We should send more thanks to Wally Backman tonight. Maybe send him an FTD Floral Bouquet or something. Because whatever he did to Travis d’Arnaud is working in spades as the Mets rode his hot bat to the tune of a 5-4 victory. d’Arnaud had three hits out of five and drove in two of the Mets five runs against San Diego. He drove in the first run, and more importantly the last run in a tie game in the ninth. What amazed me about d’Arnaud is the easy swing he used. All he did was put bat on ball and let his natural talents do the rest instead of going full Adrian Beltre and swinging out of his jock to hit one five hundred miles. I’m not sure if Backman deserves the credit, or Celine Dion, or the many adult entertainment “options” Vegas has … nah, he was even too nice to curse out the Marlins bench so I doubt it’s that. But whoever straightened out his swing deserves a raise.
Bartolo Colon’s first four innings had me thinking no-hitter. Stupid me. I should have known that the only way to fix a team hitting .214 on the season is to throw a pitcher at them who only throws fastballs. That fifth inning was akin to when Lefty Williams saw that mobster in the stands who had a gun and proceeded to throw Game 8 of the ’19 series … only Colon looked up in the stands and saw Padres assistant GM Omar Minaya with a cheeseburger and got distracted. (It would make sense as Colon battled a stomach ailment tonight … I guess just looking at food can do that to you.) Colon’s overall numbers aren’t the worst I’ve ever seen (they’re fairly in line with David Wells’ age 41 season, which is as good as you could ask for), but I myself would trade Colon immediately before he loses whatever trade value he has left. He’ll definitely have more value to a contender now than to a team to start 2015.
But I’m not here to kill your buzz, as the Mets have picked up where they left off to end the first half of the season. Lucas Duda hasn’t turned into a pumpkin, Ruben Tejada is still racking up intentional walks like he’s Barry Bonds, and most importantly, d’Arnaud is quickly becoming less Brad Emaus and more … not Brad Emaus. All good signs as the Mets continue their climb to a higher rent district in the neighborhood of mediocrity. Giving up four runs to the Padres is not a good way to do this, but hopefully the Mets have gotten that all out of their system. The good news is that the lineup, minus some very publicized automatic outs, just might be good enough to overcome that nonsense.
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