Mets

[swoboda]

Originally Posted by swoboda

Beautiful week for the Amazin's, OTD was great, and the Mets showed they can definitely compete against LA, we just need the offense to pick up a little speed this month.

...and now a horrible week has of course followed, plus Max on the IL

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by swoboda

...and now a horrible week has of course followed, plus Max on the IL

So that's... Jake and pray for a 4 day Noreaster?

[Westheim]

Mad Max: "This is days, not weeks. [...] This is not a significant injury."

Ah for ****'s sake, now I have to buy a ******* wreath!!

[Westheim]

The Mets lost three straight games, each by at least six runs, all to teams at least 30 games behind them in the standings.

That has never been done before in MLB history, according to Gary Cohen.

Someone just man up and mercy-kill me, because this is too hard to watch.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Someone just man up and mercy-kill me, because this is too hard to watch.

Relax. Even if the Braves take the division, there is this:

[Westheim]

"Steve, if you catch a foul ball, you gotta give it to the kid, not to *Bob*!"

Ah, some light comic relief with Steve "I Need Security" Gelbs while the Mets work on blowing a 5-0 lead.

[BBGiovanni]

Well, two wins in one day help! It would help a lot more if the dumb Barves would lose one :/

[swoboda]

And now Marte has a broken finger ugghhh.

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by swoboda

And now Marte has a broken finger ugghhh.

Yeesh... Naquin/Nimmo/Canha I guess? And I suppose now Ruf is an OF again with Gore to pinch run/defensive replacement. Not good.

[Amazin69]

16 games with the easiest teams in baseball. (Gnats, Pirates, Fish, Cubs, Pirates again.)

Mets currently 3-4, technically out of 1st place (by percentage points, pending the result of Braves-Mariners), and Gary Cohen keeps basically hinting they should take it easy and settle for a Wild Card. Because who needs to win, right?

This is my final season watching MLB (see rule-change thread for that rant) and it's nice to know that some things never change.

Ah, well, I was too poor to have TV service in 2012-2013. I can download those games from YouTube and watch Dickey win the Cy and Harvey win RoY. That'll keep me occupied for a while, I suppose.

ETA: I should note that the benefit of this unexpected season (I was going to abandon the sport with the DH in the NL, but DirecTV glitched and gave me Extra Innings for free, so I'm semi-tolerating DH ball, just for the season) is that Buck Showalter has thankfully never used an "opener" or a "bullpen game". It's not as if a starter is allowed to sniff the 8th inning or anything that radical, but it's almost like baseball.

And I should give props to whomever put an end to f*cking "Players' Weekend" and those stupid goddamn uniforms with the idiotic nicknames on the back. At least MLB goes out (from my pov) on a slightly professional note, thank Lorde.

[Westheim]

“Garrett Cooper hasn’t hit a homer in two months!” – *WHUMP!!!*

Gary, we gotta have a little talk.

That aside, the Mets have finally completed their 2007 Raccoons meltdown, blowing a 10 1/2 game lead held in the first half of the season. Ironically, the Coons did it to the New York Crusaders.......

[BBGiovanni]

1 for 3 with runners in scoring position reveals an awful lot. They used to save that kind of thing for Jake games.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

1 for 3 with runners in scoring position reveals an awful lot. They used to save that kind of thing for Jake games.

(initially laughs, then remembers that it's all sad and that life ends with death and it's all pointless anyway and hangs his head, sobbing)

[Amazin69]

So the Braves won last night (M's went down fighting, but down nonetheless) and we're now in 2nd place.

The Tragic Number is 24, so we can't be eliminated until September 22nd, at earliest. But still.

And DirecTV has decided not to offer tonight's PIX-11 telecast (they've done all the others so far this season), so all I have available is the Marlins feed. Not that I have anything against Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton (they may be one of my favorite non-Mets broadcast teams, actually), but I'd prefer GKR.

Even if I'm dreading the moment when Gary finds out that the #4 seed gets to host all three games in the first round and starts working that into his "does it really matter how the Mets reach the playoffs?" pre-concession speeches.

The good news is that SNY replays the PIX telecast, tomorrow morning at 0600 Eastern. The bad news is that DirecTV likes to black out MLB rebroadcasts.

But the better news is that, given something is almost guaranteed to go sideways (either I don't get to record anything at all or I get spoiled for the result while waiting for a re-air that got blacked out anyways), this makes the Mets a heavy favorite to win tonight. You're welcome.

[Westheim]

My only minor nitpick with Saturday's 11-3 shanking of the Fishes would be that when you have Vientos up, why not work him into a game you lead by ten?

Also, the half-sentence "well then Marrero will get demoted" made me shiver. How many more DH types on the roster do we need?

