It’s Never Too Early to Sweep the Braves

I had a dream. I had an awesome dream. People in the park. Playing games in the dark.

All right, so the Mets haven’t played a night game yet this season. But this is an awesome dream that I have no interest in waking up from. The Mets are 3-0 after sweeping the Braves (first time the Mets have swept an opening series from a divisional rival in their history) and they laid down the sweep in slightly outrageous fashion. First came baserunning blunders from David Wright tagging up on a Jason Bay sac fly, to Bay sliding back into second after Martin Prado dropped a line drive after which Bay should have advanced.

“I’m not sure why Jason Bay stopped at second” -Gary Cohen.
“Because he’s an idiot, that’s why!” -Metstradamus 

Then came Jon Niese. And if you wondered how he would react to making millions and millions of dollars, I’d say throwing six innings of no-hit ball is as good a response as any out there. But in the seventh, Niese lost his no-no, then he had reason to lose his mind as Lucas Duda flat out dropped an easy fly ball by Matt Diaz which scored the first Braves run. It would cause Niese to exit the game and led to a series of events that turned a 7-0 cake walk into a near disaster at 7-5.

Now anybody who’s ever sat in the Pepsi Porch during a day game will tell you that right field is the severe sun field in that park. I’ve walked away from that section quite crispy. Now compare a sinking and bearing sun with a defensively deficient right fielder, and you have the recipe for lots of fun all season! The lateral movement challenged little leaguers who get put in right field for lack of a better plan will be all like “dude, come on” by September. He had another incident with Kirk Nieuwenhuis later in the game catching a fly ball which Kirk could have gotten, and probably called for. But Lucas stood his ground and got knocked over by Nieuwenhuis in a collision which was felt as far north as Prince Edward Island and as far south as Peru. With Duda to his left and Baycoeur to his right, I hope Nieuwenhuis has his cardio up to snuff. And I hope Duda continues to rake so that instead of throwing stuff through the television when Duda lets a ball drop, we’ll all merely laugh uncomfortably.

But yes, Duda can rake, and so can David Wright. Wright is hitting .667 and has an OPS of 1.692 so far this season. Sure, it’s a sample size as small as Daniel Herrera, but so is 3-0 and we can enjoy that, right? And speaking of small sample sizes, Ruben Tejada’s four hits from the leadoff position. Am I right? Much like Frank Francisco closing out games (and he’s got three of them now), Tejada in the leadoff position worried me. It only goes to prove that I worry too much. But you know who should start worrying? Fredi Gonzalez. A few more series like this (and you know, the last few in September 2011) and he might be the first manager to start looking for work.

So to sum up, Ruben Tejada is raking, Frank Francisco has a rubber arm, the Mets are still undefeated, and there’s not a damn thing Larry Jones can do about it. It’s an awesome dream. Don’t wake me up.