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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.
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by Greg Prince on 21 July 2012 2:33 am We didn’t miss winning Friday night’s ballgame by much. Another inch or so batwise, and either Wright or Davis gets much more than a sacrifice fly in the first and we’re tied at three. The pitcher’s glove that deflects Jerry Hairston’s grounder away from Ruben Tejada keeps a runner off base in advance of Luis Cruz’s first-ever home run in the third. And a more generous, possibly more accurate call at second by the revered Jim Joyce when Andre Ethier was probably tagged out by Daniel Murphy (who did his job a helluva lot better than Josh Thole) means a runner who becomes a run is erased. Oh, and throw in however close Terry Collins came to writing VALDESPIN on his lineup card but failed to as another measurement by which a game of inches inched into the Dodgers’ column.
But even had the Mets gotten the microbreaks they needed to effect a grand-scale comeback or prevent the need for anything overly dramatic, a theoretical win against L.A. wouldn’t have felt free-and-clear fabulous, not when Johan Santana was pitching as he was pitching.
Dreadful was how he was pitching. As dreadful as he’s pitched in a Mets uniform, probably, and that includes those horrible Yankee Stadium starts and the last two games when he also surrendered six earned runs. Those six-packs weren’t as resolutely flat as this one. You could kind of blame the ankle tripping him up against the Cubs at Citi Field right before the All-Star break and note that until C.B. Bucknor brought his inept magic to bear in Atlanta he was doing pretty well at Turner Field.
Nothing, however, was doing here against the Dodgers. The game of inches — even the inches to which Johan contributed with his glove on the “other” Hairston’s ball — didn’t reflect the miles that were missing from his pitches, particularly that home run to Cruz. Changeup or not, a Johan Santana delivery at 73 MPH, by SNY’s reckoning, is too slow to be believed or to be of any use. No wonder Luis Cruz looked like Matt Kemp…who, unfortunately, looked a lot like Matt Kemp when he took Johan over the wall on another pitch that appeared thrown in Super Slo Mo.
One pet theory of mine is Johan could have pitched better, but he was showing solidarity with Miguel Batista in advance of the kind of outing we all expect Saturday. Another wishful thought is Johan wanted to boost his bullpen’s confidence by setting the bar low and then giving them plenty of innings in which to stretch out. What a perfect teammate he is! But no, I’m pretty sure Johan’s night of misery was genuinely unintentionally wrought. That was really and truly bad pitching, and the postgame interrogations of Collins and Santana didn’t yield much in the way of understanding beyond “something’s wrong” and “we’ll try to figure it out.”
One explanation I will not accept is the 134 pitches thrown seven weeks earlier were lethal. Hogwash. As the handy chart printed here illustrates, three starts after Santana’s nine innings of no-hit, shutout ball versus the Cardinals on June 1, Johan threw six innings of four-hit, shutout ball against the Orioles; the start after that, it was six innings of five-hit, two-run ball dropped on the Cubs, blemished only by the evil Joe Mather; the start after that, these very Dodgers — or a Kempless, Ethierless facsimile — were subject to eight innings of three-hit, shutout ball. Santana’s had his downs since the night of The First No-Hitter In New York Mets History, but he crafted several legitimate ups along the way.
If something’s wrong, it isn’t from an extra 15 to 20 pitches seven weeks ago only now truly getting the best of him. I’d have bought it if the lousy start against the Yankees and the lousy start against the Rays had been followed by this lousy start. But he looked very good twice, pretty darn good (save for Mather) once and good enough to have escaped, save for ankles and Bucknors, another two times.
But if you’d like to use 134 pitches as your crutch (and I’m not a doctor, athletic trainer or pitching coach, I just play one on Faith and Fear, so how would I know what’s right and what’s wrong?) and tell me oh dear, that extra inning worth of exertion was too much strain for the surgically repaired shoulder, there goes the man’s career, there goes our season and present irrefutable evidence to support your assertion, I’d have nothing to say except what Lyndon Johnson had to say in 1963 in response to fears that he’d expend too much political capital too early in his unforeseen presidency if he attempted to push controversial civil rights legislation through a recalcitrant Congress:
“Well, what the hell’s the presidency for?”
Except replace “the presidency” with “a great pitcher” and switch out “controversial civil rights legislation” for “long dreamed of franchise milestone whose fruition is as cherished in its existence as it was in fantasy”.
He’s Johan. He’ll figure it out.
