Exacerbated in Extras

On Saturday night, as the Mets got deeper into their extra inning loss to the Brewers that was the middle game of a weekend sweep, I was getting deeper and deeper into extra innings on the road. I was driving around on my rideshare game, picking up people as Quattro de Mayo turned into Cinco. I have no idea what the inning was that correlated with when I felt I needed a quick nap, but I couldn't even put the game on knowing I needed to get to sleep as soon as I could fall into it. When you're driving for a living, you have to be fully aware of the trouble signs.

Benny Sieu/USA Today Sports
Photo via SNY.TV

It was 12:15 when I was able to pull over and grab my neck pillow. I set the alarm for 1 o Clock, putting on some classical music to soothe me to sleep after checking the score. When I woke up to finish up the bar scene, the Mets had lost. I had some strange feeling that this would be the alert I would see once I got back to my extra innings. It wasn't raining when I went to sleep, but it got literally right to it after I was up. Not raining when I rose...raining within ten seconds of me putting my drivers seat back into it's upright position.

The only time the Mets or any baseball team can take a pause during extra innings is if it begins to rain. Looking at the results, it sure looks like the Mets could have used a snooze themselves. It wasn't until the next morning that I checked twitter that I had any idea of some of the details of how it all went down after the Mets took the lead in the 18th only to spit it back up in the bottom half. I had this to say on twitter about the weird yet weirdly satisfying way I woke up Sunday morning to my twitter feed feeding me the tweets from the exact moment the Mets lost.

Misery loves company

— Sam Maxwell (@THE_SamMaxwell) May 5, 2019

And so it goes. The miserable way Saturday night ended was in company with a miserable weekend. The Mets managed in the last two games to buck the 1-run trend, but not enough for it to manifest a W in either. My pessimism is such that when Juan Lagares made it 3-2 yesterday with a solo shot, I said to myself, "That's the final score." It was manifested. Yet again as it was in 2018, Mickey Callaway got his team off to a good start only to be under .500 sometime thereafter. I cannot tell you what the threshold is for when he should be concerned for his job, but you cannot manage that way either way otherwise your job loss will indeed manifest itself. It is a sucky feeling knowing that the main reason the Mets keep finding themselves in baseball purgatory is because of the way their owners run this shop. We at A Metsian Podcast were able to give the Wilpons some credit for a change somewhere in our offseason podcasts. Syracuse was a great move. And some other stuff, too. That, however, was short lived, and we're staring down the barrel of the gun recognizing once more that this team, as I feared leading up to 2015, will never be able to get out of this rollercoaster pattern of good for two years, awful for six. I will always hope they prove me wrong someday, but that hope is better suited for other parts of my life.

Jeez. I have to believe, don't I? Hard to do so when the evidence points elsewhere.

I guess we just gotta

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

The Give and the Take

Sometime while driving around New Jersey on Saturday evening, with the Mets offense softly fizzling, I realized, or at least saw the facts through a figurative magnifying glass, that they had been utterly nonexistent since the behind-the-back statement made to Rhys Hoskins and the Phillies on Tuesday evening. The momentum, the cliché goes, is as good as your next starting pitcher, but no matter how good or bad the opposition's starting pitcher is, you have to back up your assertion that "we're not going to take it anymore." The Mets, ever so inconsistent, had given none of their starters since then, albeit only 2, any real chance of gaining the momentum back, removed from the completely botched, naturally, Jacob deGrom activation Friday night.

At some point Saturday night after thinking the above about the offense to myself (and whoever saw it on Twitter) the Mets staged a semi-comeback that was hot enough for an At Bat alert. I stayed silent, literally with the "speechless" emoji being tweeted. Jeurys Familia, however, decided to hand the momentum directly back to the Brewers and so went the game 8-6 Brew Crew.

I should have once again stayed silent on Sunday, an opinion many of you out there may echo, when I gave Steven Matz props for the performance, outside of 1 inning this year against the Phillies, he has rendered so far in 2019. Though the Brewers basically immediately tied it after I tweeted as such, the Mets were able to take back the lead and win the game 5-2, including on a hit by their new backup catcher, Tomas Nido.

