Predictably Numb

I was away for most of the Mets’ 6-3 loss to the Dodgers. While it seemed like one of those losses that was inevitable, I was sad because this was the game I missed, and it seemed like the gem of the bunch. The Mets actually had the game tied after six innings. But Joc Pederson hit a go-ahead home run and the Mets were swept in L.A. in a four game series for the first time since the year I really started watching baseball in 1979. You may recall that was the year that I was excited because the Mets won the last three games of the season just to avoid 100 losses. That was when any victory was scarce enough to be cherished and celebrated.

The thing about this team being completely outclassed night after night is that it makes for a situation where fans are just emotionally rocked to sleep. We can’t even rely on the ridiculous to give us an outlet for justified rage, like when Ryan Church missed third base and Jeremy Reed threw one to La Brea from a position he almost never played. At least then losing was cathartic, yet exhilarating and memorable. (We still talk about that game like it happened yesterday.) There isn’t even anything memorable about these losses except for the fact that the pitching staff is giving up home runs at an alarming rate.

Jerry Blevins walked reliever Pedro Baez on four pitches with the bases loaded. Hell, that isn’t even the most embarrassing walk of an opposing pitcher in Mets history, let alone baseball. How can I even get up the outrage at Blevins? Crissakes, guy wore a bow tie and puppy dog eyes in the locker room after the game and said “sometimes, we stink“. How am I going to rip on this cat? Because he said “sometimes”? That would be like throwing baby seals off a roof … or those poor Knicks fans who kill them for drafting a very nice young man who also wears a bow tie, because it’s fun to go on sports radio and yell about a guy because nobody in the States ever saw him play. Kid is 18 years old who flew here just to get drafted, then took a 2AM flight to France for a playoff game. How can you be mad at that? I know Knicks fans have almost as many reasons to be angry as we do, but being mad at the poor 18-year-old with the bow tie is just being angry for the sake of being angry.

But I digress. My point is that anger and outrage is slowly being replaced by resignation and acceptance. Partly because we know nothing is going to change. I’ll say it again: four game series like that where pitching staffs give up 15 home runs get people fired in most organizations. But Terry Collins is going nowhere with the cache he acquired last year. Nobody is coming to save the team, not even their own prospects. And unless another team overpays for rentals as Sandy Alderson has historically requested, no new future pieces are coming for at least a month. So what choice do we have as to ride the wave of muted emotion? Losing used to at least have the soundtrack of Slipknot. Now I just hear Christopher Cross in my head as this season sails off into the abyss once and for all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyYhZ9HH8cI

Soon, we will be free.

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I can’t even be angry anymore. The morphine of losing must be kicking in.