Winsday, baby. Charlie Morton wobbled, but Max Scherzer wobbled more. I suppose that Steve Cohen’s Met fandom is based on trying to create high expectations without actually achieving. Most of the period from about 1973 forward for the Mets franchise seems to work like that. Surely Steve didn’t think he could throw out a lot of money and make a winner in Queens. He couldn’t have possibly gotten that rich being that dumb.
Charlie Morton gave up single runs in 1 and 2. In the first, after 2 outs, he hit Pete Alonso on the wrist. Morton gave a personal apology to Alonso. So nice of Charlie. But Tommy Pham came in for Alonso and played more like 5 years ago Tommy Pham. Tommy Pham and Matt Diaz are paired together as examples of bad attention to vision by Major League clubs.
3 infield hits (and one to the outfield, before that) got one back for Atlanta in the 4th. But New York got 2 back in top of 5 off of a Tommy Pham home run. Now down 4 to 1, the Braves had the Mets right where they wanted the Mets.
The Braves have learned the old Little League saying, “swing hard in case you hit it.” Even though Scherzer got 10 K’s, the well hit balls (23 total bases to Mets 13) were a result of pounding that round thing. Pounded 2 in bottom of 5 and 2 in bottom of 6. A lead of 5 to 4. The Mets got one in 7 to tie it and take Scherzer “off the hook.”
Well, last night was hopefully the return of “Good Michael Harris II.” 3 for 4 last night. He struck for a 2 run homer in the bottom of the 8th that got to the final score. And Minter finished it off successfully.
Last night was some spooky Joe Simpson magic. After Harris’s gift bunt single – which Simpson, correctly, pointed out should have rolled foul, but instead, the rookie catcher foolishly grabbed it and threw it away – Simpson mused, in the way that aging homer announcers sometimes do, “What if that’s what it takes to get him going, and he goes 3-3 tonight?” In Harris’s next at-bat, he struck out with the bases loaded, and I thought that was that.
Then he hit an RBI double and a game-winning two-run homer, and I’m left just wondering:
HOW DID JOE KNOW??
He didn’t. He says stuff like that all the time. Blind squirrel.
Still basking in last night’s baseball…
And it sure is nice to get to Scherzer again. He’s taken the L in his last 3 big games (@Atl in Sept, SD in WC, @Atl last night), so that really resonates in MetLand. (“$43M a year for this? Whaaaaa!”) In those games, he’s 0-3 with 16 ER in 16 IP, 27 H & 7 HRs.
As for actual basking, hopefully, we’ll have some real sunlight here soon. Outside, it’s not looking as super-creepy as it was yesterday, but it remains pretty darn murky.
Let’s go for the sweep.
It looks worse here today in DC – even the Nats got cancelled. My agency (yeah, I work for one of those damned things) declared a maximum telework day. Of course, I was already at the office when they did that.