There isn't much to say regarding Sunday morning's DFA of the failed Travis d'Arnaud chronic experiment. I was going back and forth, in favor of giving up on him, with someone on a facebook group page when the news came through that he had been designated. He gave us some brief memories and was an anchor in the 2015 late-season run, but he's been given chance after chance and it didn't work. Yes, a lot of that had to do with not being able to stay on the field, but that just comes with the overall picture. I still do not like that Devin Mesoraco did not make the team in the first place but I do not have the energy to go back into that right now. Yes, I've just used a lot of words after starting this paragraph with, "not much to say," but in my defense, there could have been more. I wish Travis nothing but the best and I'll leave it with this: one of my favorite memories is some random Twitter video back in August 2015 I saw of a fan finding d'Arnaud leaving in his car from the player's parking lot. The fan said some words of encouragement, and as Travis pulled away, he said, "Let's take this shit." To an extent, he backed up those words all the way through to the pennant. Wherever you go from here, take that shit, d'Arnaud.

Seth Wenig/AP Photo
Photo via msn.com

It truly is a give and a take with this team. Every time we think they're going to run with it, they take a step back. Every time we think they're going to continue to crash and burn, they give us reasons to believe. I can only hope for consistency out of this franchise one day, though I personally have to find my own as well. I, us and they have to continue to put in the work, find the balance and get better as much as possible every single day.

That's all we all can do. And that always brings me back to a familiar phrase I tend to use below.

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Who'll Stop deRain?

Yesterday, I got an opportunity to sleep an extra 3 hours after having gotten used to 5-6 hours of sleep in general lately. The sleep police out there will say that isn't enough, but when your body gets used to it, you're weirdly even more out of it when you get those extra 3 hours. I knew I needed more sleep so when my first ride took me back to the city from a far way away, I decided to find a parking space and crash out for a bit more knowing I would be driving the rideshare game further into the weekend night.

When I woke up around noon, I was way out of it and it was pouring outside. More rides tend to head out in the rain with less people wanting to walk those shorter trips. So, I got right to it once I crossed into Jersey. All day, as I drove around in the inconsistent weather, sometimes raining, sometimes turned off, briefly sun showers, I thought to myself, "They couldn't make the decision to pitch Jacob deGrom off the DL for the first time in THIS, right? It's so inconsistent."

Paul J. Bereswill
Photo via https://nypost.com

Inconsistency is the name of the game with the Mets. We are all trying to practice consistency in our lives and I overall struggle with being scatterbrained and unfocused. I, however, am not a Major League Baseball organization. The second I saw that alert that he was coming off the DL, I knew, even as it was rather dry out at that moment, that something was not right about this being the night.

I had looked at the weather alert. I was well aware that the rain was supposed to pick up around the time the game got going. When I saw it was delayed, I said, of COURSE it is. As it got going around 2 1/2 hours after the initial start time, it was raining rather hard in North Jersey. What did anyone expect was going to happen? Rust, the delay, whatever it was and is, deGrom should not have been on that mound, as far as I'm concerned.

Not to mention how inconsistent the bats have been on this homestand since having pretty energetic first 2 nights against the Phillies. Since throwing behind Rhys Hoskins, the Mets have not backed up anybody on that mound, as much as we continuously moan about Jason Vargas. 

Full disclosure: Since I was driving during the 10-2 Mets loss to the Brewers, I hardly have enough details to know exactly what went down in last night's deBacle. After making a mistake with the LOB from Wednesday's game, not investigating further the fact 19 Left On Base sounded rather high after reading that on the Mets box score page and getting called out by facebook folk...I am committed to stopping to smell all the details before ranting and raving and barking and yelling. In this instance, however, the score and the rain leading up to the game is all I feel I need to claim, "deGrom shouldn't have been out there."

The guy is still, however, an inspiration. He made no excuses afterwards (when they ended sometime after midnight....cue eye roll) and I hope outside of all the extraneous circumstances, he uses it as motivation to get even better like he did after his bad stretches in 2017.

Ugh and Oy.

I gotta go.

Naturally, I alluded to it in the title of this post. Cue Creedence.

WHO'LL. STOP. de.RAIN.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Consistency

I haven't been consistent with this blog, and neither have the Mets.

Well...the way I phrased it, it sounds like the Mets haven't been consistent in writing on my blog, but you get my drift.

The Mets haven't been consistent with anything.

When they hit, they don't pitch. When they pitch, they don't hit.

The 2-1 games have older Mets fans flashing back to 1971.

And games like Matt Harvey's 8-5 loss have them flashing back to Game 7 of '73.

The last thing the Mets have been is consistent.

Except consistently in 1st place.

It was ironic to randomly check in on the Washington/Milwaukee game when I did Thursday night. The Mets had long walked off, salvaging a horrendous series to their Orange Ancestors, a series in which an asshole could argue contains the only no-hitter in Citi Field history. I hadn't even acknowledged on this blog the 3rd anniversary of the greatest baseball game I ever attended, and here's some rookie with the same last name as the man who played Moses putting an exclamation point on how inept the Mets offense has gotten before I could mark the former on here. 

