SEPTEMBER 7th 2008
(Game 1)
Phillies- 6
Mets- 2
I wish I could just skip this one and go straight to discussing game 13. But you can't always get what you want. Well, there's not much to say about this one. No positives came out of this game at all. Only serious concerns. At least with the Friday, you saw a solid outing by Pelfrey against a very dangerous Phillies lineup. But this one? Ouch.
I actually had a good feeling going into that game. The 2pm start gave me time to get to Shea early. I was one of the first 25,000 fans there, meaning I became the lucky owner of an XL Shea stadium t-shirt. Seriously, why do they have to be so damn huge. I'm thinking of using it as a blanket. It's that big (that's what she said.) Anyway, since I got there early, I was able to see this very odd promotion day they decided to do: Internet Safety Awareness Day. Mind you this has absolutely nothing to do with baseball. But that wasn't a deterrence. The Pepsi Party Patrol quizzed kids regarding the internet. I found it a bit condescending. I'd b really offended if I was a kid because these people think they're so stupid. Then a goofy robot mascot danced on the field and performed a rap on the diamond vision on how to avoid internet predators. Why?!
Onto the game thankfully! I know Pedro hasn't been dominant at all this season, but I still got chills when he took the mound and the speakers blasted his pretty catchy Dominican tune. I kept saying, just get through the first unscathed and he should be alright. He's given up his fair share of first inning runs throughout the year. After a ground out and two pop ups, I felt fairly confident that Petey was going to come up huge for us. The bottom of the first brought me back down to Earth in terms of energy. Jamie 'I throw junk' Moyer effortlessly retired the side in order. I didn't feel confident at all with the bats that game. Maybe it was because of what happened Friday night or because Moyer, with the exception of his last outing against us, always gives us troubles. So the 2nd inning come. During this inning, for a brief moment, I felt as if someone kidnapped me from my seat, threw me in a time machine and brought me back to a Sunday afternoon game against the Phillies in sept. 07. The same game where they made several errors. It wasn't as bad, but after a walk to Werth, Greg Dobbs, the brand new Mets killer, hit a ball hard to right field. It was catchable, but Tatis, who is really a 3rd baseman, has been put in the outfield, misplayed it and the ball sailed right over his leaping attempt. The Phillies always seem to capitalize on mistakes so this was basically the turning point of the game. Newly acquired Matt Stairs drove in one run on a sac fly. Now the Dobbs hit was not Pedro's fault, even though they ruled it a hit. But if you're a big time pitcher, you have to get Carlos Ruiz out in that spot to limit the damage. You can't let a hitter of his caliber beat you. In other words, he sucks! But he hits a single, and the Phils at that point extended the the to 2-0. Then came the top of the 4th, which just put the nail in the coffin. Ryan Howard led off with a double. Werth hits a single. And Greg Dobb does it again. He basically ends the game with a 3 run shot. The damage continued that inning though. Ugh. Ruiz gets a double! What is it with these scrubs? Jimmy Rollins hits a bloop that lands between Reyes and Evans, who is also an infielder turned outfielder. An error wasn't charged but the ball was a very catchable. 6-0!
The good news is that the Phillies wouldn't score another run for the remainder of the game. The bullpen continues to be, dare I say, solid. They stopped the bleeding. Knight, Schowenweis, Heilman, Feliciano, Figueroa, and Sanchez combined for five innings of shutout ball. That's a mouth full.
The bad news is that the Mets offense stunk up the joint. Sometimes at Shea, in the Upper Reserved section, it smells like rotten eggs. It's terrible and I have no idea where it's coming from. But yesterday, it was the offense that generated that smell. Until the 8th inning, we only had 1 hit and it was a bunt single by Robinson Cancel, the refrigerator. You know things are bad when Cancel is all of your offense. In the 8th, Moyer was taken out of the game and the Mets took advantage, scoring 2 runs off the recently solid Scott Eyre. At this point, the crowd got pretty loud for a 6-2 ball game. There was plenty of energy. But when Delgado struck out, the balloon was deflated.
There were more Phillies fans in the afternoon affair than I'd ever seen at Shea. And they still chanted Eagles! Enough already. But a friend of mine heard chants such as 'Just like last year', referring to the 07 collapse. Of course they'd go on to do nothing in the post season but that's a whole different story. Good job by the Phillie fans. They finally did yesterday what Mets fans do all the time, which is make the road trip to see the game.
