Shame on you, Mets fans.
What were you thinking? Have you forgotten last September? I hope a little 10-game winning streak didn’t scramble your brain so badly that you actually entertained the thought that—despite a 3-run lead in the 9th—the Metsies might overtake the Phils for first place.
Oh, you were thinking that?
Again, shame on you.
The Mets did their best to make it quite clear to anyone paying attention that they had absolutely zero intention of winning last night. You certainly should have noticed during the 8th. It started with Endy Chavez inexplicably stopping at second base, seeming to say, “A triple? Nah, man, I’m good here. A 3-run lead is plenty, friend.”
The next batter, David Wright, proceeded to dunk a little liner into right field, just over the outstretched glove of Chase Utley. Right-fielder Jayson Werth is right on it, so what does third-base coach Luis Aguayo do in this scenario where holding Endy would create a 1st-and-3rd with nobody out for our cleanup hitter?
He fucking sends him.
Endy, of course, is out by a friggin’ mile. So clearly the both of them conspired to prevent the Mets from padding the lead. (Also, why not nail the catcher? I know Endy’s not the biggest guy out there, but if the ball is gonna beat you and the catcher is blocking the plate, why the hell would you slide directly into his foot? He came a lot closer to a broken ankle than touching the plate.)
This, incidentally, was the second time Aguayo waved Endy home directly into being tagged out. And to think, not getting thrown out at home was, until recently, something the Mets were actually good at.
Then, in the 9th, well, all hell broke loose, typified by Jose Reyes’s inane bases-loaded, nobody-out-yet non-out-get. (I’m still to flustered by his hesitation to come up with a better name for it than that.)
I’m tempted to say last night’s loss was “devastating” or “heartbreaking” or something of the like. “Season-killing” I suppose would be more accurate. That is, if I had harbored some fool’s hope that the Mets might come through this year. And if you, poor reader, were one of those who did, then yes,
SHAME ON YOU.
2 comments:
I was at Shea for the game last night, and you cannot possibly imagine the frustration as the bullpen let the game slip away in the ninth.
Santana was dominant after a shaky first inning, and the offense did what it needed to do against a decent performance by Joe Blanton. Put a lot of blame on Duaner Sanchez for not finding a way to get a single out, and not quite as much on Reyes . . . I think that was such an in-between hop that his hesitation was understandable. So Taguchi had a spectacular at-bat against Felciano, and his was easily the biggest out we didn't get in that inning.
Just a few other observations:
(a) what a great atmosphere at Shea last night for the first eight innings. Lots of Phillies fans came up to the game, there were way more fights than usual, and there were over 50,000 fans at the game, all pretty loud, and pretty in to the game. It was nice to see . . . for a while.
(b) when you hear announcers say "the air has really gone out of this place," they actually mean it. I have rarely seen such an absolute deflation of energy and emotion as I did last night. I guess the Yadier Molina home run was worse (which I also witnessed), but that was more stunned silence than anything. This was like someone holding a balloon, and letting just enough air escape that it makes that squeaky sound, and slowly, but surely, withers away into a wrinked lump of latex.
(c) I am not quite as down about this loss as I thought I would be. By all accounts, Wagner's injury isn't too serious. This never would have happened if he had been able to close (well, not never, but you know what I mean). But at the end of the day, it's one loss. This team has struggled a bit since the all-star break (they were lucky to split in Cincy), but that was to be expected after a 10-game win streak. They have by far the best starting pitching in the NL East, and our offense is strong enough to hang in there.
This team is going to make a run deep into September, even if they don't have enough to get deep into October. In early June, I think we all would have been happy with that assessment.
See? Just about 39 hours removed from that disaster, and the Mets have sole possession of first place.
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