Mets-Astros Game 3 Recap

The Mets finally get a win! And it was a blowout! The Mets got their 3rd win in their last 15 games on a cold, windy night in Flushing. Cappuccino was great, Bay was good in his return, and there were as many terrible plays as you would expect from a Mets-Astros game. Lets start from the beginning, and by beginning I mean second batter of the game.

The second batter of the game for Houston, Angel Sanchez, probably went around on a third strike call, but the umpires did not see it that way. An enraged Terry Collins decided to go out and argue and after a few minutes of yelling was thrown out of the game. Everyone in the crowd cheered including me. I love seeing managers get tossed. It’s great. I love yelling. It was very ESPN. The first scoring of the game came in the third inning in the form of a home run by, yep, you guessed it, Nick Mickeas. It was the first home run of his career. I was shocked to say the least. The Mets actually had a lead! And it would only grow. The 4th inning featured a homer by David Wright, Beltran scoring on a wild pitch, and a sac fly. 4-0 Mets. In the 5th, Wright added a 2 run double. Even though the Mets were ahead by 6, I was skeptical that they would be able to hold the lead, knowing them, but they proved me wrong. In the 7th, the Astros finally got to the coffee by scoring a run, but that was all they would do the whole night. Then, in the bottom of the 8th, Jason Bay hit a pop fly down the first base line with a runner on first. Hunter Pence went for it and missed it (probably because of the wind) and it rolled to the wall. At first, they called it an inside the park home run, but then changed it to an error. That upset me. Ike David added a homer and the Mets won 9-1.

Now on to the jokes of the game:

• J.A. Happ is now officially a joke. I thought that he was a serious pitcher, but I was very wrong. He was awful. He gave up 6 runs to the Mets. On the other hand, he led the Astros with 2 hits which were part of a 2-2 night for him. He is now batting over .500 for the year. Shocking.
• Mike Nickeas hit a homer. That is the joke.
• In the 7th, Nickeas went out to the mound to cool Cappuccino after he allowed a few base runners. What did Nickeas actually think he was going to do by going to the mound? Make iced coffee (get it? Like cooled the coffee, like cooled the cappuccino, like cooled down Capuano?)
• The wind was swirling the whole game and this caused some disaster plays including Justin Turner colliding with Angel Pagan’s hand and the Hunter Pence drop inside the park home run.
• There was another peanut disaster under our seats tonight.
• We were sitting in the Jew section again tonight. They were jealous of our Matzah (yes, we brought Matzah to a baseball game (for the second night in a row)).

Mike Nickeas and Taylor Buchholz after Buchholz closed out the game

Mets-Astros Game 2 Recap

What a terrible classic Mets game. They gave us all the hope we could have wanted and eventually disappointed us. The game was both boring and disgusting, featuring plays that I didn’t think would be possible in major league baseball. I will first start with the plot of the game.

In the 2nd inning, Houston got on the board first. The first run of the game was scored on a wild pitch that Chris Johnson was able to score on. Whenever a run is scored on a wild pitch, you know the game is a joke. The Mets got on the board in the third with an RBI double by Beltran, who had 3 hits in the game. Jose had 4 hits and Daniel Murphy even had 3 hits (no, I can’t believe it either), so the Mets were able to put some good swings on the ball in this game, but in the end, it did not help them. In the 6th inning, with the Mets down 3-1, Daniel Murphy hit a 2 run homer right down the right field line to tie the score. However, it wasn’t before long that Hunter Pence won the game for Houston with a solo shot in the 8th. Mark Melancon (ew) got the win, R.A. got the loss, and Brandon “As strong as a” Lyon got the save. Unfortunately, fan favorite Chin Lung Hu did not make an appearance in this game. Hopefully we will see him tomorrow, when Raphi will bring his Nelkin posterboard if he isn’t too lazy. R.A. wasn’t terrible because he threw 8 innings, but he didn’t blow anybody away. Jason Isringhausen (oh boy) made an appearance in the 9th. Bud Norris gave up 10 hits to the Mets in 6 innings, but only 3 runs, and the Houston bullpen was good again.

Now on to the jokes of the game:

• The wild pitch that Houston scored on in the 3rd inning was awful. You just can’t throw terrible pitches with runners on third.
• Bud Norris looks like a fat frog. Right after I said this, he had a line drive RBI single. I think he heard me because of the lack of people at the game and he got mad enough to get a hit.
• The Mets’ Kiss Cam is sponsored by 1800flowers.com. Wow. They couldn’t have just chosen either the website or the phone number? They had to do both? This is typical Mets advertising, putting the most advertisements into as little a space as possible. And the kissers weren’t even good tonight.
• In one of Hunter Pence’s at bats, he got called out on strikes. There is a rule in baseball that if the ball hits the ground of the third strike, you are allowed to run to first. On a strike 3 looking call, Josh Thole, who sucks, dropped the ball and Hunter Pence was safe at first. You don’t see this every day because any catcher with a brain would not let this happen.
• In one of the boringest parts of the game, Angel Pagan had a 10 pitch at bat. It was torturous. He then grounded out.
• Willie Harris missed two bunts consecutively. This means he squared around to bunt two times in a row and failed both times.
• Today there was another peanut disaster under our chairs. The Shea maintenance staff are in for a long night. See below.
  