Back, however, to the midwest, where I was happy to find Bob Uecker call a game as well as ever. The score 6-5 Brew Crew, who had staved off an early Nats swarm to chip away and eventually take a lead into the 9th...with none other than Frankie Rodriguez on the mound to save it. Though he gave up a 2-out hit to Ian Desmond, he got 3 ground ball outs to...um...propel? the Mets back in front of the team they beat.

What a weird season this 2015 has been.

It's June 12th. The season is long. And we could all use a little more consistency in our lives.

But at least we're currently in first place.

Cheers to that.

Let's see if we ever take off.

LET'S. FLY. HIGH. NOW.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Enough With the Thor Puns

The thing is...he really DID bring the hammer down. I unfortunately wasn't able to view how sick he pitched in the moment, letting Howie and Josh wax poetically regarding the filth that Mr. Syndergaard was bringing. According to the video proof that SNY captured and cut down into a fun-filled minute 20, to think that THAT SET UP HARVEY DAY is something that can tickle the Orange and Blue fancy of Metsian folk all over.

Call them the Bounce Back Kids, because that's what they've been, and it takes a day like this and all the interviews after to be reminded that we're not talking about Rod Barajas giving it the ol' college try, or Tim Redding reminding us why you don't inexplicably trot journeyman pitchers out for a photo op. These are mostly very VERY talented young players who are ready and determined to not only make a name for themselves but make a name while lifting the Mets across their chest out of an ugly era where what felt like 100 years of heartbreak was compacted into the matter of 6 years...and go ahead and throw in 15 years considering how Amazin' the letdown was in 2009 after 2002-2004 occurred. You also have some able veterans with a lot left in their career to prove. These aren't your Manny Acosta Metropolitans. This team belongs to this great young pitching, and some amazin' bats that will follow over the coming years...and Juan Lagares.

It was ironic and unsettling that one of those hopeful anchors of our newest era made direct contact with what was considered in the summer of 2007 to be hopeful anchor for the Metsian future, but Carlos Gomez was traded in the Johan Santana trade, inadvertently bringing on the 1st No-Hitter in Mets history. The scary moment between the two young players yesterday also ended up showing off how classy athletes can sometimes be with how they spoke to each other post-game. Thankfully, Carlos is OK.

And now, the Cardinals. We all hate them. We all know how we perform against them, and at home no less, will go a long way to solidifying how good this team could possibly be. Or whether things will continue to trend south.

But this isn't Nick Evans' Mets anymore. 

#HappyHarveyDay

BEAT. DEM. RED. BOIDS.

LET'S. GO. METS.

I've Got the Orange & Blues This Mornin'...

Thursday night, or Friday morning rather, I was wallowing in my Metsian Sadness...well, frustration and anger more so...after having ranted and raved during my break on the Rising Apple Report. I saw that the delayed Nats Padres game was still going on...and the Padres had an 8-1 lead! That quickly turned to 8-2, which prompted this tweet:

Of course the #Nats score THE MOMENT I start listening. #Mets

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) May 15, 2015

Twitter has its pros and cons, but one of the pros, I must say, is the connectability fans can have to the figures they follow, in whatever medium those figures are in. For instance, I was impressed with the Padres announcers, Ted Leitner and Bob Scanlan, and decided to let them know in-game:

These @Padres announcers are fantastic. Glad they're still on the air tonight. #Padres @TedLeitner @heyscan

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) May 15, 2015

The second I pressed the "tweet" button, I saw and responded to the following:

BREAKING: 'King of the Blues' legend B.B. King dead in Las Vegas at age 89, his attorney says.

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 15, 2015

With the score what it was, I turned off the game and put B.B. King on.

I can only attempt to describe what Blues Boy has meant to my life, and it probably didn't hit me until the moment I heard he was dead. What's the most amazing is that, for someone who was known for his blues guitar playing, it's his VOICE and the power of those lungs that really got me. What a musician and artist.

You'll be missed, B.B.

I settled into the B.B. marathon, and got a response from the crew in S.D.

Thanks for tuning in and for your kind review! Pads playing some hardball tonight! https://t.co/wFvLEOH8rG

— Bob Scanlan (@heyscan) May 15, 2015

I gave them props once more, though I was honest about my priorities, while also putting in a request:

.@heyscan @Padres @TedLeitner Good stuff! BEAT. DEM. #NATS.

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) May 15, 2015

.@heyscan @Padres @TedLeitner i will admit though, & no offense to you, but right after I tweeted that, I found out bout BB, & put him on 😔

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) May 15, 2015

.@heyscan @Padres @TedLeitner i got u guys back up on my phone, though. If u haven't yet, mention THIS guy. http://t.co/54z5z5ih2A #RIPBB

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) May 15, 2015

They did. With a Wil Clark reference included to boot.

