New York after the debacle against Cincinnati. He was signed by the Rams in 1977, started four games for L.A. before being benched and retired at the end of his thirteenth professional season.
Santana, who is under contract to the Mets through next year (his thirteenth major league season), has crafted a career that can also be described as both brilliant and injury-riddled. While his significance to the Mets franchise is not nearly on a par with what Namath meant to the Jets, he has been, for reassuring stretches and incandescent moments, immensely important around here since 2008. It is his outsized presence that has made his periodic absences resonate so thoroughly. And as with Namath, it is the vivid memory of what Santana has done in a Mets uniform that leaves a Mets fan incredulous that he can look perfectly fine for a while and speak nonchalantly of how perfectly fine he feels afterwards, but somewhere in the middle of that rendition of reality is the starker version: another short outing, another ton of runs, another bushel of passes that wind up in the hands of the Bengal secondary.
When Namath was done as a Jet, his most glorious times were eight years in the past. There would be flashes after Super Bowl III, but it was never the same. The injuries wouldn’t let it be. Johan’s only been a Met for five seasons, and one of those was spent furiously recovering from surgery…as was the offseason that followed it. Really, there was no offseason when it came to rehabilitation.
“I’ve been throwing baseballs since December 15,” Johan mentioned after losing to the Nats, maybe as a legitimate excuse for running on empty in the fourth and fifth innings, maybe as a stream of consciousness an all-time great emits as he tries to figure out why he’s not only not pitching like an all-time great but isn’t pitching remotely passably as of August 17. He says he feels good. Terry Collins says “his command was good” for three innings. Dan Warthen says, “It’s just a matter of building that arm strength back up.” Johan’s been at it since December when everybody else has been throwing baseballs since February. Nobody among those who have a say came out and said Friday that it’s time to call August October and give Johan a rest. But nobody in that group was ruling it out, either.
You never want to rule anything out with guys the ilk of a Namath or a Santana. You’ve seen them do too much to think they’re no more than one pass or one pitch from getting it together and resuming their careers in uninterrupted fashion at the level to which you and they have become accustomed.
Sometimes that’s the problem.
by Greg Prince on 17 August 2012 2:43 pm You know how your various Mets come on the big screen early in the game and tell you not to run on the field and such, and then David Wright caps it off by reminding us that “Mets fans are the greatest fans in the world!”? Here are a few opportunities (besides continuing to support this team through thin and occasionally less thin) to confirm our third baseman’s flattering assessment.
• Saturday, before you go home to your Cablevision household where you will not, as of this writing, be able to enjoy the Mets on Channel 11 (or even if you’re able to see the telecast you’re paying for by some other means), you can give blood at Citi Field. I know, you already give sweat and tears, but the Mets are joining with the American Red Cross on a blood drive from 9 AM to 5 PM in the Caesars Club. Open a vein, help your fellow man and get a pair of tickets for the Mets-Phillies game on September 17. (The Mets maintain a two-game lead on Philadelphia — never mind for what.) Details on the humanitarian effort here.
• On Saturday, September 8, Mets fan Tommy LaBella, who passed away earlier this year at the way-too-soon age of 22, will be remembered at the first annual Tommy LaBella Softball Tournament at D’Onofrio Field in New Rochelle, beginning at 9 AM. Proceeds will benefit the Tommy LaBella Sky’s The Limit Fund — whose mission is to “allow Tommy’s spirit to continue to touch the lives of many by giving back to his community” — and the New Rochelle Little League. There’ll be a silent auction of sports memorabilia and all kinds of fun and games to honor the memory of someone who remains in the hearts of those who knew him best. Visit the fund’s Facebook page here for more information on the event and get a sense of what Tommy meant to his loved ones here.
• Ike Davis, an occasionally threatening presence to National League pitchers (just ask Homer Bailey), is really quite the good-natured lad, and you can help him help others on Sunday, September 9, by attending A Night With Ike Davis (And Teammates), a benefit concert for Solving Kids’ Cancer and the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative. it takes place at City Winery on Varick Street. Details here.
• Don’t forget our friends who will be running soon to raise funds for the Tug McGraw Foundation in its fight against the scourge of brain cancer: Taryn Cooper, in the New York City Marathon on November 4; and Sharon Chapman, this time in the Trenton Double Cross Half Marathon, on November 10. Give Coop a hand here and Sharon here as they each devote their feet to a great cause.
by Jason Fry on 17 August 2012 12:36 am Matt Harvey is a beast. Just ask the Reds.
