GAME 153: PIRATES @ METS — Countdown Initiated, Mark… T-Minus 10 Games and Counting…

By Blazing Fastball

Wow. A sweep!

Sure, it was over the pathetic, mailing-it-in-hoping-to-get-Ozzie-fired Marlins, but a sweep is a sweep.

And a HOME sweep, no less. With crooked numbers in all three games.

The Mets have now opened up a seemingly insurmountable (yes, the Fish are that bad) 3.5 game lead over Miami for the coveted 2012 Championship of Fourth Place.

I think I have to go lie down now, or I might get overheated.

Right at the start, David Wright popped a 2-run blast off one of his favorite punching bags, Ricky Nolasco, to stake Chris Young to a modest lead. Young held the Fish to only two runs over his six relatively strong innings, and the Mets pen held the line for the final three (including a spotless ninth from Bobby99) to keep the game knotted at two, heading into the home ninth.

Then, Ruben Tejada delivered the walk-off winner, a bases loaded liner into the left-center gap to set off a wild-mild celebration on the outfield grass, where he was mobbed by his teammates.

The happy scene at Citi came nearly one month to the day since Ike Davis‘ walk-off solo homer against the Astros set off a delirious scrum at homeplate to cap a previously morbid homestand dominated by the Mets’ stunning offensive futility and gloom against the terrible Rockies and ‘Stros.

Tonight, the countdown to the Hot Stove Season begins in earnest.

With Matt Harvey now officially on the shelf for the winter, it’ll be Jenrry Mejia facing right-hander Kyle McPherson of the Pirates. Here’s the lineup for the opener of the four-game set, their final home series of the season:

Fred Lewis, RF
Daniel Murphy, 2B
David Wright, 3B
Ike Davis, 1B
Scott Hairston, CF
Lucas Duda, LF
Ruben Tejada, SS
Josh Thole, C
Jenrry Mejia, P

First pitch at 7:10pm ET.
Let’s Go Mets!

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26 thoughts on “GAME 153: PIRATES @ METS — Countdown Initiated, Mark… T-Minus 10 Games and Counting…”

  1. Mejia not allowing any runs yet, but he’s still gotta show me more than the has so far if he wants to be a part of the rotation going forward – he still seems determined to go 2-0 on almost every hitter.
    No sooner do I type that, he breaks off a razor blade slider to strike out former mets-pest gaby sanchez, late of the marlins

  3. Don’t back down, Mr Stache … you just go right on bashing Jenrry all night.
    So far, he seems to be responding to your brand of tough love. 😉

  6. Nice recovery, boys!
    BTW, is it just me, or does Jenrry remind anyone else of Octavio Dotel during the glory days of Mr Stache’s namesake?

    • I’ll always have a soft spot for Octavio from the ’99 NLCS …
      I remember the orig BobbyV sent him out there as a baby (think he was only 20 at the time) in relief of Masato Yoshii (?) and Orel Hershiser in Robin Ventura’s Grand Slam Single game. Can’t help remembering … I was sitting there all night in the rain, about 10 rows behind Mikey. I don’t remember all the details, but I think he was the one who allowed Braves’ go-ahead runs when one of their pesky bench players who used to kill the Mets hit one into the wet outfield that the makeshift outfield couldn’t track down. Octavio looked heartbroken that he’d let his team down.
      We know how that game ended, but I never forgot that kid. Now, he’s what … 40? Yikes! 😉

        • Don’t be so hard on yourself, MBG – your boy dotel wasn’t quite so young in 99.
          ESPN says he was born 11/25/73 (age 38, going on 39), so in the 99 playoffs, dotel was already 25, going on 26.
          But they also say he was notoriously babyfaced, so much so that he finished 2nd in the nl babyface of the year voting.

  7. Don’t look now, boys and girls, but Ike has summoned some poetry/shtick from Franny.

    Meanwhile, it’s Mets, 2-zip, and Jenrry Mejia (the reborn Octavio Dotel) has somehow made it through five full innings to be in line for his first big league win. No need to wait for Franny to weigh in on whether this lead is pen-proof. I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s not.

    Valdy in to pinch hit for Jenrry-Octavio. Let’s go V-Spin!

  9. Clint managing like it’s the postseason. Running through half his pen, down only 2-0 in the fifth — on the road.

    Think Gary’s right — Clint’s in no mood for moral victories this year.
    He wants to win out and get back over .500 even if it kills him.

        • It’s funny, but I had a hitting coach in college who didn’t give a crap about batting average or even .OBP — he was very much from the Earl Weaver school of the 3-run homer, much preferring the .240 hitter who could give you 30 bombs and 90RBI over the guy who hit .330 with 140 singles. Probably didn’t want any Daniel Murphys on his team.

          When preaching swing mechanics, he always stressed how to maximize bat speed in the strike zone, to generate power. The example he always cited was Dave Kingman. He would probably also be fond of Ike.

  14. If our Mets can get to 71 wins ( a # I thought at the time was insulting, ha! ), a local businessman is gonna buy me a new Heavy Bag, which, given this year’s frustrations, has sprung a leak that Duck Tape cannot mend. LGM!

    • Holy Smokes! What a cool bet!

      And there’s still somebody in Smallbany who can afford to spring for a new heavy bag for losing a Mets bet? Awesome!

      All the years I lived up there, I never found many Mets fans. Not in school. not in business, not “in the neighborhood,” not even in my adult hardball leagues. For some strange reason, the whole Capital District seemed lousy with Yankee fans, with a smattering of Red Sox fans thrown in for good measure. The Mets might as well have been from Ohio. That was even before the Stanks put their AA team in Colonie for a couple years. Never really made much sense to me.

      One concern though. Make sure your local businessman doesn’t try to pass off a manufacturer’s refurbished bag as new. Unless Sandy performs some Hot Stove miracles, the thing could spring its own leak(s) before next year’s trading deadline and if it’s a refurb, it’ll already be out of warranty by then.

      • The local businessman is in Brooklyn where we live most of the time. But, the “Wine Bar” where I watched the Santana no hitter is on Lark St in Albany and those chefs and kitchen workers are ALL Met fans. Plenty of them up here and any night there is a Met game on, most of the TVs in the sport bars are on SNY. ( Sorry, not many Jet fans up here. Good thing too, on Grievous Island Day ).
        When the Yankees had that AA team in Colonie, I’m told the only sellouts were when the Binghamton Mets were in town, (and tonight’s manager of the Bucs, used to be the Met manager there).
        I don’t know where you lived, but the area around Washington Park and Center Square reminds us of Park Slope. We love it up here but we didn’t grow up here. Most native Albanians share your opinion of its assets. Or lack thereof.

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