Joining An Exclusive List Of Visceral Anger

You might not believe what I’m about to say, but I so rarely get angry over Mets games. Bummed? Yes. Sad and mopey? You bet. Shock? A lot. Pissed? plenty. But I don’t put “pissed” in the same category as angry. Pissed is just brooding. Anger is something else. Most of the time I laugh a lot of these type of games off. LOLMets is quite the literal frame of mind that I have when dealing with this franchise over the last truck load of years. But visceral, kick a garbage pail in anger? That’s very rare. Could probably count them on one hand:

• Game 5 against the Red Sox in ’86. (This lasted into the off day. My mom told me that if I kept being angry that she wouldn’t let me watch Game 6. She doesn’t remember this, but it happened. Thankfully, I perked right up.)
• Game 2 against the Yankees in 2000.
• Game 7 against the Cardinals.
• Game 162 in 2007.
• Justin Maxwell’s grand slam against Frankie Rodriguez where I got so angry I moved down the six rows to the Mets dugout and fired Jerry Manuel. Told him to keep walking until he hits water.
• The Chase Utley game.

Tuesday’s 11-10 loss in which the Mets had a 10-4 lead entering the ninth inning … capped off by a three run home run by Kurt Suzuki off Edwin Diaz got me viscerally angry. The garbage pail got kicked … at least three times. An empty plastic bottle got thrown at least twice. And the phrase “Diaz you f***ing bum” was uttered more than once as well. Yeah, that was my visceral reaction. Well actually, my visceral reaction was hoping that Brodie Von Monorail, Handsome Art Howe and Toms River Little League Twitter Blocker Frazier all got tied to a raft and pushed out to sea forever, and that they can take Diaz and Paul Sewald with them. I’m not apologizing for it.

(By the way, kill Handsome Art Howe all you want for pulling Lugo with a six run lead, but if Paul Sewald can’t get three outs with a six run lead he doesn’t deserve to be on this team.)

It’s probably easy to explain why this was the game that put the anger meter on “Diaz you F***ing bum”. After all, this was the first game that a six run lead was blown in a ninth inning in Mets history (in addition to the first game in Nationals/Expos history that they won a game when trailing by six in the ninth.) And it also happened after a Trea Turner vapor lock where he forgot how many outs there were in the ninth inning led directly to four Mets runs to make it 10-4. And the ironic part of that is that if Turner gets the double play, Seth Lugo probably stays in the game and we’re celebrating a 6-4 victory.

Oh, and it also happened after the Mets scored 10 runs in a Jacob deGrom start, which is like … enough runs for the month.

But why the anger for this particular game? Maybe it was because it was at the hands of Edwin Diaz, who was supposed to be the wipeout closer the Mets needed but instead he’s become Armando Benitez without the predisposition to only blow important games. Maybe it’s because it happened on the same day that summer officially ended, and all the good times associated with summer, like cookouts, road trips, and days where this happened in reverse all symbolically came to a crashing halt until April.

Or maybe it’s because I know in my heart that I care more about the fortunes of this team than the team’s owners, who only care about protecting their fortune. I’ll wake up tomorrow still pissed while Fred and Jeff will wake up in their Bert and Ernie pajamas wondering how New York Excelsior is doing and placing their first call of the day to the marketing people to inquire about how next season’s Polar Bear bobblehead is looking. Do they not care enough? Or do I care too much? It’s a fair question. It’s a question that I asked myself as I was coming home on the train, and the car was full of people who obviously didn’t give a shit about what the Mets did tonight. As much as I know that I have people to commiserate with, that very moment felt very isolating and frustrating … to the point where I was glad I didn’t punch anybody.

(I mean, that should be our goal every day, and not just after your team blowing a six run lead in the ninth … Don’t punch anybody.)

But knowing that people that once played the game … people who you think would be above it all … can sometimes get as angry as you, almost.

This is what happens when you take your foot off the pedal! WIN THE FU@KING GAMES YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO WIN! #INEXCUSABLE
3 Outs > 8 Runs. Worry about tomorrow after the WIN is in the books. Even Hadji knows better. pic.twitter.com/nA6w3mW1f6

— Nelson Figueroa Jr. (@FiggieNY) September 4, 2019

Maybe I do take this too seriously. But at least I know I have company. At least the good news is that they lost this game before I sent the Mets my playoff money.

And I still hold out hope for that raft. I’m not apologizing.

Today’s Hate List

The Syracuse Mets had a 7-1 lead going into the bottom of the 7th on Monday, and they scored six runs in the 8th. You’d think they would have won, except that their bullpen gave up thirteen runs in the 7th and 8th innings and lost a one-game playoff to Scranton Wilkes-Barre. Obviously, having leads after Labor Day is taboo.