The Winning Streak Has To Start Somewhere

It is easy to be cynical when the Mets win their first game in 8 days, especially when going into the Citi Field leg of the Yankees series. Two things were good, at least, about that isolated one game: The offense didn't completely fizzle out late after taking an early lead, and the game wasn't blown in the 9th inning.

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
Photo via New York Times

The thing is, if they are ever to win two in a row again, the winning streak has got to start somewhere (insert "duh" gif here.)

I like it when the Mets win, even when the more they lose, the more fervor gets churned about how much the Wilpons suck at running a baseball team. I'm not one for tanking (even if the result is a draft pick of glorious nature down the road.) I want miracles. I want Amazin' times. I glitch, though, when I utter, "Amazin'," because the nickname was arrived at in an ironic state, referring to the Amazin' Mets of 1962.

By 1969, however, Amazin' was literally that, as we recollected on this past weekend. That is how quickly things can change.

The "They" everyone talks about like to say, "Success is luck and preparation intersecting" or however you want to phrase it yourself. It would seem, cynically enough, that any success under the
Wilpons, whether it is one isolated game or years like 2015 and 2016, is more luck than preparation. I'm sick of them proving us right, but as hard as it is to watch the nature of 2017, '18 and '19 after two great years in a row, I would never trade the joy and glow the memories of those two years have provided me. As much as we can sometimes laugh off the awful nature of the way things have gone, I'd still rather they figure out how to prepare to string together a bunch of 2015's and 2016's in a row.

The winning streak has to start somewhere...

BEAT. THE. YANKEES.

LET'S. GO. METS.

This is Normal.

It took the Washington Baseball Community 79 years to be yet another National League East team to suffer a devastating loss to the Cardinals in a Winner-Take-All game. They just don't stop. Same way we expect Eli Manning to pull out a victory in the 4th Quarter every week, we expect the Cardinals will do somethin' along this line. I was pulling for Washington, because it's cool for that area that lost baseball for so long, but also because I just want to see the Cardinals stop winning. Alas, Drew Storen couldn't locate his fastball and experience outweighed talent. In the overall narrative, it makes sense. This Washington team and town has just gotten back to truly, for most, unfamiliar territory. Might as well seethe over the Redbird before tasting the glory and the champagne.

Experience made most of the difference in today's games, with the Yankees outlasting the O's much the way they did in the regular season. Now, the possibility of a Bay Series is gone, The Mid-Atlantic Series is wiped off the map, and the Mets did their part long ago to put ideas of a Subway Series to bed. I will look for a Giants Tigers series, though I will still watch if the Cardinals make it back. I don't think it's their consistency that sickens me; it's that my team isn't that kind of consistent.

And so, the Nats are eliminated, much the same way the 91-61 New York Giants eliminated the 99-53 Washington Senators in Game 5 back in 1933. After the Giants won both their games at the Polo Grounds, the Senators won in Game 3 at Griffith Stadium with a complete-game shutout by Earl Whitehill. Game 4 came down to the 11th inning, and the Giants scored 1 to break a 1-1 tie and win it in the bottom half. They took the deciding game 5 in the top of the 10th, breaking a 3-3 tie with a Mel Ott Solo Shot. The Senators got 2 on in the bottom half with 2 out, but Joe Kuhel struck out.  Relatively soon thereafter (in the grand scheme of the universe), Washington Baseball Fans would seriously consider becoming Orioles fans.

And even the DC folk who stayed with the O's couldn't beat those Daaaamn Yankees.

LET'S. GO. METS.

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