If you need me for anything else, I’ll be in 405 this afternoon, cradling Edgardo Alfonzo’s bobblehead so it doesn’t fly off with Miguel Batista’s real one. Come say hi if you’re in the vicinity. I’ll be wearing No. 13 and loudly inquiring of Terry, should his lineup be yet again lacking the Human Thunderbolt, “Well, what the hell’s Jordany Valdespin for?”
by Greg Prince on 20 July 2012 5:17 pm They sold the jerseys, they sold the dirt, they sold replicas of the tickets they didn’t sell…the Mets were so anxious to cash in on Johan Santana’s no-hitter that they even put the game-used shortstop up for sale! Didn’t necessarily think there’d be any takers, but the Orioles just had to have a piece of history and asked the Mets how much it would take to install Omar Quintanilla at Camden Yards as a reminder of that historic night at Citi Field. The answer was “cash considerations,” and the Orioles agreed. Now, seven weeks after the blessed event, one-tenth of the players who secured the First No-Hitter In New York Mets History have been shipped to Baltimore.
Is nothing sacred?
by Greg Prince on 19 July 2012 6:40 pm That’s what All-Stars are for, eh? One belts two homers, each with a man or more on, and the other pitches fairly deep if not particularly stylishly — but it’s been established we don’t care about style points when wins are going wanting.
And boy have we been wanting a win for the longest time.
The last time David Wright and R.A. Dickey (and, come to think of it, Terry Collins) had anything to do with a victory, it was in Kansas City for a game that the ensuing week-plus suggested would be free of long-term Met implications. The Mets likely won’t have to concern themselves with home-field advantage for the World Series. They had to concern themselves with not coming home on their shield after losing the first five on this just-finished, still-disastrous road trip, their last six overall.
How long had it been since the Mets won a game? It had been so long that the last guy to win one has since had season-ending surgery. Since Dillon Gee weaved wove his twelve-day-old magic on the Cubs, the Mets bullpen and other culprits performed season-ending surgery on the Mets’ chances…unless you choose to believe that no season is over until it’s over, which is all well and good, particularly if you’ve been charmed by these heretofore never-say-die Mets.
I sure was that night against Philadelphia when David and Daniel and Ruben and Jordany and Ike crafted a ninth inning for the ages. That’s when I pledged to take these 2012 Mets seriously. But seriousness turned comedic/tragic and the charm wore off in the days preceding Thursday afternoon’s do-or-die 9-5 deathgrip win in Washington. The losses were bad. The routes to defeat were generally excruciating, what with the Mets almost always coming back about 95% of the way — or coming back 105% of the way and having their schlemiel relievers deduct a 10% vig. However it happened, the result was loss after loss after loss from Atlanta and D.C., after which there’d be lots of courageous talk about the resilience of this team.
It was talk that rang hollow. Resilience is futile when it’s the stuff of moral victories, of waiting until the very last minute to blow it, or creating an extra inning in which to do the blowing. I’ll take a game like the Washington finale, in which there was plenty of, shall we say, “silience” in the form of a 9-1 lead built on the bat of Wright and the battle of Dickey, and then only half a stack of giveback (Byrdak, Ramirez, Edgin and Parnell would make terrible labor negotiators). Never has a sizable margin felt so terrifyingly tiny, but that’s your Met bullpen for ya.
But it hung on, those knowledgeable Nationals fans figured out it was time to leave and the Mets had their one win in a row. If you wanna believe, you gotta start somewhere. You can start with that.
For a little something more uplifting than Met bullpen shenanigans, read what Samuel Annable has been up to with an Ike Davis glove at Two Blue Dice.
by Jason Fry on 18 July 2012 11:41 pm From The Lesser-Known Haikus and Other Poetry of Miguel Batista, Vol. 4:
I throw a baseball
Then it flies the other way
But now much faster
Like Jon Niese the night before, Chris Young was good — one bad pitch in six innings, and he even contributed a double. Yes, that third time through the opposing order was problematic again, but what did you want Terry Collins to do? He had a starter who was cruising, albeit under a small-sample statistical red flag. He could hope Young dodged his own recent trend, or he could turn it over to the bullpen, whose members are nothing but larger-sample statistical red flags. If the Mets hadn’t supported Young with a big goose egg to that point, Adam LaRoche’s two-run homer might have been a blemish, instead of the mistake that ruined the ledger.
With Young having departed and the Mets having cut the Nats’ lead to 2-1, Collins went to the bullpen to bring in … Miguel Batista. Saturday’s starter was as consistent and reliable as he’s been all year, giving up two runs to turn the Mets’ upward struggle into a near vertical face. The Mets fought back in the ninth, with David Wright and Jason Bay (!) smacking home runs, but this time Tyler Clippard struck out Jordany Valdespin, and this once-happy souffle of a season has deflated all the way to one measly game over .500.
