• Finally. We have our first Saturday night victory of the new season which you know who will help us celebrate in the traditional manner. It was a great game to watch, full of incident and good things following bad but it was nearly ruined by Chip’s inane and irrelevant asides to the action on the field, Shut up already – more later.

All 11 of our runs tonight were scored by the top 5 in our order, fine concentrated hitting. There was only one HR, a solo shot from Nick latish in the game but that had little bearing on the result. The bats in the main performed well tonight and gave a variety of Mets pitchers plenty of problems . Just as well they did because early on we had been put through agonies of frustration by a certain starting pitcher of ours who should know better but apparently does not. After being given a 4 run lead to start off the second Newcombe unbelievably gave it straight back before being yanked with just one out in the 2nd. This time his pitch total of 35 contained 25 strikes, not terrible by his standards but still infuriating when you had to couple it with 2 and 0 starts, long long counts and, most seriously, too many soft pitches over the plate.

It should be said that 2 0f the 4 runs they got back then were down to Donaldson, not scored, who completely missed a reasonable ground ball to his left which halved the Met deficit, Newk, of course, having loaded the bases to prime the pump as it were.

So he was gone before you knew it, so sad, such a waste. He needs to see Smoltz’s shrink. He does not believe in himself. He even looks timid these days, something has to be done or he will never make at as a ML starter, making that trade even more infuriating.

Now to the really good news of the night against which the result pales in comparison. Touki had been brought up this morning, Wright had been properly sent down. It proved a timely call because having come in with 1 out in the 2nd he was to remain through the 7th. Heartening stuff from him with huge implications for the future hopefully. 85 pitches, 53 strikes. 6 IP 4H 1R 2 BB. He was terrific. Other than rehab starts as necessary in the future he should never see Gwinnett again. Newcombe not so, he has no place here as of now.

Sobotka pitched a rather untidy 1 2/3 innings to close the win out. He looks good, needs to be used often and you believe he will come on.

Hitting. Swanson looks tired, sit him down for a day or two. The other crock, Nick, had another great day with the bat. JD had a fine evening, got his first home run to great acclaim on his return to the dugout plus scored 3 runs.

Freddie was fine but needs a rest too. Ozzie was great – 2 runs, 2 hits, 2 walks, benfiting greatly by the Mets RH starting pitcher only lasting one out in the FIRST! Camargo was excellent, 2 hits 2 rbis BB.

Enough already, a fine win, a badly needed one, and Touki Touki Touki!

Something must now be said about Chip tonight. His verbal diarrhea took a pronounced step up, for whatever reason. He remains terrified of silence, its his compulsion is to fill it. In that vein, to give him more nonsensical facts to talk about which largely are more and more removed from the game we are all concentrating on he has trained one of his lackeys ‘downstairs’ to pour over old stat books and enumerate such tripe as how many foul balls there were in the early thirties compared to 1947. All this time the game is going on of course.

Then he surpassed himself. While Sobotka was struggling a bit to close out the ninth and a couple of runs had scored to introduce a little edginess he started to talk about a Braves pitcher years back who had gone to see some now dead guru who had told him his spin rate he should not confuse with some other rate whatever it was. Dear God. Shut up. Good night. Enjoy Elton.

Addendum ‘ Who are the players you would have least liked to throw a curve ball to?’ Chip will tell you, multiple times.

 

 

https://www.mlb.com/gameday/mets-vs-braves/2019/04/13/567165#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=box,game=567165