Oasis In The Desert

Every once in a while you get the exception to the rule. The break in the narrative. The skew in the run differential. The oasis in the desert. That was Saturday night’s 15-2 victory over Los Angeles.

It’s too soon to say that this is the start of a new upward trend. If this was the same Mets team as all the other days, believe me … I wouldn’t even entertain the thought. But it’s also too soon to say that this is a simple fluke. With Michael Conforto reaching base five times with four hits as people were doubting his readiness, Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe with three hits combined as people were doubting their impact, and the rest of the lineup with 14 more hits as people were doubting their existence, this could very well be the start of something new. Certainly with the new mandate out there by Terry Collins that “hey, I have options now kids … so hit, or else“, you can’t completely discount this as an abberation … yet. After Zack Greinke comes back quaking in his boots enough to actually bear down on Sunday after stepping off the plane and seeing a 15 next to New York (NL)’s ledger, this new lineup with Kelly Johnson as the cleanup hitter could all come crashing back down to earth. (Johnson batting cleanup still takes me by surprise but hey, in this world of lineup labels being blown to bits I guess it’s fine … as long as it works as well as it did the first time out.) But certainly, Saturday’s game will be looked back upon in October one of two ways: The start of the pennant drive, or the point on the list where somebody not familiar with the season scrolls down Baseball Reference and says “what the hell happened there?” After all, worse Mets teams have scored more runs.

But at least there’s some sort of hope for the immediate future with a tinge of “why the hell couldn’t this happen sooner”, if indeed all it took was a little motivation and some new players. Certainly Matt Harvey has a little of both after finally getting enough run support from people other than himself to put a smile on his face. Better late than never, right?

We’ll see how this goes. Or stops.

Today’s Hate List

Cole Hamels. Screw you, I hope you get traded to a team on Kepler 186F. You know what the F stands for.