Mets

[low]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Please remain serious. How are you gonna build a roof over a video board the size of 30 Rock?

They had a chance to have one when the park was built. As much money as they have, they should tear it down and try again. Damn poverty franchise. Bunch of scrubs. It's 2024. Get some sort of roof, already. JFC.

[Amazin69]

And some plastic grass, too? (I know, not an issue with retractables, but still.)

Thanks but no thanks. Open-air is a part of the experience. Being sealed in a box that only occasionally opens partway is not the same thing. I would gladly trade a few rain delays and the occasional postponement for ~75 days and nights with Mother Nature.

I went to the Stade Olympique on a class trip…Big Shea it wasn't. I've been to [Some Sponsor Name] Park in Milwaukee (the Mets were in town, too). It felt weird. JMO.

[Westheim]

(sings)
Meet the Mets!
Meet the Mets!
Shut up, sit down,
and meet the Mets...!

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Westheim

Please remain serious. How are you gonna build a roof over a video board the size of 30 Rock?

The Cowboys called. I think someone was laughing but then they hung up.

[Westheim]

The good news is: they can't get much more comatose than this.

Now only 41-14 on Opening Day since 1970

[Amazin69]

In the last game I watched, the Mets were eliminated from the 2022 post-season and held to 1 hit (a solo shot by Polar Pete).

Back for Opening Day, and the Mets go oh-so-quietly, as Milwaukee allows only one hit (solo shot by Marte).

Okay, okay. I can take a hint. Byeeeeee

*********************

A few nice nostalgic notes:

• God, real baseball is still gorgeous. Can you imagine Corrupt Bank Field 80% glassed-in, just so they can deploy the roof a few times a year? EWWW.

• Did not realize Jim McAndrew had passed. Did he get a memorial thread here?

• Cute that they had 23 of Buddy's family throw out the first pitch, as 23 was his number as coach/manager. Hard cheese if you're the 24th member, though.

(Or did they run out of actual relations and make a few of the ushers 'onorary 'arrelsons? Don't know.)

• Hilarious bit in the 4th inning with Gary suggesting that since Steve Gelbs was doing PbP in spring training, he might need a JD Martinez-style minor-league assignment to get back to peak reporter shape.

• The return of the "Lou Brock!" graphic/music, even though Keith is correct that he has to be the one to say it, so Ronnie doing it shouldn't count. (Especially as I have a feeling Ronnie only did it to provoke the graphic.)

Btw, the Ernie Broglio for Brock trade was 1964, not 1963.

• Forgot that Jonathan Niese got the Opening Day start in 2013.

• Michael Tonkin comes into the game and Gary gets his "gulf" pun out of the way. Of course, as LBJ was lying about that, logically Tonkin should be a bust…

• Kingman hit a truly Kingman-esque pop-up in his final AB. "Home Run in an elevator shaft", we used to call them. (He also rather looked like Kingman in the field. You're better than that, Pete.)

• Carlos Mendoza, Boy Genius, had Lindor hitting 2nd and Squirrel McNeil in the clean-up slot. I would think that putting "former batting champion" ahead of "guy who hit 30 dingers last season" would be a no-brainer, but apparently not.

Mendoza also let Harrison Bader (career .668 v RHP) lead off the 9th, even though there were lefty options on the bench. Yikes. Hope Boy Genius isn't from the Luis Rojas Boy Genius school. (They coached together in the Bronx last season.)

• WTF is with the tiny letters on the players' names on the unis? I'd be glad if they just got rid of the names, but no need to give the fans eyestrain. Are they trying to save money?

• And nice to see that Rhys Hopkins went to the Chase Utley Sliding School. You can take the d-bag out of Philly, but you can't take Philly out of the d-bag, it seems.

[low]

[Amazin69]

Severe No in the #2 slot? (#3 if Senga, but not now)

Great Googly-Moogly. Carlos Mendoza is definitely looking as though he went to the Luis Rojas Boy Genius School.

[Syd Thrift]

Just in a bit of raaaaaaare Mets solidarity, I hated that spike job by Rhys Hopkins. Yeah, I'm sure it was a legal play but you can be legal and dirty, and that IMO was exactly that. Dude hook slid late and into O'Neill's back foot instead of on time and into the front foot even though the former is more common and has a better chance of breaking up the play (sure, he did break it up). And then he went in with cleats high.

[PocketsAintFull]

Throwing at Hoskins because he's tearing up your pitching

[low]

Hoskins owning the Mets in every possible way right now.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by PocketsAintFull

Throwing at Hoskins because he's tearing up your pitching

I am not even close to being a Mets fan but if we're talking about last inning that was more that putting him on base wasn't going to do much one way or the other and that Lopez' teammates aren't a huge fan of the guy.

[Westheim]

Pete hit a long one, and Baty ran into one on the first pitch and with his eyes closed. Severino was absolutely atrocious.

I don't even want to get into the whole Hoskins ho-hum. The New York Dingdongs racing to be the #1 laughing stock in the league again.

[Amazin69]

I doubt that Mendoza ordered the retaliation. (As Ronnie and Keith said, they would have done that in his first at bat.) Sounds as if the bullpen was sitting and stewing and Yohan Ramirez, eager to impress his new teammates, was "going into business for himself", as the wrestlers say.