@heyscan @Padres @TedLeitner 😊👍 thanks guys

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) May 15, 2015

I am sad that he is gone, though it is fitting to be listening to the Blues as we all shake our collective heads. I generally have a solid dose of the Blues mixed into my Pandora playlist, but it had been a while since I had the Blues, and listened exclusively to that genre/station/artist. And I've been basically just listening to B.B. for the last 24 hours.

The Mets lost 7-0.

And the Nats won 10-0.

Half a game it is.

I've got the Orange & Bluuuuuuues

Oh, GIRL! You know I do!...

GOODBYE. BB.

LET'S. GO. METS.

A Dice-K Start Less Than 3 Hours?!

I didn't know it was possible, but apparently that's what last night's 6-2 win was. 2:45 in length in fact.

My flight from San Francisco landed into the low-clouded tri-state area, specifically Newark Airport, at 1:45 in the morning local time. Wanting to check the score, I turned off the airplane mode on my phone, but of course texting people first that I had arrived safely. Once that had been done, MLB At Bat made its way open.

As it was loading, which is rather quickly when the service is good, my eyes realized without seeing the score that I could click the MLB.TV button in the upper-right-hand corner and take off from where I left off, when it was 2-1 in the earlier innings. When I have time (or really even when I don't) I like watching the wins on the MLB.TV replay access, most of the time just going through the most important innings. The thing is, you want to watch the whole thing anyway because it's unbelievable how on their games Gary, Keith and Ron (and Kevin) are at all times, win or lose. One could argue the losses can be even more entertaining because of everywhere they go in conversations. So, I was happy to be able to avoid the score and listen to those guys.

I quickly found out the Airtrain I had planned to take to Newark Penn Station was being "critically repaired" since May 2, and there was a shuttle bus operating...only the last shuttle bus had taken off at 2 and wasn't taking back off till 4. I hadn't made it off the plane in time for that. There is an express bus, but that finished at 1 and wasn't starting back up till 4. So, whatever I decided to take, I'd have to wait in the airport till 4 (and I quickly decided the bus directly to town was worth the extra $3.50). At least I had a Mets game to watch. I had an hour and a half to kill, and an hour and a half left on the game.

That timeline got eschewed a bit, as my service kept freezing the video with the audio still playing, and yes, as I said above, I like LISTENING to those guys, but I wanted the video as well. Yeah, they inform us of things like this info from Gary in the 4th inning...

So, the Mets have now had the lead in 15 of their last 16 games, including tonight. They've had at least a 2-run lead in 13 of those 16 games, including tonight....And yet, here the Mets are sitting with a 6-game losing streak and feeling as though the world is falling apart. Why? Because they already lost 21 games this year where they had a lead, and they've lost 11 games this year in which they had at least a 2-run lead. Last year, all season, they lost 14 games in which they had at least a 2-run lead; and we're not even close to halfway through this season.

Though Gary, Keith and Ron tell the story as well as comment, let us not fail to give credit to the entire SNY team, especially the director who is editing the moving picture to those words.

So, I kept fidgeting with the app, scrolling 30 seconds back, skipping some seconds ahead, restarting the app, yada, yada, yada. The restarting worked, but the scrolling didn't really. The gist is, I was only at the 6th inning by 3:11am because I couldn't deal with just the audio working. (During all that, I was surprised to see that there was still a game going on in the Majors but wasn't curious enough to take a look. I wonder how that ended...)

I had checked the wifi situation earlier in my travels, but none open for Newark travelers.  I decided to check it again, and it turned out Dunkin' Donuts, which I had inadvertently made my way next to, radiated free wifi. So, I ditched the phone and headed onto my laptop to wrap up whatever I could of this game.

I arrived to the bottom of the 6th. Along with information Kevin delivered on Jeremy Hefner and his Tommy John Surgery rehab (he threw 15 pitches from a mound in St. Lucie yesterday, and has been keeping a diary every day during recovery) the Milwaukee pitcher Marco Estrada walked 3 batters in the inning, with a Daniel Murphy fly out and Chris Young strikeout sandwiched in. After Lucas Duda walked to load the bases with 2 out, the new guy, catcher Taylor Teagarden, headed to the plate in his first game as a Met, without the Mets atrocious bases loaded batting average on the season attached.

And in his first game as a Met, Taylor Teagarden is going to have a moment. 

