Protecting Stupidity

I’m a dinosaur at this writing thing. So I’m not one for ignoring the nuts and bolts of a game for ancillary stuff. So none of the things I want to delve into for the pure sake of catharsis is going to have much to do with the actual outcome of the game. As far as that goes, the Mets lost 2-1 to Chase Anderson and the Brewers on Thursday to fall into a split of the series with Milwaukee. Anderson went into the eighth inning of his recent start against the Diamondbacks with a no-hitter, so the Mets were up against it to begin with. It didn’t help when Glenn Sherlock sent a water buffalo home to try to score in the second inning. It’s one thing to force the left fielder to make a perfect throw to get a runner at home. It’s quite another to make an outfielder simply miss the cutoff man and almost overthrow the catcher while the catcher has time to leap into the air, save the throw, land and have tea and crumpets before applying the tag to get the runner at home. And that’s what Glenn Sherlock did. I can’t get too upset because Zack Wheeler was the next man up and I guess it was a chance worth taking. But with a 2-1 final score, little things make a difference.

Besides, I want to complain more about little things that didn’t make a difference, but infuriated me nonetheless. For that, we go to the top of the fourth inning. Nick Franklin had just singled home a run and put runners on first and second, and Chase Anderson is up to bunt the runners over. He pops the ball up in the infield, and Franklin stays near first to make sure it’s not caught on the fly while Anderson busts out of the box. The ball drops and d’Arnaud picks it up. He looks at second and cocks to throw, where he would have had an easy out as Franklin wasn’t even a quarter of the way to second base. Instead, he pumps, and then tosses leisurely to first base to get Anderson. Except Anderson is haulin’ ass and beats the throw. Everyone is safe and the sacks are full.

Now I’m not going to pretend that things are easy on a baseball field, nor will I pretend that players don’t make mistakes. But d’Arnaud made this play as if it was rote muscle memory, that faking to second and assuming you have no chance before you go to first was what he had done a million times before, so doing it again was going to apply in this situation as well. This wasn’t bang bang. There was no way in Hades that Franklin was going to beat that ball out. But d’Arnaud went through the motions. That’s wasn’t a simple mistake. That was an infuriating play which makes it obvious that d’Arnaud just wasn’t paying attention. If you want to argue that this is an indictment of Terry Collins, well that’s another discussion and I’m not going to necessarily disagree with you. But it sure as hell is an indictment on d’Arnaud. If he had paid just a little bit of attention instead of just acting the way a catcher should act on 95% of those plays and relying on your muscle memory, he would have gotten the second out easily. Easily. Instead, the bases were loaded with one out and disaster was hovering.

(In many ways, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s even a touch worse than anything Daniel Murphy has done. At least his ridiculous fielding plays were made enthusiastically. d’Arnaud’s mistake was out of brain fog and is perhaps indicative of a greater problem. But what do I know.)

Now speaking of brain fog, the next batter, Eric Sogard (who is now the face of baseball since David Wright can’t perform his duties of having a face), popped one up in foul territory towards the near side of the Brewers dugout. The Brewers ball boy, an employee of the Mets, was looking towards home plate instead of a charging Wilmer Flores. By the time the ball boy saw Flores, it was too late to do anything but brush against Flores, causing him to lose the play and drop the ball. Now I know what you’re thinking: “He’s going to go insane on a fourteen … fifteen year old kid.” No I’m not. (Unless it turns out that the kid was the same kid that was re-assigned from his duties as bird flipping mascot. In that case … well, I still won’t get on him. But I’ll laugh my ass off because that would mean that he would have had the worst week a Mets employee has had since Bernie Madoff.) The kid learned his lesson, as you saw in the top of the fifth on the next foul ball in that area when he dashed to the dugout immediately and was nowhere near the ball. Maybe he should have done that to begin with, but perhaps the adults in the room should have given him all possible scenarios before the fact. Life is about lessons, you know.

The umpires originally called it interference, but then changed the ruling to a simple foul ball, to which Terry Collins correctly got himself ejected because common sense dictates that should have been an out (or maybe because he just wanted to watch the rest of the game from the hot tub because he’s sick of this nonsense.) While common sense tells me that’s an out, the rules do tend to tell us that the call was correct. Rules are usually incongruous to common sense and fairness, and i guess that’s my problem. But that’s like life, right? It’s about lessons, and it’s also about the fact that you could learn apply all the correct lessons you want and you’ll still get screwed because rules is rules.

Sogard, Face of Baseball, grounded into a double play to make the last two long paragraphs I just wrote meaningless. So while I feel like I have reached a state of zen by letting loose my anger, you just wasted your time reading this because you haven’t learned anything except that I’m grumpy. What can I say. Life sucks most of the time. Just like Jose Reyes these days.

Today’s Hate List

1. Whoever the supervisor is who didn’t stress to bat boys that they should get the hell out of the way when there’s a foul ball.
2. Joe Torre
3. Fieldin Culbreth
4. Eric Sogard
5. Bernie Madoff