Walk On By

Forgive me for not getting to this sooner. I made the severe miscalculation of eating yesterday evening at a random chicken place in Elizabeth, NJ. After I was done with my Lyft rides last night, I came home, listened to the game, brushed my teeth and Listerined. All of a sudden I felt sicker than I have in a long time. I have rarely gotten all that sick as an adult, but I must have gotten food poisoning from this place. After being sick all night, I slept all day trying to crush this fever so I can get back to work Friday morning. My nausea ironically started when Jeurys Familia was giving up hit after hit.

Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
Photo via twinsdaily.com

Prior to that moment, I had only been checking the score in between rides, with my first check-in coming when it was 1-0 Twins and the Mets had not gotten a hit yet. Just in the nick of time for me to go to Twitter to comment on the lack of hits, they collected their first one. Good timing. I received a request for a ride and based on his North Bergen location, which is more or less right near the Lincoln Tunnel, I decided to make it my last. That allowed me, afterwards, to not only check on the score but put the Mets radio on. I do so immediately after the Mets had scored 6 runs, taking a 6-1 lead. I wondered to myself, "How'd the Mets string all those together?"

I imagined a Pete Alonso 3-run home run, a Michael Conforto 2-run double, and Robinson Cano hitting a solo shot. Naaaaaaaah.

I haven't even brought myself to watch the highlights because I can only imagine the moans and groans from Keith Hernandez, even if we're all on the Mets side. I might muster up the strength just to hear the collective eye roll from the whole crew and ballpark, even if it must have been the most non-clinical pitching inning in baseball history.

The frustrating part, and the one that coincided with my sickness, was that the bullpen continues to induce nausea. Noah Syndergaard, who was brilliant all night, might have lost some steam at the end, but the bullpen were the real culprits in making it a closer game than it should have been. Familia signed back with us because he wanted to be a Met, not because he was going to close again. Yet he seems, like when he was the closer being put into non-save situations, that he just can't psychologically put himself into these must-hold innings. Forget about the 30 million dollars. He's got to figure out his stuff because right now it is not all that inspiring.

Now, at 7-4 tied with the Braves and the Phillies at the top, the Mets enter Atlanta for a 4-game series needing to make an early-season statement that they will be playing with the cream of the crop from last summer all summer long.

Hopefully, they don't make me want to puke more.

LOW. GRADE. FEVER.

LET'S. GO. METS.