Trumpeting clown...

I assume Edlose had some "refreshments" while arOLDis Chapman was walking the park in the top of the ninth?

Unrelated, day game today with the end of the wrap-around series. I am mildly excited even if it turns out the Pirates win a 9-1 moaner, because the Mets being the Mets is still more exciting than what I usually get for entertainment on a Monday evening...

Well, hel-lo Eric Orze, survivor of testicular cancer, skin cancer, and the Mets' farm system, making his MLB debut and immediately getting crunched into lots of tiny bits as he takes over with two outs, nobody on, and jumpstarts a 5-run Pirates assault.

First MLB loss, infinite ERA.

Could be worse, could be on the filthy Fish!

With his luck, he'll soon be.

It's a great day for Eric Orze, who qualifies for the MLBPA pension plan and its associated medical benefits.

It's not such a great day for the Mets' bullpen, which looks nearly terminal. Gary was saying that they had limited options, as Creakin' Diekman is the only LHP they have there. Well, you could have Danny Young, but he's been sent down to play roster games and is banned from returning for a few weeks.

I have to wonder if this "Syracuse Shuttle" is just being too cutesy. Why not just have a steady staff? Rotation of Severino, Quintana, Manaea, Peterson, and Scott. LHP in the pen, Diekman and Young. Edlose as the nominal closer, backed up by Nunez and Garrett. Houser to sop up innings and either Butto or Megill as the emergency starter. I'm having a hard time understanding why there's a need to rotate warm bodies so fast that you end up with having to run Make-a-Wish kids [/way too harsh] out there because your best LHP option is enjoying a tour of the Carrier Dome. What the what?

I know it's not the same, but I have played a couple of ten-thousand games in OOTP and in a modern setting having one left-hander in the bullpen has NEVER worked out for me.

Why do the Mets think they'll eventually out-smart nature, though?

Is it a New York thing? Like, did Bernie think that all the millions of his clients that he frittered away and that only existed on paper anymore would one day magically re-appear in his private safe?

Well, remember that David "Wild Turkey" Stearns is the same guy who thought they didn't need a spare middle infielder, once they gave Zack Shortstop his walking papers. Ask McNeil's knees how that worked out.

(We should probably ask low if there are any tales of roster-management screw-ups back in the Badger state that he'd care to share.)

I appear to have left The Prodigal Ottavi-NO out of this analysis.

I plead self-defense (of my mental health, that is).

So, with Phil Maton acquired (for the ever popular "future considerations"), somebody needed to be cleared off of the 40-man, and Joey Lucchesi was DFA'd.

(Pauses to allow Westheim to properly mourn.)

Of course, if Phil is Maton his way to Queens rather than to Syracuse, somebody will have to be sent down to make way. I don't know whom it will be…but tonight's game proved that the Mets have no shortage of candidates. That was like open auditions for the trip up north, for Pete's sake.

Quintana throws 7 innings of one-hit ball and we still needed tack-on runs to win? Not exactly an encouraging sign.

(Since moving to the lead-off spot [46 games], Lindor has posted a .908 OPS. Well, then.)

Then just stick him there.

Until 203......4...? I don't even - ... my calendar does not go that far ahead.

Snottavino taking the ball in a 7-0 game and tossing so craptastic that Boom-Boom has to start warming up should be enough reason for the Mets to encourage him to contemplate retirement by firing his old butt on the spot and put him out to the parking lot before he can change into his steetclothes.

Yeah, the Mets pen has brought down that worst-in-MLB 10.13 ERA for July over the past two days…but when a 7-0 lead is in danger of getting turned into a save opportunity, that's not good.

Following up on the Lindor stats above, we now know that since moving to the #2 spot (24 games), Nimmo has posted a .344, 9, 30 line, with an OPS of 1.108. Very nice.

Less enjoyable is Brandon "explaining" his success with "in Christ, all things are possible". Hey, Nimm-nuts! I still like the Mets, but if you really do have a direct line to the Big Guy, perhaps ask Him to cure cancer or stop Global Warming or get Hamas to surrender before He worries about your swing, okay?

(I hate that **** even more than I hate the Mets crew taking victory laps for getting up to 47-45 and being percentage points ahead of San Diego for 6th place. FFS, you're still 13 games out of the division lead. Clinging to your consolation prize, almost 3 months in advance, is NAGL, IMO.)

Gary Cohen: “Watching games at Coors Field can take YEARS off your life.” –

The Mets ain’t much better, Gar’! I’m convinced they will have me in the box before I hit 65…!

Boom-Boom with a pair of 2-out walks in the ninth, begging for somebody to hit the 10th homer of the game off him...

Jim Duquette taking fan questions on the pregame, and explaining why the Mets haven't won a World Series since 1986, due to brain-dead GMs like himself!

(Not that Duquette puts it that way, but JFC, you utter moron!)

Duquette reveals that after 2003, Vladimir Guerrero Sr. wanted to join the Mets as a free agent and the teams had agreed on the contract terms…but Duquette got a bad medical report and chickened out.

(Vlad, who was coming off of consecutive seasons of over 1.000 OPS and was a Gold Glove RF with a cannon arm, went to Anaheim, won the 2004 AL MVP, and the .894 OPS he "slumped" to in 2008 was the worst of his first five years in Cali, the only year he didn't make the All-Star team. By 2008, the Mets were playing Ryan Church in RF, and had managed only one post-season berth [SWING THE ****ING BAT, CARLOS!!!] in five years of contention.)

