No Beginner's Luck for Las Vegas 51's Home Opener

After starting strong on the road, the Las Vegas 51's could not get it together in the debut game at their new home for the next 2 seasons, Cashman Field.

Cashman was sold-out for their first home game, which I don't think even they expected to happen. It was thrilling to see so many Met jerseys in one spot again, and my fellow Met fan buddy and I made 6 new friends just walking to the stadium. 

Although the field is only 10 minutes from my work, it was 45 minutes from the exit ramp to the parking lot, so we finally sat down at the top of the second. It was not an uplifting feeling to see Colorado already ahead by about 3, but Travis d'Arnaud was 100 feet away from us!! I immediately screamed, "Go Travis!" at the top of my lungs. So began a long game of shrieking cheers and jeers at the team and the ump and resulted in my voice continuing still to be a perfect candidate for a 900 number.

Carlos Torres, an apparent journeyman who spent some time in the Show with the Rockies, never found his stride, but I'm not going to call him a waste of a pitcher. There was a lot riding against the new 51's in their maiden game. They had just a couple of days at home before starting the season on the road. Cashman Field is notorious in the PCL for being a pitcher's nightmare. Las Vegas is high above sea level, yet is nestled at the base of a vast valley of mountains. Beautiful desert scenery, but doesn't quite work in a pitcher's favor. Dead air or high winds basically take the ball wherever it wants. I'm no pitcher, but it would seem to me that adjustments have to be made in arm and body position to adjust to the climate. I am probably just talking out of my butt; I have never played baseball. I just love it, study it, and watch it.

Whatever the case, the weather on Friday night at Cashman Field was stunning. Stunning. Stunning.For the fans. It was a darling 70 degrees at 745 when we sat down, and maybe dropped 1 degree by the end of the game. However, I noticed that the air was perfectly still. Again, kept my friend and I comfortable but it was devastating to the pitching. Balls that looked like they were going to whiz right through the strike zone dropped dead halfway to d'Arnaud's glove. After awhile, the ump called strikes on obvious balls for the simple fact that if he kept calling them what they truly were, we'd still be in the fourth inning.

d'Arnaud whacked the lone homer of the game for the 51's, which was also the lone run that put us on the board. Of course I was just exiting the ladies room and missed the whole thing, but I'll have at least a few more opportunities to write about witnessing the beauty of d'Arnaud's hitting before he leaves for Flushing.

All in all, the premier game for the Las Vegas Mets eventually turned into a social event. It was fairly evident even after d'Arnaud's HR that there was no hope for this game, so beer became far more interesting to everyone than keeping score. In the bottom of the 8th, returning from a French fry run, I passed a man sporting a David Wright jersey. He made eye contact with me, in my new Mr. Met hat and Matt Harvey jersey, and we smiled sadly at each other and shook our heads; we felt the same stabbing pain to watch the B-squad falter as we did (or do) watching the boys in the bigs fall apart. The same pain only a Met fan [can] feel.

We all still had a great time. The vibe at Cashman was positive, and many people in my section (I have season tickets) discussed positive things to look forward to this summer from the team. I won't haunt the field again until Tuesday, because tomorrow's winds are supposed to be tornado force and no one wants to read about someone whining about weather on a baseball blog. Then I will be concentrating more on actual player performance to report back, and less on celebrating that there are Mets in Las Vegas. Now and always, Lets Go Mets.

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