Yankees-Mets Recap

As Raphi put it, this was our first baseball surprise of the year and it was not predictable at all. The Mets won 2-1 in the Bronx to improve to a somewhat respectable 3-5 when we have attended their games and more importantly for them, 22-22 on the year. That is surprising enough. The Yankees fell to 1-1 in front of the KHH bloggers and 23-20 overall. After we saw R.A. Dickey lose at home to the Rockies, Astros, and Giants, he was able to win on the road at Yankee Stadium. Do you get what I mean by unpredictable? Freddy Garcia pitched well, but still got hit with the loss. There were plenty more surprises from this game but I will start from the beginning.

The first surprise of the night was that Raphi was less than 20 minutes late. This gave us enough time to go buy pizza before arriving at the Stadium. I had 2 slices and Raphi had 0, probably a very wise choice. As we were walking to the Stadium, we passed someone selling bags of peanuts on the street. There was one that was salted for $3 and one that was unsalted for $2. The cheaper one was also the much bigger one, so we thought, why not? and bought the unsalted peanuts and took them into the stadium with us. I don’t like to start eating them until at least the end of the first inning, especially because I had just eaten 2 slices of pizza, but we started eating them at 7:25, just as the 2nd inning was beginning. Before long, we had realized what we had just gotten ourselves into. This bag was ginormous, much bigger than any other peanut bag that we had had prior (and some of those were too big to handle). By the time we were a third of the way done, I was already completely sick of them and wanted to throw the rest away, but I could not disrespect the peanuts like that. We had to finish them. During the 7th inning stretch, I looked down at the peanuts and thought that I was finally almost done. The problem was that I felt that way until the top of the 9th inning when we finally finished them. We had been eating them nonstop and we only finished them at 9:45. We had been constantly eating them the whole game and it took us almost two and a half hours to finish them. Raphi deserves a lot of credit for finishing the peanuts, but I deserve to be in the Hall of Fame of peanut eaters for my performance tonight. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how many peanuts we ate:

Full Bag of Peanuts

Empty Bag of Peanuts

Ripped Peanuts

What a Catastrophe

So Gross

Even though we ate all those peanuts, there was still more food that we ate. As I mentioned before, I ate 2 slices of pizza before the game. Raphi also bought a hot dog midway through the game to get the peanut taste out of his mouth. He should enter a Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest. He can compete against Mark Sanchez (it was against the Raiders, by the way).

Also from Mark Sanchez (we need some football in this blog):

Once the game started and I had already eaten many of the peanuts, my mouth longed for something other than the peanuty badness. I decided to go search for a drink. The first drink I saw that didn’t have a huge line and wasn’t water was a lemonade stand. I didn’t really want this, but I had no other options. And it looked bad too. It looked like they just put a lemon in a cup of water. But I was very wrong. It was delicious; maybe the best lemonade I had ever drank. It was so good that Raphi also got one later. Here’s a picture of our almost finished lemonades:

Delicious Lemonades

We have calculated that we must have eaten about 3,500 calories combined tonight. That is 1,750 each, almost the amount that you are supposed to have for a day in 4 hours. When I got home I looked at my stomach in the mirror and it looked bigger than it was before, I’m not lying. And I feel like I have to throw up. Enough about food; on to the game.

The Mets lineup was pretty gross tonight. The 5-9 hitters were Fernando Martinez (also the DH, what a joke), Justin Turner, Josh Thole, Jason Pridie, and Ruben Tejada. How that team beats the Yankees, I have no idea. Justin Turner had a bunt single in his first at-bat and had 3 hits in the game. He also broke a Mets record for the most consecutive games with an RBI for a rookie with 6. Wow, Justin Turner now holds a Mets record. Another surprise was that the only run the Yankees scored the whole game came on a Mark Teixeira first row home run in the third inning. Their offense was pretty disgusting to say the least. Yet another surprise: the Mets bullpen was shockingly good. If you remember my article from a few days ago, Mike O’Connor pitched a great 7th inning and Izzy and K-Rod shut the door for the Yankees. However, Joba and David Robertson pitched well out of the Yankees’ pen.

