Edgy MD

Keith thinks Bader is up anyhow.

Pinch-hit DJ Stewart for Tyrone Taylor? It'll hurt your dee, but they can put Marte or Reyes out there in the ninth. McNeil too.

Vientos can get around on a neck-high Kenley Jansen fastball. How about that?

Maton throwing four straight curves in the strikezone to Yoshida is questionable when he hit the last three pretty hard, but the tightrope held.

This tightrope is getting really frayed.

That's three great outfield cutoffs by Mets outfielders.

Wow, double McMurphy references.

Ending three consecutive innings with three double-plays sure helps.

Trying to get a five-inning save is going to be tough. Let's score more.

Which game is the Brazobandana giveaway? I want tickets.

These are the good old days. I insist the Mets only play teams with "Sox" in their name.

I'm kind of charmed and kind of frustrated by, "I never thought ... " statements. He's demonstrated over and over again that nothing is beneath him. Quite the opposite — getting away with ever-lower behavior seems to be what gets him out of bed in the morning. He unleashed a mob that, among other things, took shits on the floor of the Capitol.

I'm trying to make the vids work, but yeah, that's a fail.

In perhaps his finest Mets moment, current Mets bench coach John Gibbons is seen catching here on August 27, 1986, with the Mets ahead by one over the Padres in the 11th. With Garry Templeton on second, Tim Flannery ground singles hard to center off Doug Sisk, but Lenny Dykstra is playing shallow and charging hard, and he makes a strong, low throw that cutoff man Keith Hernandez allows to go through. Gibbons catches it and is almost immediately clobbered by Templeton charging hard as Flannery takes second on the throw. Gibbons tumbles almost completely over and is covered with dirt, but somehow hangs on. As he shows the ump that he has held the ball, Flannery attempts to take another base, but Gibbons makes a clean hard throw to HoJo at third and nails Flannery to end the game. Keith Hernandez is right there on top of the play for some reason, because he's here, he's there, he's everyfuckingwhere. Darryl Strawberry just jogs in because he's an 86 Met, and he knows awesome just happens every day. [media=youtube]2pYYJ7un9Nk[/media] OE: Not a particularly high-quality recording of the Mets broadcast version of the play, but, you know, Tim McCarver: [media=youtube]xZ5nrvfrHCc[/media]

Edgy MD wrote: Every team has a rich owner and is managed by people who want to win, but every day, exactly 50% of the ones that take the field lose. That's not the point. We're talking about a team that's losing more than 75% of all of its games. All of them. That is mind-boggling and hardly explained by the fact that every game, one team loses. This is more like flipping a coin and drawing "heads" 15 straight times. One bad break can break the coin. If the Mets' commitment to Brett Baty was made more permanent by trading Vientos for pitching help; if it was Lindor and not Mauricio who tore his ACL on a seemingly innocuous start/stop play; if Joey Wendle hit well enough to stick and keep José Iglesias in Syracuse a few months longer, but not actually help himself; that could maybe cost the team dozens of games. One bad break can sink a ship. A cascade of them can sink the ship with everybody on board. Big bucks and big brains are a hedge against bad luck, but no guarantee. Maybe a hedge fun manager is the right owner in that sense, but bad luck is coming at everybody, along with 29 other organizations with big bucks and big brains. Staying ahead of all that is hard from year to year. Staying ahead forever is nearly impossible, and I imagine the White Sox won't be the last team to make a run at this record. A few already have in recent decades. I just know that Luis Robert, Jr., looked like he couldn't throw a ball 25 feet during the Mets/White Sox series. While he's never really had much of an arm, he's clearly compromised further by injury right now, but somehow the Sox have come to the conclusion that he's their best option to play center, and a lot must've gone wrong to put them in that position. But that, as you say, is baseball. The grave awaits us all and the rain falls on the just and the unjust, the snow on the living and the dead. They all have the same wolf at their heels (to switch up the metaphor) that is now devouring the White Sox. It's what keeps baseball interesting.

I'm surprised I voted for the former. I'm not particularly sentimental about the 1962 Mets record, but any day over the next few weeks that includes the White Sox beating the Yankees is a better day than one in which the Yankees beat the Sox, all other things being equal.

No matter how much money you have, buying your way to mediocrity is no given. No matter what you bring to the table, 29 other organizations are conspiring to destroy your hopes. The Mets are a terrific team, but one or two mistakes, one or two injuries, and a few bad breaks, and they could have ended up looking like this. Every team has a rich owner and is managed by people who want to win, but every day, exactly 50% of the ones that take the field lose.

It's funny, but I already have Christian Scott's time in the rotation tucked in the "Did that even happen?" file, right next to that time James Franco and Anne Hathaway co-hosted the Oscars. If I think about it hard, I'd guess he was there for a month or so, making four or five starts, but I'm checking now, and he started nine games.

Just taking care of business chips away. The other teams will either run into the Mets or run into each other, eventually. The Mets' fates are very much in their own hands. If nothing else, Paul Skenes threw a wrench into the Cubs hopes of sneaking into the back end of the race. Also, the Mets are undefeated since the return of DJ Stewart.

Cool to see Edwin sit down and put on his pullover hoodie. It's almost like seeing Red Auerbach light up his cigar, with the caveat that it ain't over 'til it's over in baseball.

=Centerfield post_id=168681 time=1725413502 user_id=65] WHAT IF THE METS ARE GOOD

Álvarez going to right is always good. Garrett got the equivalent of four outs that inning. And none of them were lucky.

Give Garrett a save.

And a very heads-up choice by McNeil.

Questionable choices there from our MVP.