Harvey fanned eight, didn’t allow a runner until he hit Ryan Ludwick leading off the fifth (Ludwick, channeling Reggie Sanders, glared death at him), and didn’t allow a hit until three batters later, when Scott Rolen hit a little roller that Justin Turner could only surround. He was superb for 7 2/3, leaning on his heavy fastball with late movement and supplementing it with his slider, curve and the occasional change — which is much, much better than watching him try to be a Rick Reed-type finesse guy. (I’m still baffled by why the Mets kept pushing him to throw so many change-ups in recent starts.) He chipped in a two-run double of his own — yes, Harvey can hit. (Though no, he probably can’t man a corner outfield spot. Sorry.) And if we can tiptoe into the realm of the intangible, I like the way he goes about his business on the mound — he gets the ball and is ready to go, acting as if the mound is his and he’ll dictate what happens on it, thank you very much. Contrast that with, say, Jon Niese wandering around looking put upon when things go wrong.
Oh, and the Mets hit too, from Ike Davis to Mike Baxter to Ruben Tejada to (stop operating heavy machinery) Jason Bay. The bullpen? Well, it was mixed. Bobby Parnell relieved Harvey with the Reds trying to get back into the game and froze Brandon Phillips with a beautiful hook at the knee, Frank Francisco was spectacularly awful in the ninth, but then Jon Rauch erased Wilson Valdez for the win. (Between Valdez and the despicable Miguel Cairo, who knew Cincinnati was the Valhalla for unmemorable, briefly tenured Met infielders?)
Any good Harvey start is going to feel like a preview of the Mets’ hoped-for future, but games like tonight’s are also something a lot simpler: They’re fun, which baseball is supposed to be. It was fun watching Harvey work and seeing if a very, very good Reds team (that’s minus Joey Votto!) could counter what he was doing. It was fun watching the Mets actually hit balls hard, seeing them land away from enemy fielders and then watching Mets touch home plate. It was fun watching Bobby Ojeda not be angry afterwards. It was fun knowing the Mets wouldn’t offer up some ridiculous tweet (“RECAP: Frank Francisco retires two in 9th before Cincy comeback”) that would make me want to set myself on fire on the hood of Dave Howard’s SUV. It was fun reporting for recap duty. It’ll be fun to read the morning reviews. Remember fun?
Fun is so much better than what the Mets have given us lately. Let’s have more of it.
by Jason Fry on 16 August 2012 2:28 am In the bottom of the second inning last night, the umpires made R.A. Dickey cut two small friendship bracelets off the wrist of his glove hand — bracelets his daughters had given to him in January, before he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
Yes really.
My suspicions — and those of probably every other Mets fan — immediately focused on Dusty Baker, with some folks on Twitter noting that such gamesmanship could be payback for the Mets complaining about Mat Latos’s loose pockets last night.
But no, that would have made too much sense — Baker was apparently innocent. (Though not of being annoying and destroying young pitchers’ arms.) Suspicions next fell on the umpires — and, for a moment, I wondered about the conspiracy theory making the rounds in the Mets clubhouse that the team doesn’t get close calls because MLB’s umps are still steamed about Sandy Alderson trying to make them accountable more than a decade ago. I haven’t put much stock in the Mets’ musings — their real problem is that they’re not very good — but for a moment you had to wonder. After all, it’s true that MLB’s umps are a childish, cosseted bunch whose performance this year has been dreadful to the point of absurdity. Seriously: You can now watch a week of baseball and be pretty certain to see three or four painfully bad blown calls. We’re headed inevitably for replay, and not just because it effectively already exists in every modern park and is making its way onto fans’ phones. We’re headed that way because MLB’s umps are now so routinely incompetent that ultimate oversight of the game needs to be taken out of their hands.
But supposedly the umps weren’t to blame either — it was MLB, enforcing some absurd ticky-tack rule, and of course doing so selectively. (Here, for instance, is Felix Hernandez post-perfecto with something on his wrist that presumably would have sent last night’s home-plate ump James Hoye to his fainting couch.)
It’s enough to make the blood boil, but honestly, who cares? Someone was being stupid. Dickey was pissed about it, and justifiably so. But as he admitted later, he just wasn’t very good. That’s no sin, particularly not in a 15-4 campaign — R.A. is basically the only reason to watch this moribund club stagger toward the day when they’re told they can stop playing baseball. But he wasn’t exactly compelling viewing last night, as about a billion feet worth of Cincinnati home runs more than demonstrated.
Terry Collins was pissed about the bracelets too, but he looked a lot more pissed about other things — like his vanished offense, or the general air of depressing dead-assedness that’s settled over his club like an endless hangover. The Mets are horrible right now, they’ve been horrible since the All-Star break, and this is the fourth year in a row that they’ve been horrible in the second half. That’s a bad pattern whether you’re plotting a return to contention (perhaps we should aim for relevance first) or trying to sell tickets. Once upon a time, Fred Wilpon was mocked for wanting to see meaningful games in September. I never thought that was as crazy as everybody else did, but jeez — right now “meaningful games in September” seems like a pipe dream. Meaningful games in August would be novel.