I had a whole list of concerns after Murphy grounded into the double play to end the game. When the Jurassic Park theme song was played (apparently the Mets lose theme song) I was pretty upset. First off, Pedro. I love him. As I alluded to earlier, I get excited watching him pitch, but there have been one too many outings like this where he gives the team nothing. I know he got no run support, which I'll get to in a minute. I know Tatis misplayed the ball and Evans should have caught the Rollins bloop, but you have to get guys like Ruiz out. You have to give the team more than four innings of work! Mets fans love him but they just don't trust him anymore. And by looking at his facial expressions, he looks like he doesn't trust himself. I still have faith he could give solid outings against teams like the Nats, Braves and Marlins which is basically the rest of the schedule. But what about the Cubs? What about the Brewers if they meet them in the post season?
Next concern: the offense. Where the hell was it? Everyone praised Myers' outing of Friday. You could excuse that, but after Saturday afternoon, you got the sense and the fear that the bats may be falling into another slump. They made things respectable in the 8th. But Wright in particular continues to slump. He should have well more than 105 RBIs, which sounds crazy because that's a superb number. Is the Tatis magic over? Is Reyes in a slump? Ramon Martinez is pinch hitting? Are the September demons back? Will I get a bobble head tonight? What the hell am I going to do in between games? Why are Phillies fans so stupid? These are all the questions I asked myself afterward.
One more question. How come I got no reception on my cell phone at Shea? You would think I was in a cave somewhere. I kept trying to make calls and send texts and they wouldn't send. ANd it's not just me. Friends with T Mobile have similar problems. Unreal. But I did get a text after the first game that said "Wagner out for year". Just great. At this point, this looks like a bad day.
I only took one picture on my cell during the afternoon affair, and that's the newly installed Citi Field sign on the right side of the building. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing that logo a lot! They may stamp it on us as we enter the games next year. That is, if we could get tickets. So here that is.
And here's the scorecard for that game. Forgive me if there are a couple of errors. I started keeping score since early July and I've been pretty addicted ever since. Some fans label it as an annoyance or homework or a distraction. I was one of those fans but I must say, I never knew numbers could be that fun. It really keeps you involved in the game. I make sure it's always secondary with the game and atmosphere kept at the forefront.
Now it's time for My Shea Memories. I wanted to mention another double-header since it's relevant to yesterday's theme. You don't usually see traditional doubleheaders at Shea anymore. There was one earlier this year with the Rangers. But the one I want to talk about is a douple dip in September of 2006. It was against the Braves. I was down because classes had resumed, summer was over and this one class in particular was stressing me out (Creative Writing). So I went to my 9 am class and it ended like at 11ish or something. And I thought to myself how great it would be to ditch this dreaded class and go to the double header which started at 1. Then I realized I had time to take the 2 train, switch to the 7 and make it for first pitch. Initially, I said no. I'm a nerd. I never do that. But what the hell? I only live once. So I ran to the Flatbush stop and I felt spontaneous. It was such an awesome feeling. On the 7 train, this old man approaches me and asks if I need a ticket. I said yeah, just one and he offered to give me a loge ticket for half the price. So i gave him the cash and I had a loge ticket for the price of an upper reserved AND I had two games to look forward to. The elderly man was pretty great too. He knew a lot about the team and I believe he was a season ticket holder. At the beginning, I sat next to him which was a bit odd. I had made friends with a man triple my age, but he was probably one of the cooler dudes I met at Shea. I know I have an old soul but that was pushing it. He met his other friend and moved next to him in the middle of the game. So I was ditched by an old guy. Great. I was relieved a bit though. The Mets won the first game. During the second one, Jeff Franceour fouled a ball back to where I was sitting. It was a few rows in front of me but the place was pretty empty like many second games of double headers. So I ran along with like 4 others. Somehow I got my hand on the ball before anyone else did. Of course some asshole scratched my hand in the process. But I got the ball! And I'm looking at it right now. AND the Mets won the second game of the double header as well. So I'm pretty glad I went to that one.
Okay. Game 14 was a tough loss but there was another game in three hours. And because there's nothing to do in the immediate vicinity, it was time to go to Manhattan before game 13...
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