Two In A Row? Yo, No Way?

After the latest edition of “Because The Schedule Says So”, it would be disingenous of me to say “well, nice win but it was only the Pirates.” Because hell, the Pirates not only whacked the Mets two out of three while the seson still mattered, but one of those games was referred to by Gare tonight as the ugliest loss of the year. I know it, because I was there. I have the picture to prove it:

Remember Sean Muckenhirn? We traded him to get Trevor Gott and paid Chris Flexen not to pitch for them for the privilage. Seemed like a great idea at the time until Gott turned into a wet rag. Now I want to cry.

So any win agianst anyone is a good thing for the players in that room, if not so much for their draft position. But the players in the room are not the same ones that were their on June 9th when the Mets were getting pasted. No, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Sean Muckenhirn are gone, replaced by the likes of Jonathan Arauz, who hit his first home run as a Met tonight, joining Brandon Nimmo and Daniel Vogelbach on the long ball train as the Mets scored in the first six innings of the game to beat the Pirates 7-2.

They beat up on a guy named Quinn Preister, who sounds like he replaced a major actor in Beverly Hills 90210 after a contract dispute, and it signaled the end of the show. For the Mets part, they started with Carlos Carrasco, but he didn’t see the fourth inning. Part of it was because he did what he typically does, which is give up a run in the first inning and went downhill from there. But part of it was that the Mets are in spring training mode, and they trotted out some pitchers you never heard of along with some pitchers you forgot were on the team. Tyson Miller, Sam Coonrod, Phil Bickford, the wet rag, and Adam Ottavino pitched the final six innings and gave up one hit combined. File it on the same list as Justin Verlander as an Astro and Max Scherzer as a Ranger under things I didn’t think I would see in August.

By the way: Max gave up one hit in seven innings tonight against the Angels. Second time this post that I want to cry. But it’s okay, we have a farm system now. I’ll keep telling myself that.

Seven runs for the second night in a row was entertaining enough, but we also had visits from a child who beat a man to death with his cotton candy, and a deadly lantern fly.

Keith shares his misadventures with lantern flies 😂 pic.twitter.com/ChRfaFr14t

— SNY (@SNYtv) August 15, 2023

Keith’s right. When you see one of these, you have to kill it. That’s probably why it came to Citi Field. It knew that killing it would take a back seat to what really needs to be killed at Citi Field, and that’s the 2023 season.

The schedule says the Mets play again tomorrow.

Today’s Hate List

Speaking of Max Scherzer, nice of Phil Cuzzi to give Carrasco a few calls tonight … thinking it would make up for suspending Scherzer for ten games and contributing to ruining the season. Suck wind, Cuzzi.