Living The Life Of Dreams

This was an actual dream I had this morning: Matt Harvey is in the clubhouse before the game tonight, and he gives the most inspirational speech of the season … something like “Are you going to let management bully you and make you do things you don’t want to do? Well I’m not! And I’m going out there and lead you guys to victory tonight!!!” Raucous cheers, the team hits the field in Oakland.

Matt Harvey’s first pitch is then jacked for a home run. To dead center field. By Billy Crystal.

Crystal then is mobbed at the plate by the 1988 Oakland A’s. I could tell because Mark McGwire was really young. Matt Harvey then strode off the field, straight to the podium, and announced his retirement from baseball. He thanked everyone who helped him get to this point, and that’s when I interrupted by thanking the Oakland A’s for acting like this was the f*cking World Series.

All of this, while ultimately untrue, is a hell of a lot more interesting than the 6-2 loss that actually happened on Tuesday night. Though it was mildly amusing seeing the guy in the bleachers wearing a Scott Kazmir All-Star jersey cheering on Sean Doolittle, after Kazmir gave up four hits and one run in six innings, striking out six. Yeah, that warmed my heart almost as much as hearing the story on WOR tonight about how Ross Newhan sat on the Darryl Strawberry “I’d like to play in L.A. one day” quote for a month until Game 1 of the NLCS. Proving two things: That the Newhan family has been on a 20 year mission to screw over the Mets. And that I can’t indulge in any medium of Mets baseball without hearing about 1988 … especially since this two game series with Oakland is the rematch of what should have been the ’88 World Series.

And speaking of ice picks shoved in my eyes, the Mets had more than four hits on Tuesday for the first time since last Wednesday. Expect the offense to improve when Jacob deGrom returns on Saturday. Or when they find a way to reanimate the corpse of Dave Hudgens’ career. Until then, I’ll be asleep … no doubt having a dream about Zack Wheeler getting eaten by the rally possum … or Noah Syndergaard getting caught in a bear trap and having to eat off his right arm to survive.