Mets

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

In the words of Rupert Giles, "It's all right; I have more Scotch."

In the words of the Raccoons GM: "I'll just unscrew another Capt'n Coma."

Note that further up I said that I saw a 2-8 coming for this Barves/Philthies segment. That *might* have been a bit too euphoric.

[Amazin69]

Holmes almost makes it through 5 innings before walking away the lead! If pitchers were still allowed to leave the dugout when their work was done, he could have been showering his cares away while Bra's Open was getting the game blown out.

The Billion Dollar Lineup produced a single solitary run against Spencer Strider, who came into the game 0-5 against teams not named "Colorado". Of course, the Rox are now 8-8 in their last 16 games, just as we are, so clearly Spencer has found a level where he can hit his Stride.

Off to Philadelphia, City of Homosexual Incest. (What, not that "Brotherly Love"? My bad.) Justin Hagenman was called up to take the start tomorrow, but we burned him in mop-up duty, so I guess they're seeking volunteers.

How's your paw, Westie? My knee hasn't been right since pitchers got to hit, so they'd bunt me to death, alas.

Now mind you, the Chop-Cast did tell us that Frankie Mount-ass could be ready as soon as next week (and Tom Glavine assured us that Frankie having a 12.05 ERA in his six minor-league starts doesn't necessarily mean anything)…but "tomorrow" ≠ "next week", last time I checked.

[Westheim]

Mets blew a 5 1/2 game lead in a week. That takes ... something.

Tidwell was tossed around by Gary and Keith as filler-filler, and is apparently the last living SP on the 40-man as of now that hasn't been turned into roadkill yet.

0-3, and 2-8 looking like a stretch.

[Amazin69]

While we're experiencing the post-Hotlanta blues, I should note that pretty much the sole high spot of the series is when they played a montage of NY Met Tom Glavine striking out rising Braves star Frenchy…again and again and again.

I mean, I can hardly claim fluffy memories for Tom's time in Mets blues, even if he is the only 300-game winner we've employed to reach the Magic Number as a Met. But compared to everything else on my screen, even long-ago effective Mets pitching was a pleasant change.

And permit me to note that Clay Matthews, the Truist Park Music Dude, continues to play walk-up music for the visiting players, which very much not the idea.

Music themes for this year's Mets seem a bit simplistic, such as playing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" for Marte or "Here Comes Peter Cottontail' for Alonso. But at least I understand those.

Where in the blue hell did Matthews get the idea to announce McNeil with a snippet from ELO's "Mr Blue Sky"??? I can't even guess the logic there.

[Westheim]

Useless.

Just useless.

L7 and useless.

+++

Big Pete briefly lit a little candle of hope with Squirrel and back-to-back game-tying homers the minute Zack Wheeler left the building, tying him for 267th with 244 homers all-time. He's in company of Hack Wilson, "Sweet" Lou Whitaker, and Hunter "Can't Parallel Park" Pence.

Fun (eh...) Fact: Hack Wilson, who still holds the record for RBI's in a season that Pete is unlikely to break on this team, was once the Juan Soto of his day in being the highest-paid player in the league, yet died penniless after a fall, his kid declined to claim his remains, and the league had to pay for the RBI king's funeral, in which he wore a donated suit.

Wikipedia told me that, and I think it might also be about to become a parable of these 2025 Mets...

[Déjà Bru]

It's funny how the mind works sometimes. I read what you said about Hack Wilson. I thought to call up his Wikipedia article but at the top of it, I noted that he died in 1948. I recalled that as the year that Babe Ruth died as well.

So I thought to go to Ruth's article first and examine his funeral arrangements before continuing with Wilson's article. For Ruth,

Thousands of New Yorkers, including many children, stood vigil outside the hospital during Ruth's final days. On August 16, 1948, at 8:01 p.m., Ruth died in his sleep at the age of 53. His funeral service took place over three days. His open casket was placed on display in the rotunda of Yankee Stadium, where it remained for two days; 77,000 people filed past to pay him tribute. His Requiem Mass was celebrated by Francis Cardinal Spellman at St. Patrick's Cathedral; a crowd estimated at 75,000 waited outside.

Then I returned to the Wilson article where I noticed, right after what you read and repeated, it said,

In marked contrast to Babe Ruth's funeral, which had been attended by thousands just three months earlier, only a few hundred people were present for Wilson's services.

Happily, however,

Ten months later, Joe McCarthy organized a second, more complete memorial service, attended by Kiki Cuyler, Charlie Grimm, Nick Altrock and other players from the Cubs and the Martinsburg team (by then renamed the Blue Sox). A granite tombstone was unveiled, with the inscription, "One of Baseball's Immortals, Lewis R. (Hack) Wilson, Rests Here."

Ruth was 53 when he died. Wilson was 48.

[Amazin69]

Q: What was the Fordham University double-play combination who later became Cardinals?