Miguel Batista, Jesus. I’ll freely admit he’s become my 2012 Mets scapegoat — that guy who isn’t actually all that important to the fate of the team, but whose presence on the roster leaves me sputtering in fury, beyond the reach of logic or rationality. As with Alex Cora a few years back, Batista seems to be here because he’s a good clubhouse guy, because he has the fabled intangibles that have left rosters clotted with creaky, crappy players for decades.
I don’t doubt that Batista is indeed a mentor and a teacher and all that — I’ve heard it enough times from enough sources. But my goodness — Batista’s intangibles have to be pretty much off the charts to come anywhere near the metronome of suck that are his tangibles. I’d send him packing in a heartbeat for a reliever who was an enormous asshole with nothing to teach anybody and whom nobody liked, provided he could actually pitch.
Oh, and then after the game Batista told the beat reporters he thought the Mets were better than the Nats — best team in baseball, in fact. Is being delusional a useful intangible?
Look, the season’s not over — the Nats will have their own ebb, to use Sandy Alderson’s language from yesterday. (Though boy does Bryce Harper look good. Is this what it was like watching Mickey Mantle before he stepped in that drain?) There’s a second wild card out there. The long-term plan still looks on track. And hey, even if the Mets once again are felled by a second-half swoon, even if they finish under .500, this was the year we got a no-hitter. In March, if you’d offered me 78 or so wins, encouraging years by a number of young players, a resurgence for David Wright, a likeable team, the feeling that better days are ahead and a no-no, I’d have signed on the spot. In blood.
Could I be happier? Well, of course I could be. It’s the nature of being a sports fan to get nice things and then want more. The Mets could go to the playoffs, for instance. But since that dream seems to have once again died in post-All-Star dust, how about the Mets get wherever it is they’re going without broken-down retreads who can’t pitch and say risible things in the clubhouse?
by Jason Fry on 18 July 2012 12:49 am For a minute, let’s turn off the car in the closed garage, unknot the noose and descend the ladder, and drop the plugged-in hair dryer on the floor beside the tub instead of between our knees in the water. We’re going to try to gain some distance, and assess a certain recently concluded debacle from an outsider’s perspective.
OK. You with me?
That really was a heck of a baseball game.
No, really — it was. It was two pretty intriguing games in one, in fact.
The first one was tense and tight and grinding, a staredown between Jon Niese and Ross Detwiler in jungle heat. Niese was in line for the loss because Tyler Moore (who’s been tired of your jokes for many years now) snuck a liner just over the right-field fence, with Scott Hairston poised for a carom that would never arrive. Detwiler was in line for the win chiefly because Hairston kept coming out of his shoes trying to hit pitches that weren’t strikes and Jason Bay was remarkably feeble — even by post-Omarpalooza standards — in his first night back in the lineup. And OK, because Mark Carlson badly blew a fairly obvious call. But then baseball’s umpires seem to do that on a daily basis now.
The second game within a game was something else — wild and unlikely and entertaining before it turned hideous, as I think most of us sensed it was going to. Down 2-0 against the Nationals’ closer, the usually reliable Tyler Clippard, Jordany Valdespin whacked a pinch-hit three-run homer, lifting the Mets from goats to potential heroes in an ear-popping ascension. Say what you will about Valdespin — and when cloaked in anonymity various Mets seem to say a lot — but he has a way of showing up in big spots. (Which is undoubtedly a reflection of a very small sample size, but let’s not be unfun.) The only problem with the uprising against Clippard was the Mets’ horrific bullpen and its shoddy defense would have to collaborate to protect a one-run lead.
Predictably, they couldn’t. Bobby Parnell threw fastballs over the fat part of the plate and the lead was gone. On to extra innings.
Unperturbed, the Mets grabbed the lead again, with Josh Thole guiding a double up the gap. Oh, how resilient of them! The only problem with the uprising against Mike Gonzalez was the Mets’ horrific bullpen and its shoddy defense would have to collaborate to protect a one-run lead.
Predictably, they couldn’t. Tim Byrdak surrendered a one-out triple to Bryce Harper (no little dunker in front of a sliding Vinny Rottino this time) for a tie game, the Mets walked the bases full, Adam LaRoche grounded into a fielder’s choice to give New York a puncher’s chance at escaping to an 11th inning … and Pedro Beato uncorked a wild pitch to lose.
Well, of course he did.
This was the flipside of six weeks ago: Then Valdespin led a late comeback and the defense (mostly Jordany himself, playing shortstop for probably the last time ever) did horrible, horrible things that made you half-wish the hitters had just expired quietly. Tonight, the defense was blameless, but the bullpen was spectacularly awful, which led to the same result. It was Death by Unga Bunga, to quote the terrible old joke understood by any baseball fan who’s seen an unexpected late rally morph into a demoralizing disaster.
