I’m usually distracted when I watch a Mets game … for one reason or another. But never so distracted that I don’t really have a handle of what’s going on. Well it took until Game 154, but it finally came to the point where I was so distracted, disinterested in what was going on that at two different points on Tuesday evening I looked up, noticed there was a baseball game on the television and said to myself: “Is this game still going?”
The fact that it took this long for me to be that disinterested in a Mets game speaks to my ability … to be insane. Because really, why do I still care? Why do I still yell at Justin Turner when he bobbles a ground ball (because it’s fun) or when he takes a hard turn towards second base after a throwing error and then gets tagged out going back to first base (because he deserves it) or when he demands that the Mets play that awful Call Me Maybe song before each at-bat (because my ears continue to bleed) even after 154 games? In hopes that yelling at him through my television will get him to hit his second home run of the year? Yeah, that’s what I’ll tell myself. That’ll help me sleep at night.
To be honest, once Pedro Alvarez hit that home run in the first inning, I was in and out all night. It didn’t seem like Collin McHugh’s night from the very beginning, and once Alvarez was up I had a bad feeling that this was going to be a quick lights out for the curveball intensive rookie. It was no shocker that the four game winning streak went up in smoke on Tuesday and it will probably, and quickly, prove to be nothing more than a mirage … and Those that expect any different from this team down the stretch is fooling themselves. With no depth in the Mets organization, and multiple pitchers being either injured or shut down due to innings limits, once again this franchise limps to the finish line wondering if it will have enough arms to throw all of the innings. McHugh not being able to last two innings before giving up seven runs doesn’t help.
Thankfully I wasn’t so distracted to notice that David Wright had two hits which tied him with Ed Kranepool for most hits as a New York Met. Kranepool was the signature Met in the late seventies, having been with the team forever at that point and being the lone link to the glory days of the franchise. (I had a Yankee fan once tell me “you know, the best hitter in your entire history was Ed Kranepool, and he was just okay.”) Wright is now neck and neck with him, and will pass him forever with his next hit. Though you never know … if the Mets stupidly trade Ike Davis, and Lucas Duda has to go on the disabled list with a torn “I can’t hit the f*cking ball” muscle, Kranepool might have to come back, as he would be the most expensive option that the Mets can afford. And as long as Heath Bell is pitching for the Marlins, Kranepool is even money odds to at least add two or three to his hit total, even at the tender age of 68.
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