Thursday, July 29, 2010

THERE MUST BE SOME WAY OUT OF HERE. [7-28-10]

It’s easy to get lulled into a false sense of security, even if you know better, even if you’ve been burnt time and time again. You think, the Mets are home. It’s a Johan start. I am still gun-shy after the roadtrip, not ready to commit to the concept that The Team Is Different, because I am not seeing a different team yet. Tonight, even more so.

Even with all of that, the last thing you expect to see in a Santana start is to go through the opposing lineup once and then come back to the top (and get a few deep) IN THE FIRST INNING. Not to mention, of course, the 6 runs. I know people claim they heard boos, but I don’t even think people were booing Johan per se (if they are, they’re idiots) but rather OH MY GOD SIX IN THE FIRST INNING?

We were sitting there, shellshocked, wondering what the hell had just happened, and why it happened, and was Johan tipping his pitches again, and the people to the left of us looking at the lineup and going “Hessman? Who the hell is HESSMAN?” and “Oh my god, he hasn’t ever had any hits, what is he DOING there?”

But then Mike Hessman comes out to “All Along The Watchtower,” promptly nails a ball out into left field which was almost a home run, but was instead collected on the carom by Matt Holiday, and brought home Jose Reyes and Angel Pagan. I had the good fortune tonight to sit between the inimitable Greg Prince and Jason Fry of the eminent Faith and Fear in Flushing (along with other esteemed bloggers within earshot one row in front of us), and the three of us jumped up and down like the baseball dorks we are. I like “All Along The Watchtower” at Citi just fine, and Hendrix at a Mets game will always remind me of Mike Piazza, which I consider a good omen. At least it squelched the murmurings of “who the heck is this guy anyway” that were all around us.

And again, instead of thinking, “Okay! We got ‘em now! Let’s get those runs back!’ you instead think, “Well, at least we aren’t getting shut out.” Because, of course, this minor triumph (which felt like it happened much, much later in the game than it actually did, because the top of the first inning was so goddamned long) led into what we’ve all come to expect by now, several innings of bloops and doubles and GIDP and line outs and ground outs and strike outs, broken up with innings of booing Albert Pujols, cursing Yadier Molina, and rolling our eyes at the idiot Cardinal fan three rows up from the visitor’s dugout.

Johan settled down and was actually quite fine after that unfortunate incident, except that, of course, there were no bats coming to his aid. There were Cardinals up and Cardinals down, while Jason, Greg and I struggled to come up with an appropriate corruption of Jon Jay’s name by trying to play it off the John Jay who was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I am sad to report that we failed, miserably. There was nothing worth tweeting or reprinting here.

The Mets continued to not hit, or to get someone on base only for Luis Castillo or Jeff Francoeur to take their turn in the lineup and leave them stranded. We continued to boo Cardinals, and Cardinals fans. We taunted Tony LaRussa whenever he emerged from the dugout. Jason kept calling him “evil” and an “enabler”. I reserved my ire for Yadier Molina, asserting that he ate small children for breakfast - at least until a small child a few rows down turned around and looked at me, alarmed. The whole reason I went down that line of taunting was to protect small ears in the vicinity.

“COLBY IS A KIND OF CHEESE!”

(You know, I have to work with the material I’m given.)

These gentlemen have the nominations for “Douchebags of the Game,” sponsored by Affliction t-shirts and Keystone Light beer. Please spot all the things wrong with this shot. When they were finally removed by security (yelling “27!!!!!1111” all the way), the entire section applauded.

And then at the top of the 6th, Matt Holliday felt the need to hit a double bringing in Jon Jay and Albert Pujols, and with this, Mr. Santana’s evening came to an end. Just when we were sure that this game was going to cruise along to its inevitable 6-2 final score end, Carlos Beltran steps to the plate. And then Carlos Beltran hit the most Carlos Beltran-esque home run you could imagine, no posturing, no coming to the plate swinging like a clutch hitter, just stepping up there and swinging and hitting a ball gently, it was the softest, gentlest home run I think I have ever seen, and it glided out to the left field landing where it deposited itself into a happy Mets fan’s hands.

In the 8th inning, Luis Castillo comes up. And once again, there is much grumbling amongst us on the subject of Luis Castillo, except that he hit a single, which muted the grumbling, but will never quell it.  Angel Pagan comes up and hits a home run, bringing Castillo home, bringing the score to 7-5 now. 7-5! This is within the realm of possibility! This is rally time! We can do this!! As if to confirm my fantasy rumblings, David Wright gets on base, Mike Hessman (I keep typing ‘Howard’ and I keep wanting to make Dr. Johnny Fever jokes) got HBP…

...and then Jeff Francoeur flies out.

Sigh.

Josh Thole gets a walk, and then when we are despairing, out comes Ike Davis, swinging that bat for all the world like an All Star, like he was there to stand and deliver, and while he didn’t hit it onto the bridge like we were all convinced he would, he brought home Wright and Hessman and THE SCORE IS TIED! IT IS TIED! WE TIED IT UP!  THE METS CAME BACK! OMG THEY CAME BACK!

And then Luis Castillo grounded out, leaving Josh Thole and Jose and Ike out on the pond.

Well, at least he didn’t bunt. (I’m going to make tshirts that say ‘BUNTING IS FOR LOSERS’. Anyone?)

It is not fun to focus the camera on second base to get a shot of Jose Reyes stealing second only for it to turn into a shot of him being thrown out at second. Yadier Molina, dude, he eats tiny dragons as snack food.

Bonus baseball is great and all, except when you don’t win, and I have seen a lot of bonus baseball recently, and it hasn’t turned out so well. People are grumbling about 21 inning games, the beat writers are comparing Brian Eno songs to Girl Scout cookies, and it is already a long game before we got to the 10th. And there is the thought that, perhaps, we will sit here and it will be long and Cardinals fans will continue to be jerks and we will run out of names to call Yadier Molina and Tony LaRussa and, well, you know how the rest of it went. Why was Feliciano pitching to Pujols? Why did they put themselves in that position? Why was this the one night Jerry didn’t play musical pitchers - realizing of course we had two left but as the saying goes, never save a pitcher for tomorrow, because tomorrow may be a day game and then the Diamondbacks are coming into town and they swept you three games last week.

See you Friday.