I don’t know what to say. This feels exactly like the last three years, with the Mets rounding the halfway point looking tough and gritty and resilient and all those other things we reflexively say about teams that win more often than they lose, then quickly going into a death spiral that makes all those good feelings distant memories by the time October mercifully arrives and it’s time to watch other teams play in the playoffs.
I guess one thing to say is that it’s pretty hard to disagree with Sandy Alderson that the bullpen is what most needs fixing. But what kind of fix is possible when everything is broken? Soon after this one ended, I tweeted that I’d be in favor of releasing the whole lot of them, which should have sounded crazier than it did. Terry Collins told the assembled reporters that he was sticking with Parnell and Byrdak because “they’re the ones who got us here,” but where exactly is here? It’s two ticks over .500. Here isn’t a place any of us want to be.
Answers? Ya got me. Jon Rauch has been better on Twitter than he’s been on the mound. Frank Francisco gave us typical closer nightmares. Ramon Ramirez was the only reliever who was blameless tonight, and he’s been mostly awful. We all wanted Josh Edgin, we got him, and now he’s got an ERA over 10. We wanted Beato back, and he managed to lose tonight’s game in horrifying, Kenny Rogersesque fashion. Miguel Batista didn’t have a chance to be awful because the Mets are deluding themselves that he won’t be awful as a starter on Saturday. The Bisons’ bullpen is mostly made up of guys who failed up here earlier and got shipped out. The closer, Fernando Cabrera, hasn’t gotten a call-up, but before you start beating the drums for him, here are his ERAs from the last five years he pitched in the majors: 5.19, 7.21, 5.40, 8.44, 20.25. Ay Cabrera!
I know — let’s bring back Manny Acosta! What’s crazy is that no longer seems so crazy.
The best of the relievers have been frustratingly uneven, and as a group they’ve been horrible — so horrible that the best answer might be remembering that statistics suggest this group is unlikely to be more horrible than they’ve already been.
No, that doesn’t sound like much of a rallying cry to me either.
Maybe Sandy should do what the judge in “The Untouchables” did, when he swapped juries with the courtroom next door. He could put together a megatrade with, say, the Phillies — our terrible bullpen for theirs. Two fan bases get rid of bad relievers they can no longer stand, followed by a lesson in not trusting new bad relievers.
Since that’s unlikely to happen, we’re back to perspective: It really was a great game. Full of twists and turns and drama. The kind of game you hope will be a newcomer’s introduction to baseball, because it will go a long way to making him or her a fan.
Of the Nationals.
by Greg Prince on 17 July 2012 4:05 pm Matt Harvey is clearly ready. Or almost ready. Or not ready, but a better bet than the barely any longer ready for prime time Miguel Batista, which is what matters in the short term. I kept an eye on the Bisons and the Mud Hens last night from lovely, lonely Buffalo, and I can’t say for sure whether Matt was masterful in holding Toledo hitless for five innings or they don’t call them the Mud Hens for nothing. Toledo is 38-57 and may not have been our 2010 first-round pick’s toughest test imaginable.
Harvey didn’t ultimately beat them but they didn’t much beat him, either. And do you really want to see Batista Saturday against the Dodgers? At worst (not counting a Tim Leary situation, and this game won’t be at chilly Wrigley Field in April), a Harvey debut blowup will have proven a learning experience and the Mets can continue to grope around with Jeremy Hefner or roll the dice — if they’re feelin’ lucky — with Zack Wheeler…if in fact 2012 is a season that feels worthy of rollin’ dice over when the fifth day after Saturday comes around. (Update: Forget it for now; Batista’s starting.)
What captured my notice more than anything when I wasn’t trying to be a TV scout and decipher Harvey’s readiness was how depressing Triple-A games are to watch. This contest was a relative big deal in our world yet there was nobody at Coca-Cola Field. There’s never anybody at these games when SNY shows them. There’s never anybody in Buffalo and there was never anybody in New Orleans when the Mets’ top farm club was the Zephyrs. Perhaps it’s a symptom of both those cities being major league in other sports but told to sit at the children’s table for baseball. Or maybe it’s from knowing that the up-and-comingest players they’re watching will soon be gone and won’t be back if all goes well. Or it could be New Orleans and Buffalo just aren’t Mets territory the way Norfolk was cultivated to be.
The other aspect of the minor league telecast that got me was the identity of the Bisons’ leadoff hitter, Fred Lewis. Fred Lewis…why was that name familiar? Then I remembered: He’s Fred Lewis from the San Francisco Giants five years ago. Fred Lewis played right at Shea Stadium on May 29, 2007, codified as an SNY Mets Classic, shown approximately every other week, it seems. That’s the one where, in the twelfth inning, Armando Benitez pitches for San Francisco, balks Jose Reyes home from third and gives up the winning homer to Carlos Delgado. I was at that game, one of the last indisputably great games I saw at Shea. As I thought back on it, I remembered Delgado ended it with a homer and a Giant began it with a homer. Wasn’t that Fred Lewis who started it with a bang?