After attending this game, I feel the need to rant at Mets fans. First, I want to take you back to a few days ago on Wednesday. There must have been less than 1,000 people at Shea to watch the Mets take on the Nationals, and the fans that were there were very unspirited. There was not much cheering. Heck, I was able to distract Gorzy to make a terrible pick off throw. Now fast forward to today. There were probably at least 10,000 Mets fans at Yankee Stadium. And most of them didn’t honestly care about the Mets. They just want the Yankees to lose. They want to prove to all the Yankees fans that their team is bad because they lost to the lowly Mets. They don’t even think that their own team is good. They only want to annoy Yankees fans. They know that their team has no chance at the playoffs, so they might as well try to ruin the Yankees’ chance. That is all. Now it’s time for a few more pictures:

Random Fernando Martinez Stat

Yankees

The Field

Our Seats

K-Rod

In other baseball news, after the Nationals were blanked 2 nights in a row against the Mets, they scored 17 tonight against the Orioles. Typical. Blue Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes pitched 7 innings and had a 2-0 lead, but the bullpen could not hang on and the Blue Jays still lost. Of note is that Jo-Jo Reyes has not gotten a win in 26 straight starts. That’s 26. Reyes is 5-18 for his career in 45 starts and his last win came on June 13, 2008 against you guessed it, the Mets (just kidding, the Angels, but I wish it was the Mets). Did you think that Jason Giambi’s power streak was just good for one game? Well it wasn’t. The Giambino went yard again tonight in Milwaukee. Keep it going big fella!

Mets Shut Out Nationals Again

In an afternoon game today, the Mets beat the Nationals 1-0, shutting them out for the 2nd time in two days. This just shows how bad the Nationals are to come all the way to New York and not even score once. To make things worse, they were shut out by Dillon Gee. K-Rod got the save for the second consecutive night as well. Livan Hernandez pitched very well for Washington, his only blunder being an RBI by Justin Turner (ew). Livan is a Mets Killer (one of many), but the Nationals offense is so bad that it doesn’t matter. I think that Laynce Nix might be their best hitter. That’s just sad.

In other news, because of the terrible weather in last night’s game, the Mets have decided to give everyone with a ticket, whether or not they ended up showing up to the game, a free ticket to Mets-Pirates on May 30. I am ecstatic. I could not be happier. Who wouldn’t want a free ticket to Mets-Pirates (or should I say Hu because I don’t think that Chin-Lung wants to be in the major leagues anymore)? This is great news and we will surely be in attendance. Hopefully Gorzy will be traded back to the Pirates before the game.

Free Mets-Pirates!

Mets-Nationals Recap

Throw Away Shirts

This game was an absolute joke. It was also my favorite Mets game that we went to. It was pouring for much of the game and there were about 10 people in the crowd. We stayed for the entire game without leaving for food or anything. It was my favorite game because nothing in the game was even close to resembling something interesting. The Mets won 3-0 and there were almost no good plays. Surprisingly, there was only 1 error in the mud, but it was a hilarious error and I will get to that later. I think that Yahoo sums up the game very well: “The announced attendance Wednesday was 24,527, but nearly all the seats were empty and hecklers could be heard from the stands.” That’s me! I will begin with my journey to Shea.

Even though we planned on meeting at 6:20, Raphi was late as usual. By 6:40, I had enough of waiting for him and decided to just leave without him on the 6:43 1 train from 79th street. Of course, as I was on the 7 train to Queens, I got a call from Raphi that he was finally on his way and he met me at the game. The entire way there the following is what I did:

Peggle Train

I arrived in the beginning of the 1st inning and was delighted to see Tom Gorzelanny on the mound. The Mets scored once in the first and twice in the sixth, and that was all the scoring of the game. In the second inning, Scott Hairston had one of the best at-bats ever against Gorzy. It went like this: pitch 1: swinging for the fences, pitch 2: swinging for the fences, pitch 3: strike out looking. He later hit a double in the game (I was shocked). One of the great matchups in this game was the battle of the Hairstons. It was almost as good as the battle of the Grahams. Scott actually went 2/3 and Jerry had two walks for Washington. See some pictures of the threesome below (keep in mind that I took all pictures shown, however, I was only able to bring my camera out when it wasn’t pouring, which wasn’t very often):

Gorzy in the Rain

Jerry Hairston Jr.

Scott Hairston

Tom Gorzelanny

Gorzy and Mets 1st Base Coach Wilson

Gorzy and Mets 1st Base Coach Wilson

Ew

When Raphi finally arrived in the third inning, I thought that he would see at most 3 innings before the game got rained out, but somehow we were able to stay for the whole game. We ended up sitting in the first row of the section right behind first base. In the 4th inning (I think?) there was a runner on first for the Mets and Gorzy was concerned about him. Whenever he looked over I waved and yelled at him. I guess this is what Yahoo means by heckling. Anyway, he made a disgusting pickoff throw to first and the runner got to second. It was pretty hilarious. He just threw the ball into the dirt. Gorzy also had another terrible inning when he walked Ruben Tejada (who played in his first game of the season) on 4 pitches. After Ruben got a hit in his first at-bat of the season, he was batting 1.000 and I got a picture of it because it was a moment to remember.