  Peanut Disaster

• In the 8th inning, the Mets had one of the worst double plays you will ever see. Pinch hitter Justin Turner struck out with a runner on third and one out. The pitch was in the dirt, so Angel Pagan decided to try to run home. He was promptly thrown out and the inning was over. The Mets were down by 1 run.
• In the 9th inning, the Mets had one of the worst double plays you will ever see. Josh Thole was up at the plate with Jose Reyes on first. The Mets had already popped up a bunt once tonight. Josh Thole then popped up the bunt while Jose was already dashing for second. Before Jose knew it, the ball was caught and he was picked off first. After a lead off single by Jose, fans had hope, but Josh Thole took away all the hope and cemented the loss.

Now I feel the need to go on a rant at the Mets. Mets. You are awful. You give your fans hope, just to take it away again. You make it so so so difficult to root for you and this is why you have lost fans every year since the year you made it to the NLCS. The next year, you had your typical Mets collapse at the end of the year. The year after was the same. After that, you just sucked. You had a random mix of former talented people and random white people and people from Latin America. You had no identity at all. Now, your fans know and accept that you suck and you aren’t doing anything to get better. You continue to not try and disappoint at every possible time. It is very hard not to root against you.

Now that that is out of my system, we look ahead to tomorrow. The pitching matchup feature Chris Cappuccino and J.A. Happ. Expect to see many runs scored and more terrible plays. On a high note, there were no actual errors in the game tonight. That will likely not be the case tomorrow. See you then!

Mets-Astros Preview

Beginning tomorrow night at 7 (as long as it doesn’t get rained out), the Mets will take on the Houston Astros in a 3 game series at Shea. The KHH bloggers will likely be in attendance to at least one of the games and possibly all 3. If you can not make it out to the game, make sure to tune in to SNY for coverage.

Shea

First off, I want to say how disgusting a matchup this will be. Both of these teams are terrible. Both teams are at 5-11 and in last place of their respective divisions. Both teams have just about no chance to make the playoffs or be interesting at all this year. Because of this, we should see 3 great games. First, I will talk about the pitching matchups we will see in this series.

When I saw the probable pitchers, I was shocked to say the least. The first game features the Magic Wand (Wandy Rodriguez) going up against Jon Niese. Both pitchers have ERA’s at about 7. In fact, every Houston starting pitcher has an ERA above 5 except for Brett Myers who we will not see in this series. How unfortunate. Even their closer, Brandon Lyon (ew) has an ERA over 5. Expect to see many runs scored in the first game of this series. My prediction is 8-7 Mets. In game 2, we will see a matchup of Bud Norris and R.A. Dickey. The last time we saw the Dick he was horrible and I expect to see the same of him on Wednesday. I really don’t want to see him pitch ever again. Bud Norris on the other, did not allow a run in his last start. His name also sounds like a classic Met-killer. My prediction is 5-2 Houston. In the third game of the series, it will be J.A. Happ vs. Chris Cappuccino. Unfortunately, we will not see a matchup of initials in this series. I was hoping to see R.A vs. J.A., but this will not happen. Instead, we have to sit through another Coffee outing. Expect many more runs to be scored by the Astros. Even though J.A. Happ has an ERA close to 6 so far this season, he is a solid starter and the Mets should be a cure to his early season woes. My prediction is 7-3 Houston.

The Magic Wand

Now we will move on to discuss the Astros’ position players. When I look at the Astros, I see a big difference between the outfielders and infielders. The difference is that I have heard of the outfields and they are solid players and the infielders are all random no-names. Carlos Lee can get some RBI’s, Michael Bourn is one of the fastest players in baseball, and Hunter Pence is a classic Astro. The infielders are just journeymen, people who should be in triple A, and Humberto Quintero, one of the best Latin names in baseball. Houston’s problem this season has been a power outage. The starters have hit a combined 6 home runs so far and nobody has more than 1. Also, only one starter is hitting over .300. That has to be a problem. Combine that with 4/5 starters having an ERA over 5, and the Astros should be happy that they are even 5-11.

Oh Boy, It's Humberto

We should expect to see a great series, filled with errors, wild pitches, 4th inning drama, blown saves, and everything else you can expect to see in a Mets-Astros series.