No, it was Randy Winn. But Fred Lewis was there, 26 then, 30 last summer as a Red, 31 now. The Mets signed him in April and he’s been at Buffalo since, playing with Harvey, playing with Zach Lutz and Adam Loewen and Matt Den Dekker and all those names who filtered through my brain in February and March before going mostly into storage. I don’t know much about Lewis, but he seems to be having a pretty good statistical season at Triple-A: .296/.377/.483 with 7 homers and 18 steals. He’s been hot, too, having earned International League Batter of the Week honors for the period ending July 15. Fred hits lefty, which isn’t quite what the Mets need right now. If he hit righty, I might wonder what (besides a monstrous contract) would be keeping him at Buffalo instead of bringing back Jason Bay.
I do know, without knowing anything about the man, that I don’t blame Fred Lewis, a veteran of parts of six major league seasons, for keeping at his craft in lovely, lonely Buffalo. Who’d want to quit getting paid to play baseball? I’m pretty sure the answer is nobody.
While I watched him and Harvey and the rest of the herd do their thing, I noticed a Tweet from the Long Island Ducks:
“Timo Perez steps into the batters [sic] box to make his Bethpage Ballpark debut!”
Timo infamously broke into a trot a dozen years ago this October and hasn’t played in the majors since 2007, when Fred Lewis was a rookie, when Shea Stadium stood tall, when Armando Benitez was still being trusted to close games at the major league level, which the Giants would stop doing after he balked Reyes home and gave up that game-ending blast to Delgado. Benitez is now Perez’s teammate with the Ducks, where Armando’s ERA is 11.17, where his walks and hits are more than two-and-a-half times greater than his innings pitched and where he’s collected no saves. Yet there they are out in Central Islip, participating in games people buy tickets for.
You can blame Timo and Armando, among others, for losing Game One of the 2000 World Series, but you can’t blame them or Fred Lewis or Miguel Batista or anybody who’s seen better days to keep seeking baseball nights.
by Greg Prince on 16 July 2012 12:52 am How is it a player named Ben Sheets never played for a team whose signature promotion involves fans carrying bedsheets?
No, that’s probably not your uppermost Met concern following a very unbanner day in Atlanta, but after being subject to the worst kind of familiar — getting swept at Turner Field for the thirteenth time since 1997 — what is there to say about yet another unpleasant valley Sunday (the Mets have lost six in a row on the literally taken day of rest)? The peaks of June are behind us and peeking out ahead of us are three with the front-running Nationals, three with the Kempified Dodgers, another three with the new age whiz kids from D.C. and then it’s off to the desert and the Coast, where no one in his right mind forecasts good this far in advance.
Johan got screwed by the spatially challenged C.B. Bucknor, who offered Sheets one kind of strike zone and Santana another, and that’s a legitimate beef, but that primarily explains one inning out of nine. For six, the Mets did nothing with a guy who hadn’t pitched in the major leagues in two years. Dan Warthen showed more fight against Bucknor than the Met bats did against Sheets.
What is there to say? In jockspeak, shake it off. Go after Ross Detwiler on Tuesday and take it from there. Don’t inspire innuendo-addict Andy Martino to write more silly “one team official said” conjecture laced with whispers about “surly older players”. And, if all looks decent for him against the Toledo Mud Hens (in a Bison tilt to be telecast on SNY), what the hell, make room for young Harvey.
There’s your pep talk, boys. Don’t say nobody’s tryin’ to fire ya up.
by Greg Prince on 15 July 2012 12:20 am There’s an old joke about an inveterate optimist and a pile of horse manure, the punch line of which is, “There’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.” And indeed, you’d think that after the last 18 innings of steaming, redolent folderol in Atlanta, the least the Mets would be able to pull out of the heap is one shiny win.
But no. Nothing shiny, nothing winning, nothing doing. Nothing much good from two games filled with gobs of movement, but little in the way of positive action.
You’d think 12 runs and 24 hits delivered across two games, much of it manufactured in classic resilient Met fashion, would have resulted in some semblance of triumph for your gritty, gutty visitors from the north. Turner Field, as it tends to do more often than not, has had other ideas. A 7-5 Mets loss Friday. An 8-7 loss Saturday. In neither case did the Mets look good, yet in both cases the Mets seemed perched on the precipice of looking fine. A couple of hits that never came Friday spelled the big difference between holding a lead and trying to make up a deficit against Craig Kimbrel. But the hits, as noted, never came.