A: Hall of Famer Frankie "Fordham Flash" Frisch at 2B; Francis Cardinal Spellman at SS.

Mets might want to check with the Archdiocese to see if they have any promising 3Bs. What in Our Lorde's name is Baty doing trying to turn a 5-4-3 on a high chopper that nearly went over his head? You have to know you'll never turn two, so you throw home for the force.

(Or you could try tagging the runner going to 3B and then throw across the diamond, but that's still a low-percentage play.)

Difference between Mets 3Bs with the glove?

Vientos doesn't know how to field the ball, whereas Baty doesn't know what to do with it. Blade Tiddles deserved better.

And why does Mendoza line have the whole IF playing in with runners on the corners and one out? Yes, you don't want to just concede the 3rd run to go down 5-2, but surely you only bring the corners in, so that if Castellanos hits the little dink he did, you can turn the DP. Be prepared to come home rather than try for around the horn or 3-6-3, yes…but don't give up the chance for an inning-ender if the ball goes to 2B/SS. SStuuuupid!

(Do you need me to tell y'all the story of Hack Wilson playing RF for the Dodgers in Baker Bowl, or have you read Roger Angell, too?)

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

(Do you need me to tell y'all the story of Hack Wilson playing RF for the Dodgers in Baker Bowl, or have you read Roger Angell, too?)

Yes, please, because I'm stumped. The only reference I could find was this, which has the following:

Mid-season 1934, Wilson was released by Brooklyn, briefly signed by Philadelphia before he was out of baseball for good. Wilson’s most memorable moment that final season came when he accidentally fielded a ball heaved at the Baker Bowl right field wall by a manager conferencing with his pitcher and fired a perfect throw to second base.

But he would have been playing for the Phillies, not the Dodgers.

EDIT: Okay, wait a minute. Maybe that is it. The problem with bloggers is that a lot of them are not really accurate. Maybe this guy has it down, the way he phrases it:

One of Baker Bowl’s most memorable legends related to the right-field wall is a true one. One afternoon in 1934, Brooklyn pitcher Walter Beck drew the short straw and was given the unwanted assignment of pitching in Philadelphia. When he predictably got lit up, manager Casey Stengel came out to get him; a fed-up Beck took out his anger on the wall by launching a long, sizzling throw off it. At its base, right fielder Hack Wilson—four years and a million drinks removed from his historic 58-homer, 191-RBI campaign of 1930—was using the break to lean against the wall and resume nursing a hangover from the night before. When he heard the clang of Beck’s throw hitting the tin wall, he shook himself into action, retrieved the ball and fired a strike to second—all believing the ball was in play. Beck, to be forever known as “Boom-Boom” as a result of the stunt, suddenly became the second angriest player on the field; from their dugout, the Phillies broke into gut-busting laughter.

So apparently, that happened before Wilson was released by Brooklyn which is definitely not the inference one would get from the first blogger's telling of the story. Also, it was the pitcher who threw the ball, not the manager. Ironically, later that season, Wilson became teammates with the very guys who were yokking it up at his expense that day.

[Westheim]

Mets chuck seven homers to end a string of seven defeats.

Pete didn't get any, but I still think we should play in Philadelphia more often. Somehow that wakes this team up as well.

[Amazin69]

Yeah, that's it. Baker Bowl (technically National League Park when it opened in 1895) was considered advanced in its day (the first park made of bricks rather than wood), but it was shoved into the neighborhood; there was a hump in centerfield because the subway ran under it, and the RF wall was only 250 feet from home plate, which not only allowed for cheap home runs if you could loft the ball over the big tin fence, but made it easy for strong-armed RFs to rack up assists, as when the Phillies' Chuck Klein set the record with 44 in 1930.

In the version of the story that Roger Angell told in Five Seasons, after "Boom-Boom" Beck woke up the dozing Hack by banging the ball off of the tin wall, Hack's ensuing throw to 2B was "the best he made all season" as Brooklyn manager Casey Stengel drily remarked. Not that it kept Casey from releasing him shortly thereafter, as noted above.

(While National League Park had made the step away from pure wood construction, originally the stands were still wooden, resulting in the "Black Saturday" disaster of 1903, when 13-year-old Maggie Barry was being accosted/molested by homeless drunks outside the ballpark, and Maggie's screams of "Rape! Murder!" sent everyone on that side of the park scrambling to the top of the stand to see what was going down…only to find that what was actually going down was the wooden stand, as the aging timber cracked under the pressure (the new owners had refused to budget any money for repairs) and the crash killed 12 fans and injured 242 more. This is what led the owners to stop being cheap and build real stadiums of concrete and steel, beginning with Shibe Park and Forbes Field in 1909.)

*********
For a while, I wasn't certain that nothing but solo dingers would be enough to win the game, but if you stack them high enough, they can get the job done, I guess. At least scoring the majority our runs via the HR trot gives Mike Sarbaugh fewer chances to screw things up, right?

