IGT 5/13 NYM@CUBS - Harvey Days are Here Again

[Fman99]

GOD DAMMIT

[Fman99]

Hey nice knock there for DooDoo

[Fman99]

Jeez, inadvertent break there to not get another shitty double play out of it.

[ashie62]

More weirdness.

[ashie62]

GET A HIT!!

[ashie62]

AGHH!

[Fman99]

This fucking pop gun lineup. Ugh.

[ashie62]

Injuries, injuries, injuries.

[Zvon]

They are hustlin' their ass's off. We aren't.

[ashie62]

Unfuckingreal. Later.

Fire Collins.

[Edgy MD]

Fire Collins... because of his poor cleanup skills?

I'd have discouraged him from going to the pen unless he was going right to Familia, I'll agree with that. But most other managers would do what he did.

And Jerry would decry his lack of a bullet-proof eighth-inning guy.

But no manager on earth wins a lot of games with one run to work with.

[Edgy MD]

Triple play time.

[Guest d'Kong76]

What was the Journey Atari thing?

[ashie62]

ARGHHHH

[Guest d'Kong76]

Anyway, that sucked...

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Brutal.

[Edgy MD]

Well, that ends the walk off streak.

[nymr83]

Fuckity fuck fuck.. There are plenty of ways to lose a game, but "Kenny Rogers Style" is the worst of all.

[Centerfield]

I give up. This team fucking sucks.

[Zvon]

Pretty pathetic. Harvey pitched great, but he wasted himself at the plate, so I won't even say he deserved to win. Seems to me the Mets are not playing with any vitality.

[Frayed Knot]

TotG

1) I was expecting Harvey to not get the 9th, but I was pretty surprised that he didn't get the 8th

2) We gotta stop bunting. Not just because it's bad strategy (not always, but sometimes) BUT BECAUSE WE SUCK AT IT!!! How can one team, with an ever-changing roster of players, over multiple seasons, pitchers and position players alike, all suck at bunting? Only luck kept us from Sac-Bunting in two DPs!

3) Not that the double-switch was wrong but I was surprised to see Monell rather than Recker. I guess you're figuring that you'd rather have his bat the next inning than AR's glove ... and Monell made some nice stops.

4) On the 5th infielder thing, why bring Nieuwenhuis in rather than Cuddyer? If you remember I was lobbying for Cuddyer to take over at 3B (at least part of the time) when Wright went down; hell, he played half his career there. It was tough to argue with Campbell there while he was so hot early on but that (predictably) didn't last. Such a move would also have gotten Nieuwenberry some ABs early on which in turn might have helped the struggling offense.

5) Speaking of which, Nieuwenhuis looks clueless - and after such a good spring and a decent 2nd half last year. Doesn't help that Mayberry is barely better.

[Edgy MD]

I thought Cuddyer WAS who they brought in. The Cubs announcer said it was him.

Monell kept the game from ending earlier with two or three stops of balls in the dirt. At least one and intuitive stab at a bouncing fastball.

[Frayed Knot]

Well then maybe I got bad info because I thought I heard it was Nieuwenhuis who was brought in.


Couple add-on points:

- Flores's Sac Bunt reduced the odds of the Mets winning (by 2% acc to BB-Ref's 'Win Expectancy' ratings) and that's only after it "worked" even though they got lucky with the accidental tag on a bunt that was too shitty to have any right to succeed. And, yes, it's a generic stat that doesn't tell the whole story, but I don't see any specifics in that situation or with the hitters coming up that makes the strategy look a whole lot better than break-even at best.

- Duda is now Better this season vs LHPs than against RHP [.400/.447/.600 vs .244/.347/.384]. Yeah, it's a small sample [38 PA vs 103] but, still, that's a stunning turn-around!
If this is a year ago and he's leading off the 9th in a tie game vs a lefty brought in specifically to face him you're looking at the lineup card for available RH pinch-hitters. Last night he quickly gets down 0-2 but then just as quickly smacks a liner into LF and is on as the go-ahead run.

[Edgy MD]

May be the two stinkiest losses of the year in two days.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

They're just a disaster out there. Cuddyer looks terrible at the dish and spiked another throw from shallow left. Niuwy is clueless, Harvey has himself to blame for failing to get a bunt down properly, then failing to hustle. I stand by my belief that no team in baseball has fucked up a greater percentage of their called sac bunts than the Mets have under Collins. It's hard to imagine it being possible even.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: They're just a disaster out there. Cuddyer looks terrible at the dish and spiked another throw from shallow left. Niuwy is clueless, Harvey has himself to blame for failing to get a bunt down properly, then failing to hustle. I stand by my belief that no team in baseball has fucked up a greater percentage of their called sac bunts than the Mets have under Collins. It's hard to imagine it being possible even.

The Mets are actively campaigning for the DH in the NL and Bartolo Colon is their champion.

While of course it's bad that Harvey didn't run it's the mindset that he's up there to make an out, getting on base isn't even in his head. The concept of a pitcher sacrifice bunting and it just being what happens is so routine that it doesn't even enter into Harvey's mind that baserunning is part of his job up there.

And the runner (was it Plawecki? I'm blanking) was basically back to first base anyway. I know instinct says to run when you realize he's dropping it, but he should've just stayed at first right? Or gotten into a rundown at least. If they throw to second, he can get back to first. If they run at him, maybe Harvey has time to get to first.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Are you really excusing Harvey for fucking up and blaming the baserunner?

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Are you really excusing Harvey for fucking up and blaming the baserunner?

no, I'm pointing out just another reason we should just bite the bullet and go DH because no one fucking takes pitchers at the plate as something worth thinking about.

and then i'm ALSO blaming the baserunner, because there might've been a way _he_ could've avoided the doubleplay.

[Edgy MD]

Of course he couldn't do anything. Your job as baserunner on a popup is to jog back within safety distance of the bag and then watch to see if the ball somehow falls in. With the popup 60 feet away from the bag, safety distance is spitting distance.

Harvey's job is to assume nothing, and run like a cheetah until he hears an ump call him out. He assumed, and he ended up looking stupid and lazy.

[batmagadanleadoff]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Are you really excusing Harvey for fucking up and blaming the baserunner?

Of course he's not blaming the runner, but instead, the DH rule. To blame the runner, illogical as that would be, would require blaming a Met. And that can never be.