Saturday, there were hits, there was a lead late and for all the umpire-instigated nonsense swirling about them, there was every reason to believe the Mets were going to emerge from their mess clean for day. But here came the Met bullpen again, this time more deadly than the last. When Messrs. Byrdak, Beato and Parnell were through in the bottom of the eighth, a lead became another deficit and Atlanta’s talented Mr. Kimbrel was on the scene once more, even more invincible than usual.
And there goes the old ballgame again. Two in a row in Atlanta, three in a row overall if you can remember back to last Sunday when the Mets decided to get an early start on their break.
What a mess.
The phrase, “R.A. Dickey didn’t have it,” is becoming unpleasantly common to inject into these recountings, but R.A. Dickey didn’t have it. Nor did Jordany Valdespin, though Dale Scott said he did. Dale Scott was the umpire who ruled there was a catch on a trap in the bottom of the fifth with one out. Valdespin acted the part of the successful left fielder, held a ball Jason Heyward hit aloft and followed through with what seemed to be some kind of slow-moving 7-4-3 DP on Martin Prado. But replay — the same mechanism that proved C.B. Bucknor had earlier blown a safe call on Valdespin at first — showed Scott was dead wrong and (unfortunately for us) the two umpires who weren’t that idiot Bucknor convinced Scott that the catch was a trap.
From there, the double play Dickey thought had gotten him out of the fifth was revoked. Thus, he had to stick around and continue pitching the fifth, and two batters later, Freddie Freeman unloaded a double to score Prado and Heyward and give the Braves a 5-3 lead. Worst part was the Braves redeemed an opportunity they deserved to have. Terry Collins had argued it to the point of ejection, but he was wrong (though not wrong to argue — it’s what managers are supposed to do). Fox was no immediate help in explaining why he was wrong, but why expect anything remotely insightful from baseball’s broadcast network of record? They’ve only held the MLB rights for 17 seasons.
I suppose Fox is proof of the adage that fans don’t tune in for the broadcast but for the game, and that Fox is double proof that fans don’t tune out the game because of the broadcast, but geez, they’re awful. How is it there are nearly 312 million people in this great country of ours, and the best Fox can come up with for a game of the week are the disengaged Chris Myers and the clueless Eric Karros?
Anyway, Dickey wasn’t good, Myers and Karros were abominable, the Mets were one slice shy of a loaf every time you turned around, yet there they were, lifting our sights the way they are capable of elevating them, pushing three runs across in the sixth and another in the eighth after the reversal-of-fortune call, so you can’t say (no matter how those numbskulls in the booth framed it) the Mets were doomed by the trap. They instead set their own trap later when Geren/Collins trusted the bullpen to hold a two-run lead with two innings to go.
Couldn’t be done. First Byrdak issued a walk to Brian McCann, who’s no Ned in the third reader but exactly the kind of batter (lefthanded) hilarious Hulk is supposed to retire. Out goes Tim, in comes Pedro, and he gave up one horribly long single to Dan Uggla (how was he not a Brave all those years?) before striking out the kid Pastornicky. Another hitting-pitching change had Bobby Parnell striking out Juan Francisco, but then…well, it was like the Braves knew what was coming. They probably did know what was coming, as it was unimpressive fastball after unimpressive fastball that Michael Bourn, then Prado and then Heyward whacked effectively enough to produce one, make it two, no make it three runs.
Bingo. 8-7, Atlanta. Just enough cushion for Kimbrel’s unhittable arsenal to be deployed. Ike, Murph and the hobbled Duda all flailed and all fanned. Ballgame.
What kills about these two games, besides that each was there for the taking and Saturday’s screamed to be swooped up and secured, was that you’re not losing to a club of worldbeaters over there in the other dugout. The Braves looked maybe one iota better, net, across the two days, yet they get to enjoy all the fruits of victory — which matters not only because they were the opponent, but they’re a little ahead of us in this playoff race we weren’t expecting to be in. They’re now a little more ahead of us than they were before Friday and we’re a little less in the race, but we’re still there. Of course we are. Most of the National League is. Even Eric Karros could analyze the situation accurately: You have to win these head-to-head games. And since almost everybody is still kind of contending, you can’t afford to lose any games you play in pairs.
A few good signs exist from these disasters. Josh Edgin, Chipper initiation notwithstanding, seems hyperuseful. Andres Torres’s bat has woken up, or at least hasn’t given into the snooze alarm. Ruben Tejada got even better over the break. Valdespin, once he’s informed that he’s already gotten off the island, might learn to take a pitch and turn his certain something into something relentlessly positive. Ike has just about stopped sucking.