--Gary as Taylor approached the plate

With a 1-0 count, the righty Teagarden laced it the other way into foul territory, walking up the line when Gary knew pretty quickly it would be hooking way foul. Then, Estrada dropped a strike onto the outside low corner of the plate. A perfect pitch.

Keith: It's a good strike right there. NOW, it's 1-2, he can do whatever he wants.

Gary: Bases loaded, two out...and Teagarden hits it out to right. Braun retreating, to the warning track, at the wallllll, IT'S OUTTA HERE!!!!!!!!

It was basically the same pitch, but raised. Estrada did not hit the corner this time, and Teagarden muscled it the other way, dipping the ball onto the other side of the right field wall, something we all want to see right-handed Mets hitters do more. 

I finished watching the inning, and skipped to the 9th to see if anything had gotten out of control, as it tends to do. I wanted to be done with the Mets before I got on that bus. The score was 6-2, and at that point, you have an idea things will go well for Jenrry Mejia and the Mets as the broadcast timeframe of 2:57 is in front of you, and it would have had to be quite the quick meltdown and lockdown by the Brewers for us not to exit with a Mets W.

So, with 10 minutes to spare before I had to catch the bus back into the city, I read up on Derek Fisher and the Knicks.

Now, I am going to go to bed.

BACK. IN. TOWN. NOW.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. For more from myself and others on the Mets, head over to Rising Apple. And for the latest on a Brooklyn Baseball TV Series I am developing, Like the Bedford & Sullivan Facebook page, follow on Twitter here, and listen to the research process here.

Wrapping it Up Well

It's unbelievable how much the Mets have forced the opposition into making mistakes lately. They have been playing some great baseball over the last month and a half or so, much in part to the errors their foes have made.

All weekend, the struggling Milwaukee team kicked and bobbled the ball around, and though the Mets turned it into a 12-5 romp on Friday night, they eeked out a 2-1 win thanks to the continuing brilliant pitching of Jeremy Hefner, a couple mistakes that lead to a couple runs, and a 4-out save by Mr. Bobby Parnell.

The most impressive part is of course Mr. Hefner. I had a feeling he was better than we were giving him credit for as he fought for a spot in Spring Training, and with a few tweaks here and there, he has turned himself into not only a serviceable Major League pitcher but a quality one at that. It might not exactly be flashy, but it's becoming quite fun watching the guy work through an order.


We're heading into San Francisco for a 3-game set out there. No matter how much the "New York Giants of San Francisco" may be struggling currently, the Mets and their predecessors always seem to play crazy games that excite us, frustrate us, and scare us all at the same time. Let's not even think about how our fanaticism might keep us up WAAAAAY TOOOOOOO LATE into the early eastern seaboard morning.

Settlin' into the Mondays, everyone.

LET'S. GO. METS.
(Cliche, I know, but screw it. I hadn't heard it in a while)

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for the latest on a Brooklyn Baseball TV Series I am developing, Like the Bedford & Sullivan Facebook page, and follow on Twitter here.

Helping Ted Win in Vegas

It's been a while since quotes of Ted were plastered across these Orange and Blue pages, but with the man going 4 for 4 in betting on baseball in Sin City, there were plenty of quotes pouring in while I was at work and the Mets were working on a 12-5 win.

First, before we quote Ted from Vegas, I posted yesterday without any knowledge that Ike had been announced as returning from Vegas in the waning hours of July 4th. The man got 3 hits last night, his 1st a dribbler that played into the shift. EXACTLY. That's what Ike needs to be doing. Of course we want doubles power and home run power from the guy. If he's concentrating on getting on base any way he can, the approach that will bring the power swing will be there and the doubles and home runs will come. And the average will be up because of the more contact-oriented approach. That's my take. I'm glad he's back.

AND Kirk Nieuwenhuis! We sometimes forget about him and how solid of a hitter he was for most of his minor league career and for the 1st part of 2012. The strikeouts had mounted and he was too much of a liability. His approach has slowly gotten better since the walkoff home run against the Cubs and if he can continue to see the baseball and put sound swings on the ball, we might have an outfielder on our hands that doesn't have to be gotten from the trade deadline or free agency. Clearly, it's just 1 game, but it was the game of his life, and here's to more of them in the future.

Anyway, here's Ted's Quote:

 Can the pen get through 4 innings

Can you tell the Mets to hurry up and win this. I'm trying to cash out and get dinner. 

Stop scoring runs.

Take a knee. Lets end this game.

I got shit to do. 

For the record, The Mets, the Phils, the Cards and the Jays helped Ted go 4 for 4.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for the latest on a Brooklyn Baseball TV Series I am developing, Like the Bedford & Sullivan Facebook page, and follow on Twitter here.