Extinguished

The fire that you see above outside Citi Field on Saturday was extinguished in five minutes by a team of 50 firemen. If the two people that we like to call “firemen” were entrusted with the extinguishing of this fire, New York would be burned to the ground right now.

It would have been the perfect ending to a smoky day having the Mets come back from a six run deficit to take the lead in the eighth on a Josh Thole base hit off the glove of Jerry Hairston Jr. who broke in then broke back (nice to know that outfield deficiency runs in that family, remember the misplay Jerry had against Carlos Beltran back in April) … off Francisco Rodriguez of all people, who’s really starting to irrationally tick me off by laying on the charm thicker than molasses … wearing Jon Axford mustaches made of duct tape for FOX with a damn twinkle in his eye. (And on tangent: don’t give me this garbage about how Frankie would think about coming back to New York to play for the Mets as a free agent. What exactly did you expect him to say, “Hell no I’m not coming back, in fact if it were up to me the Mets would move so I’d never have to set foot in this damn city again” … then put it in a newspaper. Don’t wake me up until then.)

But then the ninth inning. The inning where the Brewers stood in the middle of this heartwarming story screaming “get me rewrite!” And Jason Isringhausen flipped the script by not finding the strike zone. Four batters, three walks, and a base hit later you have Manny Acosta facing Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. You know how that movie ends. He got Braun, but couldn’t get Fielder, who drove in the tying run with a single (Acosta should probably just be happy that Fielder didn’t break a seat in the Pepsi Porch like he did off Capuano earlier in the game), then lost it on a two run single by Casey McGehee. What this means, of course, is that Frankie vultured himself a win. 

Maybe if I was at the game like I was at the Frankie Rodriguez implosion vs. Justin Maxwell in Washington, maybe I’d feel a little differently. And maybe it’s because after three seasons of mediocre to horrendous baseball, I’m numb to it. But I’m not sure what else there is to say. And I’m not sure what we can say. It was nice to see the Mets fight back from six runs down to take the lead. And this season has kinda been defined by much more fight than the last two seasons, and about not giving up. More accurately, the lineup now works hard enough to work counts so that they’re never out of a game until their out. That’s not to say they’re talented enough to win all the time, but they’re good enough to not roll over and die. When the pitching is as horrendous as its been, I don’t know how much more you can ask in terms of comebacks.

But there’s going to come a point where giving it the ol’ college try isn’t going to be good enough. Unfortunately I’m not quite sure when that time is coming. For a lot of us fans, it’s now. The amount of frustration has been more than enough over the past few years. But with the roster being stripped down with this new philosophy, it’s going to take time. It’s frustrating to have a comeback like this and then have the veteran Isringhausen piss it away. Izzy’s done more than the Mets could have ever expected from a guy who was inches from retirement, but it’s gotta be time to throw Parnell to the wolves and give him the ninth inning and live with his faults. The Mets have to live with somebody’s faults, it might as well be Parnell’s. Find out now, because this bullpen needs to be completely different next season and the Mets need to know if Bobby can handle the ninth or if he needs to find another role/job/team.

Until then, I fear this isn’t the last of these type of blazing, out of control fires that we’ll see this season.