PINS AND NEEDLES, NEEDLES AND PINS.
AAGGHH!!!
How many of you remember Ralph Kramden on the Honeymooners saying, “Pins and needles, needles and pins, it’s a happy man that grins?”
Which worked for him for about 10 minutes before the explosion of nerves hit him. Followed by the explosion of mouth.
Kind of like last night’s Mets game. We were hoping in playing against the smoke and mirrors Marlins that the Mets would’ve put up at 10 run first inning and coasted to victory, had us grinning throughout, but victory was not so easy.
Pins and needles, needles and pins. We’re Mets fans. Grinning don't come easy.
Winning pitcher (2-1) David Peterson fell behind 1-0 early then the Mets moved it to 4-1. And we were happy men grinning. Then to 5 to 1. I walked away from the TV set for a bit and lo and behold it’s 5 to 4.
Through gritted teeth, Mets fan were muttering, “Pins and needles needles and pins, it’s a happy man that grins” as another loss to the personnel-challenged Marlins looked possible.
Of course there was a happy ending last night, as the Mets stretched it out to 8 to 4 win as the final. Sighs of relief were heard all over the metropolitan area, as the Mets moved to a still sub par six and nine.
One nice observation is that JD Davis does not look like a flash in the pan for one year; the dude is stroking the ball like 2019 never ended, including his homerun last night, and flashing leather too.
David who? We got us a JD at third base now. That 3 run shot in the 7th gave us breathing room, and gave him David Wright-like numbers: .319, 3 HRs, 11 RBIs.
Stellar. Grins all around.
Pete Alonso hit another laser beam home run to left field. Signs of life from big Pete, but I’m hoping that Alonso starts blasting those home runs to center and right center soon, like last year, then we will really know that he’s back to being Pete.
Jeurys Familia was looking all too familia as compared to his woeful 2019 season, with his ERA jumping to 5.68, eerily close to last year’s 5.70; hopefully, we will see better than that from Familia in the near future.
The rest of the relievers, including thankfully Rob Gsellman pitched well.
Let’s hope for all grins and no pins in today’s Mets-Marlins tilt. This way, we won't be getting needled by all our Yankee fans friends and relatives.
Except for Familia's stumble last night, the pen has been solid since the 1st few days. Going into last night, they had a string of 14 scoreless IP, with 6 H in that span, and continued that work to give Peterson the W.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile in Brooklyn, Stroman and Brach are close to returning to Queens. When they do, there are no obvious candidates to be bumped.
The games this week vs the Nats and Marlins may expose the candidates, or may make the decision more difficult. It will be an interesting week in that regard.
We have 8 more games against thé Marlins in early August.
ReplyDeleteWe need to win 6 of these.
Mack, we need to win all 8. Let’s crush the Cinderella Marlins.
ReplyDeleteBill, lot of truth to that. Get Pete pounding with better pitching? How about winning 2 of 3 for the rest of August, minimum?
ReplyDeleteGuys
ReplyDeleteYou win a lot of games if you generate 8 runs per...
Tougher pitching is coming. I am a bit concerned that Pete's only two HRs were pulled lasers down the line. Last year, he hit all over. That is his success ticket.
ReplyDeleteRe: Pete
ReplyDeleteI suggest a different approach.
1. Get hitting monster himers out if your mindset.
2. Stop being fooled at the plate with offspeed stuff.
3. Concentrate getting your stroke back with the goal to barrel.