But familiar bullpen blues, failure to pile on and all-around growing pains aside, Young was terrible, Dickey wasn’t passable and Gee isn’t here. Johan’s ankle (a.k.a. The Johankle) needs to prove it isn’t a detriment Sunday and Niese isn’t entitled to be inconsistent in Washington. Beyond that, it’s either Old Timer Day next Saturday with Miguel Batista or the likely unready aces of tomorrow today. If this were a flat-out lousy season, I’d be salivating to see Harvey or, as long as they’re dropping breadcrumbs about him, Wheeler (who threw a Double-A shutout Saturday night). This is still a good season. I don’t know that I want one of our top prospects being set down on our mound amid Fire Time, as Collins calls these defining days of July. Come to think of it, has anybody seen Terry manage a legitimate playoff hunt in this century? Will there be a legitimate playoff hunt by August 1?
You can’t let two bad results pull the thread on what has been an encouraging tapestry. But spend seven-plus hours with this team over these bad and worse games and try to have faith the sun’ll come out tomorrow.
It will, probably, but I wouldn’t rush to bet my bottom dollar.
by Greg Prince on 14 July 2012 8:05 am Thank you for your interest in joining the Chipper Jones Metropolitan Victim Club. Please fill out the attached application fully, and Mr. Jones’s selection committee will meet at home plate to inform you of your membership status in a timely manner.
————–
NAME: Josh Edgin
AGE: 25
AFFILIATION: Buffalo Bisons New York Mets
DATE OF REQUEST: July 13, 2012
MAJOR LEAGUE EXPERIENCE: 4 Batters
PREFERRED VENUE:
X Turner Field
_ Shea Stadium Citi Field
_ Other
PREFERRED LIGHTING:
X On
_ Off
PREFERRED COMPETITIVE CIRCUMSTANCE:
_ Innocuous Early Season Matchup
X Midseason Meeting With Standings Implications
_ Pressure-Packed September Pennant Race Showdown
_ Heartbreaking National League Championship Series
PREFERRED GAME SITUATION:
_ Blowout
_ Tie
X Blowout That Seemed On The Verge Of Becoming A Tie
PROJECTED INTERNAL RESPONSE (Choose All That Apply):
X “Jesus, he’s still doing this to us after all these years.”
X “I knew this was too good to be true.”
X “He has HOW many now against us now?”
X “We really should have driven somebody in when the bases were loaded and nobody was out.”
X “When is he going to retire already? I mean, cripes, I watched this SOB on TBS when I was a kid and here I am joining the parade of pitchers who got a slider up and made that forlorn turn of the head to see where it landed a second later.”
X “At least I didn’t give one up to David Ross, who I’m pretty sure is always torching us.”
X “Boy, that Prado can really play short.”
X “Now I see what my Little League coach was saying when he was muttering about ‘oh those bases on balls.’”
X “This game is NEVER going to end, is it?”
X “Ball’s still going…damn.”
————–
FOR OFFICE USE ONLY:
Manzanillo, J. 1
Harnisch, P. 1
Walker, P. 1
Mlicki, D. 2
Jones, B. 4
Clark, M. 1
Isringhausen, J. 1
Yoshii, M. 1
Mahomes, P. 1
Hershiser, O. 2
Reed, R. 3
Cook, D. 1
Leiter, A. 2
Franco, J. 1
Rusch, G. 1
Trachsel, S. 4
Komiyama, S. 1
Astacio, P. 1
Gl@v!ne, T. 1
Seo, J. 1
Almonte, E. 1
Heilman, A. 2
Martinez, P. 1
Oliver, D. 1
Pelfrey, M. 3
Maine, J. 1
Putz, J. 1
Feliciano, P. 1
Misch, P. 1
Santana, J. 1
Carrasco, D. 1
Niese, J. 1
Dickey, R. 1
Schwinden, C. 1
Edgin, J. 1
Form LWCJ-10 (REV. 10-19-1999)
by Greg Prince on 13 July 2012 2:51 am Replacing Gee in the rotation. The readiness of Harvey. Bay’s chances of making any kind of a contribution. Potential trades for bullpen help and catching depth.
Let others ask the fleeting questions. I have matters of a transcendent nature to mull.
Who, if anyone, will emerge as my favorite Met? The post has been vacant since the night of December 4, 2011, and this isn’t one of those voids for which you can blame a dilly-dallying opposition party in Congress. I haven’t nominated anybody to succeed Justice Reyes. According to my files (or my t-shirt drawer), Ike Davis was supposed to be next in line, but I spent two months trying to send him to Buffalo, so he may not be buying into my fealty. I was very sweet on Ruben Tejada when I was touting him as the second baseman of the future in 2010, and I’m still quite fond of the lad, but I need some distance from the shortstop position. My current crush is Jordany Valdespin, but that could just be infatuation. I think I may be better off going with a team-first attitude in case I have to lean heavily on a given Met to get it together already yet. Let’s say I choose someone, and that someone screws up royally and I have to take him to task by yelling not very nice things at him through the television. “But I thought I was your favorite!” he might whine…which would be awkward. This way, it’s all business.