(Either that, or Severe No defied Boy Genius Mendoza's orders, multiple times, which seems less likely.)

I suppose there's an argument that the coaches (especially whomever is the bullpen coach) should have made it clear not to do that after the HR, but I'll forgive the slip-up.

***************

Soooo, Ottavino gave up what proved to be the deciding run, eh?

Aren't you glad he came home, Westheim?

******************

So, I decided that I might as well enjoy my free week of GKR, just because it's them, without paying for anything more or giving a **** about the mutilated "games" or watching any other telecasts.

Then I fell asleep (I'm at the age where a pre-noon nap happens, and I was all busy all morning and delayed it) and missed the first five innings, which is all for the best. So I still haven't seen Severe No pitch for the Mets. Looks like I dodged a bullet.

*******************

One of the things that got me all agitated was dealing with how the entire world wants to destroy Israel and exterminate my (former) co-religionists (especially as how the "support" of some Evangelical Christians is proving to be as phony as I had cynically suspected), so I am loathe to criticize Harrison Bader, but oy vey, the Bronxville Kid is working hard to destroy that "Jews are smart" stereotype, eh?

First he runs into an out trying to stretch a hit when the Mets are multiple runs down, and then he strikes out at a pitch right up at his eyes. I haven't seen such poor control of the strike zone since Doc Gooden used to toy with Raul Mondesi.

You putz! And I don't mean J.J.!

*******************************

Things I Missed Last Season Dept.: for some reason, I thought D. J. Stewart was black. Especially after I found out he was named "Demetrious Jerome Stewart"

Huh. Apparently Bader isn't the only not-so-bright (ex-)Jew out there.

**********************

Pete's home run was very nice. Not a Kingman flail at all. And he had a line-drive single before that.

Good, I like good hitting.

**********************

But as I said, I'm only here for GKR.

Loved the discussion of road trip food (Keith is not eating the grasshoppers in Seattle!). Ronnie has the Cincinnati trip (which sometimes even Gary doesn't take), so he will have the Skyline Chili, which is beloved in the Queen City, which Gary completely does not understand. He despises that stuff.

As you may recall, one year Gary responded to the backlash from Cincinnatians by talking up Graeter's Ice Cream, which he called "the best ice cream in the world". (Double the butterfat, you see.) So Ronnie mentioned Graeter's today and Gary praised it again, but said he has to abstain because "I've given up dairy."

RON: Wow. You have no vices any more.
GARY (off-camera, but with an almost-audible eye-roll): Oh, let's not go there.

Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. See, it's them I miss. The Mets are pretty much incidental.

[Westheim]

GKR are the highlight of most Mets games.

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Soooo, Ottavino gave up what proved to be the deciding run, eh?

Aren't you glad he came home, Westheim?

(froths from the mouth)

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Things I Missed Last Season Dept.: for some reason, I thought D. J. Stewart was black. Especially after I found out he was named "Demetrious Jerome Stewart"

Well, you are right. D.J. Stewart *is* black. But the guy on the Mets roster is DJ Stewart. The other one (Devan Jordan Stewart) was a 39th-rounder for the Philthies and petered out at high-A, but he's definitely gotten mixed in with Demetrius Jerome Stewart on Google, as well as DeWayne "D.J." Stewart jr., successless hoops player, and also black.

Even Wikipedia is like, hold on, we gotta do some ground rules on these guys. DJ, D.J. jr., and DJ Steward are all in the "not to be confused with" category. D.J. just links on to DJ.

From bb-ref:

[Amazin69]

D.J. was a Lansing Lugnut, it appears.

If we are offered a set of tie-rods (or even those wrenches from a few pages ago) for DJ, we might consider jumping on it.

I honestly side-eye DJ, because I don't think you're allowed to omit the periods if you are shortening a longer name. It's one thing if you are Harry S Truman and the middle name is literally "S" [without a period], but that doesn't apply here.

Even U.L. Washington used periods, and his name was literally "U.L."

U.L. passed away four weeks ago (March 3rd). R.I.P., U.L.

[Amazin69]

Megill is the #3 starter? (Technically #4, since Senga is unavailable.) Wow, is Boy Genius really consigning Houser and Manaea to the periphery to give us regular doses of Severed Arm and Megill?

68-94?

Also, I forgot to mention that I'm not sure about their playing Timmy Trumpet when Diaz came in yesterday, as it was nothing near a save situation. I guess we can allow that once, but if Mendoza brings him in when the team is down 8-1 to keep his arm fresh, and we still get trumpets, I'll think they've lost the plot.

(Do you realize that this is Edlose's SIXTH season as a Met? Wow. To quote Chester Beddingfield, "watch the time go, right out the window".

[Amazin69]

Oh, for crap's sake, Baty!

Top of the first took 17 minutes for Megill to throw 28 pitches and allow 1 run. Stick that in your pitch-clock, Manfred!

[Westheim]

(makes wah-wah crying motion with both paws as Hoskins hits into an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play)

****.

[Amazin69]

After swinging at ball 4 with the bases loaded, let's note.

However, Megill did finally get his act together and pitch a decent 4th. I guess they might be skipping Houser because they think his ex-teammates know him too well.