*******************

I don't know if you endured the actual FOX-cast, Westie, so here is Ken Rosenthal's Mets Mound Report:

Frankie Mount-ass will mount the mound on Tuesday, even though there's doubt that he's fully ready.

Sean Manaea pitched well in the minors on Friday; one more rehab start and he'll be good to go.

OTOH, Kodai "Moroi Hone" Senga has followed his usual progression from "it's nothing" to "it's just a strain" to "It's August, at earliest". Sigh.

("Moroi hone" means "brittle bones" in Japanese, says Google™ Translate. But you figured that out just from the "Kodia Senga" part, I'm sure.)

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

I don't know if you endured the actual FOX-cast, Westie, so here is Ken Rosenthal's Mets Mound Report:

Yes, I did. I also endured the Crapple game yesterday and since I have next week off, I will also suffer through ESPN flinging verbal diarrhea through my screen tomorrow when I watch that from the archive.

Originally Posted by Amazin69

OTOH, Kodai "Moroi Hone" Senga has followed his usual progression from "it's nothing" to "it's just a strain" to "It's August, at earliest". Sigh.

("Moroi hone" means "brittle bones" in Japanese, says Google™ Translate. But you figured that out just from the "Kodia Senga" part, I'm sure.)

August of which year, though?

[Amazin69]

BTW, the reason the wall looked as pock-marked as it did was because it was not uncommon for line drives to simply punch through the tin, for a ground-rule double. Which is why tin wasn't in as walls evolved.

[Westheim]

Welcome back to the New York Suckers, David Peterson. We missed you.

That was a dreadful game. Boog Sciambi was about the best part of it.

Also, since Lindor wasted a homer on a sure loss, the W28 stretch of the Mets in games where Lindor goes yard is also over.

[Amazin69]

What? My TV somehow shut off (I assume out of self-defense) and I didn't see anything post-Zuber. Well, crap.

How bad was this? After suffering through this and the Toonder's championship celebrations (I swear I'm happy for SG-A…and I will eventually get over that stuuuupid trade the LA Chokers made…some day), I had to turn to [programming the board wouldn't want me to mention] to feel better.

Regardless of what any one of us might feel about the Mets, the Clippers and/or [redacted] I think we can all agree that sports are meant to be the reprieve from other events, rather than the reverse. Yeesh.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Regardless of what any one of us might feel about the Mets, the Clippers and/or Yankees [unredacted] I think we can all agree that sports are meant to be the reprieve from other events, rather than the reverse. Yeesh.

Fixed that for you.

[Amazin69]

No, no, the "[redacted]" was a reference to the non-sports events I found more cheerful than our performance on the field. Obviously, I can't discuss those here. My 30th-favorite team may still be #30 in my heart (the Scrubs are locked in #29, as usual), but I understand that the Big Guy and his fellow Pinstripers are not off-topic for this board. Perhaps I should have Hammered the point home more clearly, but my bad.
****************************

In any event, the Mets played like a pile of [redacted], descending to 1-9 in the last ten games. About the only good news is that CJ Nitkowski is on the color for this series, rather than Frenchy and/or Glavine. Even if CJ's most memorable moment was his sardonically declaring the banning of lawn darts to be "the decline of civilization", he was deeper and more professional than I'm accustomed to getting from Brandon Gaudin's side men.

And the Mutts did a good job of putting the lipstick on this pig…Blackburn never did completely meltdown, the bullpen held the line, Nimmo drew a key walk to double the impact of Mr. 765's blast and thus give the coMetose the patina of relevance in the late innings.

Of course, Super Soto didn't have two of those in him, so it was all moot anyhow. A loss is a loss is a loss. Phillies 1.5 games ahead, now.

Meanwhile, this past Friday in Pittsburgh, Jacob de Grom struck out 7 in 6 IP, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits as the Rangers won, 6-2. De Grom (7-2, 2.24) has now gone 12 straight starts allowing 2 ER or fewer.

Billy Eppler, having served a year-long suspension in 2024 (for falsifying injury reports to play roster games, you may recall), is currently a special assistant for Milwaukee. And I am totally not bitter.

And I am totally lying about that.

Frankie Montas debuts in 16 or so hours. Get excited!

[Westheim]

Can I still change my prediction of them going 2-8 in that 10-game stretch with the Barves and Philthies down to 1-9? Because they're at 1-6 and don't look like they have a 2 in them. Certainly not with Montas getting torn to shreds tonight.

Also, how's this a homer?? That brat is almost falling over the railing to catch that ball!!

[Westheim]

According to Wikipedia, 1969 Met Ron Taylor passed away last week. He was 87. Which is at least almost twice as far Hack Wilson made it.....

Well, at least he didn't have to watch the dreadful last week of games anymore...

[Amazin69]

Oh, yeah; I forgot to do a thread for Dr. Ron. My bad. RIP to pretty much the entire 1969 bullpen…only Bob Johnson and Jesse Hudson remaining.

[Westheim]

(deep sigh)