Misfortune

The above is an actual fortune that I got in my cookie during Monday’s Mets game. I couldn’t think of a more fitting message in my wrapped in plastic dessert. The Mets had a Cy Young candidate on the mound. The Rockies had Charlie Blackmon, Jordan Pacheco, Andrew Brown, Wilin Rosario, Tyler Colvin, DJ LeMahieu, and Jonathan Herrera in their starting lineup. This team’s pitching gives up six and a half runs per game, and their starter on Monday wears a single digit number.

And they lost. 

Seemed simple enough a task at the beginning. But once again, these are the Mets we’re talking about. No job is so simple that the Mets can’t completely turn it into a naked fire drill. The go ahead run scored in the 8th on a push bunt that Josh Edgin gloved into center field, a sac bunt where Edgin could have easily nabbed the lead runner at third but instead went to first base, and a passed ball that Kelly Shoppach texted a picture of to the 93 fans in attendance after the game (welcome to the Mets, Kelly). The potential tying run could have scored on a grounder to first base with the bases loaded, but didn’t because he slid instead of ran through the base and was out by approximately 1/30th of a second. It was a play which no umpire could get correct on eyesight but Adrian Johnson did … mostly because he was lucky. Probably because he decided on a close play not to give the benefit of the doubt to a sliding runner. Would he have done so for a runner who ran through first?

But the reason they lost is that they couldn’t get more than one run off three pitchers who have WHIPs of 1.62 (Alex White), 1.82 (Guillermo Moscoso) and 1.66 (Rex Brothers), in the process giving a lineup that looked more like the starting lineup of the Modesto Nuts every opportunity to hang around until the bullpen was in position to give them a gift (and in the process give R.A. Dickey the shaft.) Even though they should, nobody really expected the Mets to sweep the Rockies. But to lose this game? With Dickey on the mound and that lineup that the Rockies put out there? Seemed simple enough to get a win. The Mets made sure it was done wrong.