Jim also tells us that he regrets the Scott Kazmir for Victor "Rick Peterson says he can fix him in 10 minutes!" Zambrano disaster, but not because it was wrong to trade away your #1 draft pick and top pitching prospect, who despite several major injuries and effectively retiring at age 32, would go on to make 3 All-Star teams, win 108 games in his career, lead the AL in Strikeouts once, and make 2 World Series starts.

No, it wasn't trading Kazmir at the ripe old age of 20 to try and chase a Wild-Card when you were 49-52, and on a 5-11 skid, and had ZERO chance to catch the Braves that was the problem, nope! It was that they didn't make the right deal, they should have called more teams!

FFS. Compared to this idiot, Omar Minaya looks like a freaking genius.

PS-energized by the additions of Zambrano, Kris Benson and Jeff Keppinger (from Pittsburgh for Ty Wigginton and a pre-Canadian Steroids Jose Bautista), the 2004 Mets zoomed to a 22-39 stretch run, finishing at 71-91. Great trade, Jimmy!

PPS-Dear David "Wild Turkey" Stearns, here's a trade for you. Brett Baty and a B-list pitching prospect (Nate Lavender or Joander Suarez or whatever) to the Rockies for Ryan McMahon. McMahon is 29 and has three more years on his deal ($12, 16, and 16 million) and will probably be a drain on the team the last season, but he should be useful for a couple of years. Put Vientos in RF (if you want to throw Gamel or DJ into the trade, feel free) and when Pete walks in the off-season, you can move him to 1B.

(If by some miracle, Scott Boras does NOT get revenge on the Mets and Pete stays, great. Vientos can stay in RF for a few years.)

You're welcome.

You know, I appreciate SNY's wanting to stay focused on sports, but given that the assassination attempt on Trump was the first on a President/former President/Presidential candidate in over 43 years, they might have slapped a text banner at the bottom of the screen, just in case anyone watching was willing to trust Bútto and switch over.

I mean, geez.

It's not a news channel, but I think slipping the information that something had taken place might have been appropriate, sponsored by the Tri-State Hyundai Dealers of course. Then leave it to the people watching whether they want to go to CNN or equivalents.

But enough of that! Dedniel Nunez got his first MLB save in the meantime, getting the last five outs after Scott choked again and Butto didn't pitch like butt for several innings in a row.

Dedniel Nunez might be my favorite Met right now!

...except for Pete, although Pete is struggling pretty badly this year.....

Yeah, I'm not asking for a newsbreak, but it should have been MY choice to stick with the game, rather than only seeing news of historic political violence in my YouTube flow after the fact.

And since the first source that popped up with the news was an obscure channel I'd never heard of, I legitimately thought that it was just clickbait bull. It took multiple random videos showing in the flow before I stopped downloading old NFL games and decided maybe I should check it out. A far cry from the days when Howard Cosell announced the assassination of John Lennon in between plays of Dolphins-Patriots.

(OT: the 43 years between the shooting of Reagan and this is the longest respite in political violence since the start of the Republic. It took 46 years between George Washington's 1789 inauguration and the 1835 murder attempt on Andrew Jackson. And then 1865, 1881, 1901, 1912, 1932, 1950, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1975 [2x] and 1981, before we started to get a handle on this crap. [/OT])

*************************
Good work by Nunez, who becomes the 9th different Met to post a save this year. One hopes that Carlos Mendoza Line doesn't work him to ineffectiveness, as happened with Garrett.

Of course, things work better when the Queens Qrushers post a .945 OPS as a team, as they did from Tuesday through Friday. (Presumably yesterday kept the stats up, but I don't have the exact figure as yet.)

There's certainly a benefit to playing the Gnats and the Rockies. As long as Manly Rob Manfred is striving to destroy every last drop of history and tradition in MLB, do you think we can slip him a few bucks to re-align us into a division with those two teams and the Angels and the White Sox?

If Nick Fortes ever finds a way to only play against the Mets, 162 games a year, he’d hit .478 with 79 dingers and would make the Hall of Fame.

Today we learned that … A) Manaea sucks (just a refresher), and B) that hitting a bullet and hitting the dog out of it is basically the same, except that the latter is more sadistic.

So even Jeff McCovey couldn't help the Mets overcome a severe case of Manaearrhea.

And apparently whilst I was watching Wimbledon and the Soccerball Sunday last, I missed the Mets serving THREE meatballs to the sub-.200 hitting 1B on the Rockies. I can only assume they're trying to get him into Cooperstown along with Todd Helton (inducted tomorrow).

Maybe we shouldn't be so confident about playing the Gnats and Rocks and Fish? I know it's only a two-game losing streak, but with these teams, two is two too many.

The Mets win a 1-0 wheezer after 2 1/2 hours of hitting rockets right into mittens and tie the Cards for the second wild card for at least a couple of hours.

And just 63 to play, easy-peasy!

I am also convinced that Alvarez slipped the ump a twenny before Chizzazzissimm (quote: Keith Hernandez) came up to maybe encourage him to think about calling one of the balls Boom-Boom would lob up a strike instead.