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.