A Pavlovian Pennant Race

I admire SNY’s commitment to the narrative that the Mets still have a chance. I really do. Gotta give fans a reason to hang in there and keep eyeballs on the network before they drift away to Aaron Rodgers taking five snaps in a preseason game, the next Marvel movie, and FC24 coming out in September.

But I also appreciate Gare tempering those expectations when he said “look, you can start to think about making the playoffs if you beat the Braves in their upcoming series. But if you lose to the Braves, there’s no chance.” Well, great, except that the first two games are going to be David Peterson, who gave up four runs in five innings to them in April, and Tylor Megill who gave up five runs in five and 1/3 a week and a half ago. Are we really expecting to split those two games?

I suppose a win on Sunday would have kept that unrealistic hope alive for 48 hours, and after Pete Alonso hit an absolute laser beam into the upper deck in the 4th inning to give the Mets a 2-1 lead, we could dream a little while longer. But Carlos Carrasco, who actually pitched a scoreless first inning, was not so fortunate in the 5th as Paul Goldschmidt tagged him for a two run HR to give the Cardinals a 3-2 lead. Cookie was immediately pulled as Gare mentioned that he was leaving the game “earlier than expected”, which is technically wrong because I thought for sure that Cookie would be back at the Ritz Carlton by the time the 5th started.

Trevor Gott turned back into a pumpkin in the 7th (hey, it’s 12 o’clock somewhere), giving up four runs while amazingly getting somebody out. The Mets tried to come back in the 8th as Francisco Alvarez drove in a run with a single in the 8th. But Joey Cora waived the noted speedster Alonso around after an error by the left fielder. and Tommy Edman took the cutoff after running from his position at second base to fire the relay home to get Alonso by a hair. This begs three questions:

1. Why would Cora wave around a water buffalo to score down by four and D.J. Stewart, who was robbed of a home run earlier in the game, on deck?
2. Where the f*ck is Manfred when we need him to make a rule preventing infielders to cross over to the other side of their position to take relay throws? Don’t we want to create more offense? Can’t we give fielders electrical currents which would give them a light shock every time they cross that imaginary line in the middle of the diamond?
3. Can we hook Trevor Gott up with electrical currents to give him a light shock every time he throws a pitch down the middle of the plate? Where the f*ck are Pavlov and his dogs when we need them?

The Mets lost 7-3. Here’s Buck Showalter after the game …

SNY would quickly cut away to show an old episode of “Prospects”. Tune in tomorrow as the pennant race continues.

Today’s Hate List

Still Miles Mikolas, otherwise known as “Dollar Tree Spencer Strider.”