Sunshine And Diluted Vinegar

It’s tough to pinpoint a “high point” this season. The two I have are Asdrubal Cabrera’s home run against the Phillies in July, and Wilmer Flores’ walk off home run against Oakland later in the month. But even for those moments there was the underlying inescapable fact that the season was over. 2017 has been littered with losses, surgeries, freak injuries and miscommunication. In other words, 2017 has been one big heaping dose of life.

Life has hit Matt Harvey hard this season, between thoracic outlet syndrome, a busted scapula, and self induced behavioral problems (a fancy way of saying he showed up late to work.) One would hope that there would be some apex for Harvey … some sign that 2018 was going to foretell the return of the Dark Knight, complete with the piss and vinegar he’s best known for. But with these outings being glorified spring training games against September rosters, we’re probably going to have to settle for a game where Harvey was merely “not terrible” as being the best sign we’re going to get.

Harvey went five innings, gave up five runs and a walk along with two runs to the Cincinnati Reds in a 7-2 victory. His location still wasn’t the best, his fastball hovered around 93-95, and his slider was … well, it existed. But he wasn’t terrible, and he settled down after giving up two runs in the first two innings. There were a lot of pitches that the Reds seemed to just miss on … lazy fly balls which would have been home runs on other nights. But Harvey battled through a slightly above average lineup, which isn’t as good as throwing one hitters or eight shutout World Series innings. But our bar is low these days.

Brandon Nimmo hit two home runs on Thursday. There were lots of smiles. Too bad the game meant nothing. Hell, Reds/Mets is so low on the sports totem pole that if there was an MLB Network 2, that’s where Reds/Mets highlights would go. Poor Brandon. Two home runs hit in a vacuum of indifference. (Except for the moment where Keith got rightly agitated at the useless review on a home run that obviously wasn’t a home run which served no purpose other to soothe Cabrera’s ego. Don’t worry Keith. Only three weeks to go.)

Today’s Hate List

1. For all the consternation …
2. about the review slowing down the pace of play,
3. and rightly so, there’s a silver lining.
4. This useless game,
5. was only 2:38.