Oh, and here are the Mets themselves, after tonight’s loss: “Baxter, Tejada each collect two hits in loss to Reds.” Not mentioned: That those were the only four hits the Mets had. Or that they endured a 6-1 pasting in which the only run scored on a double play that short-circuited the inning. I believe this is what’s known as trying to polish a turd, and I really wish the Mets would stop embarrassing themselves and us with stuff like this. Right now there are 25 guys taking care of that already.
Sigh. I’ll leave you with this: In the top of the second, before Braceletgate turned tragedy into farce, Jordany Valdespin hit a twisting pop into the seats between home and the third-base dugout. As fans windmilled their arms and leaped about, a woman in a Mets t-shirt calmly flicked out her hand and caught the ball. No drama, no fuss — it was pretty damn cool.
It was also easily the most impressive thing someone wearing a Mets shirt did all night.
by Greg Prince on 15 August 2012 3:23 am Once in a while, particularly in a season that’s wandered dutifully into its gone-to-hell portion, the Mets will play a game that, like a piece of black, volcanic glass in Andy Dufresne’s favorite Maine hayfield, has no earthly business on their ledger. It will be tense, it will be tight, it will be gripping…even if ultimately it will be lost.
And you almost knew, as a Mets fan, that the Mets would lose Tuesday night in Cincinnati. You knew it for certain by the middle of the ninth if you couldn’t figure it out earlier. Some games are just like that: more fun than you imagine for a while, then teasingly cruel in their suspense, then just plain mean as they reach their pedestrian, predictable conclusion.
If the Mets could have pushed this thing into extra innings, lightning could have been reset in order to strike. You never know what will happen when you take a scoreless game beyond nine. On April 17, 2010, Pedro Feliciano threw a ground ball double play that preserved a nothing-nothing game through nine and next thing you knew (or, more accurately, next several-dozen things you knew), the Mets were 2-1 winners in 20.
But the key was getting out of the ninth. The Mets and Reds had farcically charged that far with no runs apiece. If it was a pitchers’ duel, it was conducted with banana cream pies at ten paces. Gentlemen, turn around and…SPLAT! Chris Young wasn’t sharp but persevered. Mat Latos wasn’t sharp but persevered. Or did the batters they faced aid the appearance of perseverance? Neither Young nor Latos nor their many successors could have been mound magician enough to have escaped more kinds of jams had they been accidentally locked inside the Welch’s plant past closing.
Leadoff hitters keep reaching? Catcher’s interference called? Runners confidently taking off from first? Pitchers cracking bases-loaded line drives? Pinch-hitters whacking balls to the wall? Doubles abounding? Wild pitches? Control problems? Deep flies? Sinking liners? Perfectly executed sacrifice bunts?
They were all there, yet they didn’t add up to bupkes. No Met could drive in any other Met for nine innings. No Red could drive in any other Red for eight innings, and their were loads of Red chances to do so. At first it seemed Young would snap like an 83-inch twig. Then he shape-shifted into a bendy straw. Then the journey from bending to breaking was imminent. Then he was replaced by Ramon Ramirez, who rescued him, which seemed novel. Then Ramirez was replaced by Bobby Parnell, who dug a customary hole but also tunneled out of it; more novelty. Then Jon Rauch came along and took no mess whatsoever.
While it was true the Mets did nothing of substance to Latos, Sean Marshall and Jose Arredondo despite six hits, four walks, Young’s sizzling liner that landed in Brandon Phillips’s glove, the Scott Hairston rope that reached the left field corner too fast for it to be good for more than one base and the catcher’s interference charged to Ryan Hannigan (shortly after Jordany Valdespin drove Latos to snorting distraction by repeatedly asking for and receiving time), it was truer that the Reds did the exact same amount of damage to Young, Ramirez, Parnell and Rauch despite five singles, four doubles, six walks and the sense of doom that will logically impend when you’re playing a first-place ballclub in their ballpark and your notoriously flammable bullpen is all that separates you from extinction.
Which, of course, is what came to in the bottom of the ninth. It came to Manny Acosta (Frank Francisco — no bargain but technically the best we got — was presumably being saved for the nineteenth and twentieth) walking Phillips and giving up a single to Ryan Ludwick to assure trouble, and Josh Edgin, Terry Collins’s not so new toy, ending it with a mighty assist from Jay Bruce.
The intrigue of 0-0 was over. The 14 Reds left on across eight innings were immaterial. Three Cincinnatians survived to cross the plate on one Bruce swing. The ten men the Mets got as far as first, second or third proved lethal in their failure to gain admission home. The team in first place did what it felt like they were going to do in the middle of the ninth. They won.
The other team…our team…also did what you inevitably discerned they would do. But they made it interesting without being unforgivably aggravating for a while.
So that was different.
|
|
