Care Level

Joey Lucchesi, New York Mets

It might be astounding to some of you how much I still care about a team playing out the string. Don’t worry, it’s astounding to me too.

I mean, who else would watch 17 and 1/2 innings of baseball in one day?

Who else would, as the Mets were up 6-2 in the 7th inning of the first game of a doubleheader (a game they would win 11-2) yell every name in the book at Trevor Gott because he couldn’t make a simple throw to second base to start a double play?

Who else, after Brett Baty’s error in the 9th open the door for the winning 2 run rally for the Marlins in Game 2, root extra hard not for the Mets but agianst the Marlins after there were 20 or so Marlins fans behind the dugout at Citi Field … more Marlins fans than were at the entire series in Miami last week? (And were they really Marlins fans, or Yankee fans with disposable income for Marlins gear to wear once and then put in a closet?)

Well, I would. Why? Sure, it’s so I could watch Pete Alonso hit one outta sight en route to a four hit game in the matinee. And it was great to watch Francisco Lindor hit three HR’s in the doubleheader to hit the 30-30 plateau. And it was awesome to see Kodai Senga put the cherry on top of a great season by reaching 200 strikeouts in his first year in the States.

But more than all of it, it was to realize that Joey Lucchesi pitched six innings and get the W in Game 1 just hours after becoming a honorary True New Yorker:

To recap: Gets into a rideshare on Roosevelt Avenue, gets clipped by a guy running from the cops, wakes up with a sore back, and goes out and pitches six great innings. That’s a legend. And that’s a New Yorker. I thought Lucchesi had done enough to earn a chance to play a role on the Mets next season well before tonight. After this? Man, he could play on my team any time.

That’s why I still care.

Today’s Hate List

The dumbass being chased by the cops.

That could have been a nine inning shutout if not for that guy.

Also, f*ck Cecil Wiggins.

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