When Two Extremes Meet In The Middle

“Zack Wheeler goes against Odrisamer Despaigne on Sunday so that game could either be extremely entertaining, or reach through my soul and rip my throat out. Me being a Mets fan, there is no in between.” -Me … being extremely prescient as usual

As you know, I hate being right. But when I wrote that last night, I was merely trying to bring my runaway wreck to a stop. I had no idea how right I would be, because the game was quite entertaining. You had Wheeler, who pitched six good innings giving up eight hits but only walking one. And you had Despaigne, who has had a good start to his major league career. Did I expect a no hitter after 7 and 2/3’s? Well, expect is a strong word. But let’s just say in the third inning, in a game at Petco Park, I was wondering if I can find a way to make Despaigne rhyme with Kile.

And I’ll say this, if Despaigne didn’t have to rely on the Orlando Hernandez catalog to get hitters out, he might have gotten those last four outs and pitched the first no-hitter in Padres history instead of tiring out at the end. Instead, he gave up a ringing double to Daniel Murphy in the eighth, followed by a David Wright base hit to tie the game off Despaigne, who should have never been in the game after the Murphy at bat as he was over 100 pitches and was clearly showing signs of reaching the finish line back in the seventh. Not to mention he would have been gone had there not been a no hitter going. So thanks to Bud Black, the Mets were able to get the game to the bottom of the ninth.

And that’s where the whole “reach through my soul and rip my heart out through my chest” part happens. Vic Black comes in the game and walks the leadoff hitter, Carlos Quentin. Mortal sin. But then compounds it by letting the sacrifice bunt go right through his legs. After a 4-3-6 double play (that’s not a mixup, it actually went 4 to 3 to 6), Josh Edgin came in the game to face Seth Smith with the winning run on third and two outs. Smith hit a tapper slightly over his head. Edgin could have either fielded it, or let it go and hope Daniel Murphy would make the play. Edgin chose option three, which was to chase the title of silliest fielding play of the inning by a pitcher. He stumbled, lost control, and … well, here’s the footage of the play:

Yeah, that’s what happened. I mean, look at the Padres, they’re standing around after that play like “Shit, that’s how we won?”

They wouldn’t even waste Gatorade celebrating that win. It was like catching a fish that’s smaller than your bait. “Really? That’s how we won?”

So the Mets came out of the second half gate well with a win, but they’ve turned out into a series loss against the San Diego Padres, featuring nine runs given up in the first two games to the one team worse offensively than the Mets, and the third game where they couldn’t get a hit until the eighth inning of Despaigne, and probably couldn’t have gotten a hit off the woman that threw the first pitch, who happens to be 105 years old. And on top of that, Ruben Tejada not once but twice getting to bat with the bases loaded this series, and twice coming up empty. Terrific! Maybe I’ll do what Rory McIlroy’s dad did and place a bet on Ruben Tejada to get a hit with the bases loaded before he turns 35. I can get good odds on that.

Tell me more about how good their Pythagorean W-L record is as they fall eight games back of the division and the wild card races.

Now they move up in weight class to face Seattle, but thankfully they’ll miss Felix Hernandez. Also, Robinson Cano has a sore hamstring so he might be compromised a bit for the upcoming series. So let’s see how the Mets mess this one up.