What will Citi Field feel like if there’s an actual important game there soon? All baseball games are important, but you know what I’m getting at. Post-Nohan, there was much buzz about how now it feels like the Mets’ ballpark, which is a pretty stinging indictment of whatever it felt like before. Whatever amped-up fun has unfurled since June 1 (and I sure did enjoy REO), the stadium still hasn’t had a pennant race shake its bricks to its core. I can sooner imagine the Mets remaining competitive into September than I can the Citi Field seats being filled — and I mean staying filled by thoroughly engaged Mets fans for nine or more innings — while the Mets are competing. Watching the Home Run Derby from Kansas City and realizing the event will take place at our place next year, I found myself doubting the world would see a packed house in Flushing for this high-profile contest of skill, strength and…all right, I think the Home Run Derby outlived its usefulness after Ken Griffey hit the B&O Warehouse on the fly in 1993, but I imagine it’s pretty impressive to ogle over in person. The tickets will be sold, but how much wandering will the ticket-holders be doing? And will people sit still for the actual All-Star Game? But never mind that as much as this September when maybe, just maybe, actual regular Mets games will take on a high profile of their own. Do the people who are permitted to sit in those cushy green seats behind home plate know they can use them, and that by using them it will give them a unique close-up view of action the rest of might be craning our necks to see?
When can we feel safe that the Terrible Twos won’t get the best of 2012? Perhaps it’s the residual effect of being born under a 40-20 sign in 1962, but the Mets have never enjoyed a smooth ride through any of their seasons that have ended in a 2. Consider the starts and finishes of the years in question.
- 1962: 12-19 early; 28-101 later.
- 1972: 25-7 early; 58-66 later.
- 1982: 27-21 early; 38-76 later.
- 1992: 21-15 early; 51-75 later.
- 2002: 18-11 early; 57-75 later.
We’ll give 1962 a pass for being 1962, and 1972 at least hung in there to produce an overall winning record, but the last three 2s? Yeesh. Yeesh. And Yeesh. What 2012 might have going for it is the complete lack of expectations that 1982, 1992 and 2002 carried after the offseason acquisitions of George Foster, Bobby Bonilla and Roberto Alomar, to name those years’ three respective leading lights, made the Mets surefire favorites in the National League East. All hail Sandy for acquiring nobody of note last winter! Thus far, the high point for these Mets has been 31-23, three-way statistical tie for first. Since then, they’re an exciting (if deceptively indifferent) 15-17. A surfeit of air hasn’t been let out of the tire swing. Not even a slow leak. The Mets kind of bopped around contention viability as the second half commenced in a couple of the ultimately dreadful 2-years — that is to say it wasn’t inconceivable to see them making a run if you squinted as hard as you could — but anyone watching them knew they were just waiting to fall apart completely. I don’t know that at all in 2012. That’s progress.
Where the hell is summer going? It’s July 13! We’ve played half a season! The endless All-Star break is ending! This happens every year, yet I’ve never managed to nail down a satisfactory answer. Seventy-six games remain where 162 once did. It’s not really noticeable, but the days are growing incrementally shorter. The chill in the air that we put behind us as winter turned to spring? It will have the nerve to return before we know it. Also, there’s the little matter of my aging…my and everybody else’s, but mostly mine. Can’t wait for baseball to start again tonight in Atlanta, but cripes, then we’ll be down to 75 games left. And I’ll be one day closer to — as that band I’m always quoting put it — younger than I’m gonna be, older than I used to be.
Why has this All-Star break been so dadgum long anyway? As long as I’d been following their every waking move, the Mets never weren’t back on the field by the Thursday after the Tuesday of the All-Star Game before 2006. That year they made us wait ’til Friday, but it was an anomaly. Other teams were back at it on Thursday, as were we from 2007 to 2010. Last year we had to wait until Friday again, but several games were on the docket for Thursday. This year…nothing going on for anybody two full days after KC. And this will keep up, as it’s written into the Basic Agreement between the players and owners that starting in 2013 and running through 2016 it’s a four-day break for everybody. Seems to have something to do with the realignment that will send Houston to the American League, inject Interleague games into daily life and — MLB being MLB — screw up schedules far and wide. One extra day off for those who actually work ball and not just play it would appear to be reasonable compensation for everybody’s troubles. But for those of us who more or less live to simply watch ball, phooey. Give us the baseball we have coming to us immediately…but please also keep it from slipping away so head-gosh darn quickly.
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