It gets worse: Before last night, Jeremy Hefner had started 8 games for the Mets this season, and the team won a grand total of none of them. That is no longer the case.
David Phelps started for the Yankees last night. He'd been pitching pretty well. You remember Mission: Impossible? The TV show, not the Tom Cruise film series that's as much of an abomination to its memory as J.J. Abrams' films are to Star Trek (which also featured Leonard Nimoy)? The message would begin, "Good evening, Mr. Phelps," and end, "This tape will self-destruct in five seconds."
David Phelps self-destructed in five batters. Well, eight, actually. Here's how the top of the 1st inning went:
* Ruben Tejada singled to left.
* Daniel Murphy doubled to center, scoring Tejada. 1-0 Mets.
* David Wright drew a walk.
* Lucas Duda struck out. 1 out.
* John Buck singled to right, scoring Murphy. 2-0 Mets.
* Joe Girardi sent pitching coach Larry Rothschild out to calm Phelps down. Didn't work.
* Rick Ankiel walked. Bases loaded. (Yes, that Rick Ankiel, whose wild pitches against the Mets for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2000 National League Championship Series ruined what had begun as a good career. He switched to the outfield, and he's finally back.)
* Marlon Byrd reached on an error by Jayson Nix. Hell, Eduardo NunE5 could have done that. Wright scored. 3-0 Mets.
* Ike Davis -- Ike Davis! -- singled to center, scoring Buck and Ankiel. 5-0 Mets.
* Only then dids Girardi pull Phelps, and bring in Preston Claiborne, who got Mike Baxter to ground into a force play and Tejada, batting for the 2nd time in the inning, to fly to left.
Maybe Claiborne should have been the starter.
As for the Yankees:
1st inning: Robinson Cano singled with 1 out. Stranded.
2nd: Brennan Boesch led off with a single. Forced out, Ichiro Suzuki on 1st. Nix singled. 1st and 2nd, 1 out. Stranded.
4th: Boesch hit a home run to right. Making it 8-1 Mets. Ichiro singled with 1 out. Stranded.
6th: Travis Hafner led off with a single to right. Lyle Overbay hit a ground-rule double. Boesch beat out an infield single, scoring Hafner. Ichiro popped up. Nix singled to left, scoring Overbay. 1st and 2nd, 1 out. Stranded.
8th: Ichiro singled with 2 out. Stranded.
9th: Brett Gardner singled with 2 out. Advanced to 2nd on defensive indifference. Cano singled to left, scoring Gardner. He advanced to 2nd, then to 3rd, on defensive indifference. Hafner struck out to strand Cano and end the game.
Mets 9, Yankees 4. WP: Hefner (1-5). No save. LP: Phelps (3-3). Phelps' ERA for the game? 5 runs, "only" 4 earned, times 9 is 36, divided by 1/3rd -- or, rather, 36 times 3 -- = 108.00. His WHIP? 4 hits, 2 walks, 1/3 of an inning, = 18.000.
So that's 27 innings against the Mutts, and just 6 runs. All these runs they're not scoring against the Mutts? I hope they're gonna use them against The Scum this weekend.
A few days ago, Hafner got an RBI single, and a guy impersonating John Sterling on Twitter said, "Suzyn, that hit by 'Pronk' is sponsored by Viagra. Viagra: When you need to come through in a key situation!"
Hafner then advanced on defensive indifference, so I tweeted to the impersonator: "And Hafner's advance on defensive indifference is sponsored by Cialis: What to use when you just can't give a fuck." (Shoutout to Epic Rap Battles of History for inspiring that line.)
I've been saying for years, especially since the Yankees beat the Mets in the 2000 World Series, that this is not a "Subway Series," since that only means a World Series between 2 teams in the same city. I've been saying that the Yankees should treat the Mets like any other opponent. (In other words, beat them.) I prefer to call it the Citi Series.
Maybe the Yankees have gone too far in the realm of "just can't give a fuck."
So, the Mets have won the season series, and can complete the sweep tonight, as Vidal Nuno pitches against Dillon Gee.
It doesn't matter: 27 is still > 2. Since 1986, 5 is still > 0. We're still the greatest franchise in the history of sports. They're still The Other Team, a small club in Flushing. And we're still the team that won a World Series at Shea Stadium.
And no amount of trash-talking by the urban equivalent of rednecks is gonna change that.
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