G-Fafif

Say Hey! And little else to be said.

When the 2019 Mets fell to 13-13 on Saturday, they became the fourth-latest club in Mets history to reach the .500 mark for the first time (not counting 0-0). Thirty-one times, a Mets team has gotten to .500 by going 1-1. Eight other times, they've won or lost their first two before losing or winning their next two (to get to 2-2). The rest of the roads taken to .500: 1977: 3-3 1978 & 2005: 5-5 1987: 6-6 2013 & 2014: 7-7 2012: 8-8 1994: 9-9 1981 (2nd half): 11-11 1973: 12-12 2019: 13-13 1997: 18-18 2018: 25-25 1991: 57-57 For all but three of these editions, the first time to .500 represented a hot start cooled off, such as we saw from the 9-4 Mets this year or the 12-2 Mets last year (here's hoping post-.500 tells a better story this year). The break-even mark looked a lot better to the Mets from 1997 (who started 8-14), 2005 (0-5) and 2014 (0-3). The 1991 Mets defied gravity for an awfully long time, but losing 19 of 23 after peaking at 53-38 pulled them down to earth (before they continued to plunge to a 77-84 finish). Six Mets teams never spent a day at .500. Dreadful starts doomed the first four Mets clubs to look up at so-so all season long. On the other hand, strong starts propelled the 1985 and 2007 Mets to records immune to touching down at anything worse than winning percentages above .500...though I imagine if they gave the '07 Mets a few more weeks, they would have found a way. A few more .500 thoughts http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2019/04/28/we-inevitably-pass-this-way-again/here.

Jerry Blevins is now a Brave.

Bit of a shocker. Losses cut. Nido up.

Assuming Rhame's suspension isn't overturned, he'll serve it when he's next recalled.

deGrom back, Oswalt up (the latter for weather safety). Guillorme, Rhame down.

Rosario's defense is no joke.

Two gloves are better than none.

McNeil LF Alonso 1B Cano 2B Conforto RF Ramos C Nimmo CF Frazier 3B Rosario SS deGrom P Jake's reinstatement from IL will necessitate a CRM.

Mets' attempt to raise their alumni profile continues this weekend with Jon Matlack and Neil Allen haunting Citi Field this weekend (Turk Wendell and Rick Reed were on hand last homestand).

Forecast implies a delay. Given where we were a week ago regarding deGrom, what's a couple extra hours? Or maybe a day.

Won't care this weekend, but I rooted hard for them last October. Listened to their radio feed with the TV sound down and fell in love with Ueck all over again.

I imagine there's a lot of impetus for a 25th guy on the roster type, or really any part of a team, to want to show loyalty to the group, the "I've got you're back, you hit one of us you hit all of us" and all that. The way everybody had their "ball just got away" lines down pat after Tuesday's game leads me to believe the whole thing was coordinated from the top (or the middle, if that's how you view the role of the manager). My guess is whoever took the mound in the ninth was going to be directed to back Hoskins off the plate. Stealing while down eight runs -- the nerve!

Movie filmed on an off night.

Sport World loves to stir that pot. But no struggle here choosing Grote.

This episode has made me feel bad for Rhame, whose presence on the staff I don't care for, and detest Hoskins, of whom I had no opinion beyond he sure can hit. Ah, tribalism. Suspend Callaway if the message is this shouldn't be part of the game. There's no way the kid took it upon himself to "take care of business".

Left oblique twinge for Brandon.

Milledge wasn't directly involved. He exulted and the dogass Marlins https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2007-09-30-0709290197-story.htmltook offense. Lastings's reaction is the sort of thing MLB would make commercials for these days.

September 29, 2007, was more fight-adjacent than basebrawl. The John Franco Day melee of 1996 was the last really good one, though there was some chippiness during a Steve Avery-Bobby Jones showdown the same year. I can picture Gabe Kapler trying to make hay. Umps should feel free to warn Jason Vargas out of the game early.

Doc on the cover of Time directly after 1985 is as impossible to touch as Doc on the mound during 1985. Runner-up love to Fonzie for making a magazine cover for being underrated (or "under-rated") well after it was established he was underrated. Edgardo was his generation's Joe Rudi, oxymoronically becoming widely appreciated for not being widely appreciated. Sadly, Fonzie peaked prior to this splash of publicity. "Recovery Today" could refer to the magazine recovering a photo from a Google search, but it works well for them. Nice to see Tom again. This round has my three favorite Mets of all-time competing (Doc and Fonzie are 2 and 3 by me). I do wonder how much appetite there still was for the potboiler approach to sports journalism. Frank Thomas was indeed a slugger in full color. Doesn't look like he's slugging that pitch, though.

Vargas Versus Velasquez. Let Us Sveep!!!

With Zack Wheeler's long ball Tuesday night, Mets pitching staffs of the 2010s have now outhomered the Mets pitching staffs of all other Metsian decades. 1962-1969: 7 1970-1979: 9 1980-1989: 14 1990-1999: 13 2000-2009: 3 2010-2019: 15 That's 61 home runs in all, matching Roger Maris in 1961 and every Met going in 1980. Learn more about the decennial phenomenon (and enjoy a modest oral history thereof) http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2019/04/24/power-pitchers-of-the-2010s-a-modest-oral-history/here.

I understand the affiliate in Port St. Lucie still carries weekend games, but that's the extent of the network.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: "Wail Till This Year" is a prescient SPORT headline. Hard to read in the pic but says it all. No Mets team had ever been as a prohibitive favorite as the 86 club and they totally lived up to the hype until things got hairy in October. The gamut of preseason publications -- The Sporting News Yearbook, Street & Smith's, Bill Mazeroski, Sports Illustrated, Inside Pitch -- along with your local newspapers -- were all on this bandwagon, which made the anticipation nearly as delicious as what was to follow (and the 2-3 start such a shock to the system). Living up to the hype is an underrated core competency of the '86 club. The Mets haven't approached many seasons as the consensus choice to win their division let alone a championship. To my recollection, only the '88 club followed the same trajectory (if not all the way to its logical conclusion). Both the 2006 and 2015 teams were considered promising and likely to improve, but neither was framed as a lock. We know nobody saw 1969 coming. The 1973 team was projected to contend but wasn't any kind of widely heralded favorite. The 1999 and 2000 Mets were a Wild Card possibility among Wild Card possibilities. 2016 had a "World Series or Bust" aura that proved misapplied. And the years when the Mets were seen as ready to lap the field...well, you don't see them in the preceding sentences. Making good on the dare to be great will never not be incredibly impressive in Met annals, even if it somehow happens again.

Jay Horwitz's Amazin' Mets Alumni Podcast, always enchanting, is particularly awesome in its last two iterations, wherein Jay speaks with Doug Flynn and Craig Swan. True Metnip.