[Amazin69]

So I got spoiled for the Mets result on Saturday because I was watching college football while waiting for the Sunday morning replay (which of course was blacked out, so I spoiled myself for nothing), thus ensuring the Mets' victory.

As I said before, you're welcome.

So the highlight of Saturday was watching Paul Severino and Tommy Hutton (Rich Waltz actually hasn't called Marlins' games since 2017…oops) doing the game from in front of the bar in left field (the place that replaced the Clevelander restaurant) and talking about what a great view it was and how much they loved being out in the stands…

…and then today, Gary Cohen spills the beans; they couldn't see a thing from those seats (I didn't think the view looked good) and the noise from the DJ in the bar was so loud they couldn't hear themselves talk. Gary says that Paul told him that when the game was over, he got in his car and put on Mozart to decompress, lol.

Yeah, hometeam announcers have to do a lot of flacking for every stupid idea management has, lol.

Speaking of left field, Nimmo led off today by hitting a ball that nestled at the bottom of the LF fence, below the padding. Brandon zipped over to 3B…only to be sent back to 2nd because the ump had deemed the ball "unplayable"…even though the padding doesn't come down far enough that a ball could get wedged in there, and JJ Bleday actually played the ball, thus ruining the "unplayable" argument.

Who was the buffoon of an ump who made the "dead ball!" call, even though, since he was working the plate, he had the worst view? (It's the 3B ump's call, since he can go to the OF to observe.)

Why…Angel Hernandez, of course! OF COURSE! 24 years since "I've got a plane to catch!" and Angel still can't resist dicking over the Mets. That's our Angel.

(Yeah, yeah, it's mostly just incompetence and it evens out, theoretically. But I haven't forgotten, and I don't forgive, Angel…)

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by Westheim

My only minor nitpick with Saturday's 11-3 shanking of the Fishes would be that when you have Vientos up, why not work him into a game you lead by ten?

Also, the half-sentence "well then Marrero will get demoted" made me shiver. How many more DH types on the roster do we need?

All of them? I think trading for a DH platoon is looking like a pretty gigantic blunder.

Marrero will get demoted for Guillorme, hopefully. I'm sure he won't be rusty after a whole rehab game but he's around to catch the ball and take pitches so hopefully he won't be as rusty as his OOTP counterparts. They might stick McNeil in the OF some I guess. Addition by... dividing?

[Amazin69]

Well, that was fun. Load the bases in the 8th with nobody out, down by 4 runs and get…zero. (Lindor hits a pointless dinger in the 9th.)

After this catatonic non-effort, we're now 5-5 against the "easiest schedule in baseball". I wasn't expecting 10-0 (although a World Champion-quality club would have done that), but something like 8-2 would not have been out of line, IMO.

And I mostly like Buck as a manager, but I have to question using Darin "1-for-September" Ruf as a pinch-hitter in a crucial spot. If you don't trust Vientos, why not Guillorme? He hits lefties. Or Nido. Worry about McCann getting hurt once you've tied the game.

(Hell, if you REALLY are that stressed about not having an emergency catcher, put Nido at C, move McCann to 1B [he's played it], put Pete in LF [he's played it] and move Canha to RF, replacing Naquin. Anything is better than using Ruf-bad-dog! with the game on the line.)

The highlight of this whole slide into mediocrity was last Tuesday when, in the middle of the Pirates stomping us into the ground, Vogelfat faced a nicely athletic lefthander named Eric…Stout.

Thus giving us more for Bill James's classic "misleading names" list:

Bud Black is white, but Frank White is black (this is what got James started)
Vic Power was a singles hitter
Horace Speed only stole 4 bases in his career
Jim Winn went 12-17 lifetime
Rich Sauveur never recorded a big league save. (Technically, "sauver" is French for "salvage" or "redeem", but close enough.)
Cecil Fielder was a born DH (and so was his son)
Daryl Boston never played for the Red Sox

(Bill Swift did have a good fastball, but there are exceptions to every rule.)

So as long as Stout stays away from the donuts, he has a place on that list.
(Chris Short was 6'4", btw.)

Speaking of staying away from the donuts, it seems that Vogelfat is being a bad influence on our slumping Polar Bear, who looks as though he's bulking up for hibernation. There's a reason we haven't seen any shirtless Pete celebrations lately, methinks.

[Westheim]

Upsides, the Barves lost too?

Sigh.

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Upsides, the Barves lost too?

Sigh.

San Francisco Blind Squirrels find nut! Any help is good help!

In related Mets alumni news, said Blind Squirrels re-signed Wilmer for 2 years at like 6m per. I'm glad for him, maybe he'll end up one of those Giants hangers-on that becomes part of the landscape. I was always sorry the Mets let him go and kept lesser hitters/ signed more expensive and more broken guys.