The Frightful Debut of 'Not Johan'... Redeemed! Partially!

Interesting thing happened to the Glass Man, and the Mets, last night.

It was the 7th inning, and the Mets were down 6-1. The situation seemed hopeless. Earlier in the week I'd set a goal of writing each day this week, so I began writing. The result was a thoroughly negative piece which you can find below. (Note: I made a few updates to the piece after Fernando Tatis' baserunning gaffe.)

After the Mets staged their rally and tied things up, I thought about deleting the post entirely and starting over, but nuts on that. The would-be post below is an interesting insight into the bruised psyche of this Mets fan.

In the end though, the Mets didn't succumb to the same negativity I gave in to. They lost the game all the same, but they looked resilient and they looked determined. We've had Mets teams the past few years who looked anything but those two qualities.

Anyway, it would have been nice to come away with a win, but the game last night was decidedly less discouraging than it might have been. Don't believe me? Keep reading...

"When it was over, Game 2 of the season proved every bit as dispiriting as we'd all feared it would.

John Maine, rocked. Every bit as "meh" as we'd dreaded. His newer, slower fastball is truly cause for concern. His trademark inefficiency (71 pitches through 3 innings, I believe it was) was a devastating reminder of everything frustrating about Maine, and everything frightful about our pitchers not named Johan Santana.

Maybe for simplicity's sake we'll start referring to the other four starters as "[First Name] Not Johan" or "Not Johan". We'll give it a try.

Jenrry Mejia, ugh. Not only is our present sunk, so too is our future. (OK, OK, I don't mean that; just let me wallow in my negativity.)

Sean Green, rocked. His new sidearm delivery, fooling nobody but perhaps Jerry Manuel, is a punch to the gut reminder of the glory years year of Chad Bradford.

Mike Jacobs, terrible. I mean, I'm not saying you bench him, but he shouldn't be batting clean up.

Fernando Tatis, idiot. If the Mets are going to win ballgames they MUST play smart baseball. That means not missing third base. That means not going into home standing up when you should slide. And it means not running yourself out of a bases loaded situation with your best hitter at the plate. 

* * * * *

Baseball's a funny game. Sometimes you watch a team and it's firing on all cylinders and guys are circling the bases left and right. Other times you watch the same team and wonder how it ever scores a run. Or maybe that's just the Mets.

Last night was one of those "column B" type games. The Mets looked punchless (not all Jacobs' fault by any means), and then when they finally started stringing something together they found a way to run themselves out of it.

(Perhaps the worst part of Tatis' gaffe was that it spoiled the first genuinely exciting/dramatic moment of the season. It would have been really cool if Wright had done something big in that spot.)

But more important than the hitting, which will have its "column A" games as well, was the underwhelming outing by Not Johan.

We have four Not Johans on this team. Three of them (Maine, Ollie, and Pelfrey) have successful seasons under their belts. One of them (Jon Niese) is a youngster with a certain degree of promise.

To have any chance of a playoff run this season, the Mets need two Not Johans to overachieve. In his first outing, John Not Johan was bad, and he was bad in all the ways we've come to expect from him.

So it goes. Try to remind yourself that it's just one start.

Not Johan was pretty uninspiring last night, but he'll be back out there again today. Hopefully there will be less cringing."

Reminder: it could have been a LOT worse.

- A.F.O.M.G.