Ruben Tejada

In the 5th or 6th inning, Raphi and I wanted to get peanuts, but we didn’t want to leave our seats because we probably wouldn’t be able to get them back again. Luckily, because we were sitting in the fancy section, they gave us menus and we ordered peanuts that were brought to us. See below:

The Citi Field Menu

Unfortunately they charged us an extra 25 cents and they made sure that the peanuts were extra perfumey. It was disgusting. Also, because of all the rain, I often needed to cover up my peanuts so that they would not get wet. I care about them too much than to let something so terrible happen to them. When it was not pouring, we decided to make the game even more of a joke by creating Shea Perfume Peanut castle, presented by Petro. This shows how much we truly disrespect Citi Field. I think the pictures speak for themselves:

Peanut Castle

Also, feel free to check out a few more pictures from the game (I know, I’m getting a little heavy on the pictures at this point):

Rainy Shea

Adam LaRoche

Reyes, LaRoche, and Wilson

Adam LaRoche

Reyes, LaRoche, and Wilson

Rain Crew

During the 7th inning stretch, as the rain was pouring down, I caught a t-shirt in the t-shirt toss. And it was an impressive catch too. I had a bag of peanuts in one hand and there were other people trying to reach in and steal it, but I refused to not get my first Mets shirt of the season. The shirt is pictured at the top of this article.

In the late innings of the game, the grounds crew was constantly working on the field in between innings. See the video below. It is a joke:

After K-Rod came in for the save and the Mets won for the second time in seven tries while we were in attendance, we took a 1 train journey home. Our hands were covered in wet peanut shells because they stick to your hands and are disgusting, but despite this, we had a peggle duel which featured one of Raphi’s best ever pyramid balls. It was impressive.

Looking ahead, our next major event will be the subway series this weekend. It will be at Yankee Stadium. We probably will not go due to the prices, but if I get a good deal, anything is possible (according to Kevin Garnett: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyjOy7fRzs0). Next week will be Yankees-Blue Jays at the Stadium also, which will be a possibility for us, but what I am really looking forward to is a week from today, we will see Red Bulls-Rapids from RedBulls Arena. I can’t wait. More coming soon.

My Prediction: Rain Shortened Game

After looking at weather.com, it is pretty clear that if this game is even played, it will be shortened by rain. This is the weather forecast for Flushing, NY tonight:

Tonight's Forecast

My prediction for the game is actually a Mets win. Even though if I predict them, they will be sure to disappoint me, I can’t think that Tom Gorzelanny will actually get a win. Mets 5, Nationals 3 (6 innings).

Mets-Nationals Preview

As of now, the Mets game tonight has not been rained out and we are still planning on being in attendance. There are some changes to the teams that I wish to inform you of before the game. The biggest change is that because of the rainout yesterday, Dillon Gee has been bumped out of the rotation and replaced by the man who was supposed to start yesterday, Jon Niese. This will be our first Niese game. Luckily, Gorzy will still start for Washington. In other news, the Mets’ disabled list is growing. Here are the players now on the DL: Pedro Beato, Ike Davis, Angel Pagan, Bobby Parnell, Johan Santana, David Wright, Chris Young. The Mets’ lineup tonight is sure to be interesting. On Monday, Willie Harris started at third base. Oh boy. Because of all the injury problems, the Mets have recently called up Mike O’Connor. He is a former Montreal Expo draft pick and a former National. He played for the Nationals for 2 years before coming to the Mets this year. Those two years were 2006 and 2008. That means that he randomly took 2007 off, then skipped 3 more years, and then came to the Mets. He’s pitched for the Mets so far in 5 games this year, shockingly giving up 0 earned runs. However, his career ERA is 5.23. Hopefully we will see him tonight.

Mike O'Connor. Ew.

Rain, Rain, PLEASE Go Away

With the Gorzelanny Bowl on the horizon, Raphi and I are praying to the Jew gods for the rain to stop falling so that we can see some terrible baseball tomorrow night. To make things worse, the Mets-Marlins game tonight was rained out even though it barely drizzled, so if the Mets miss tomorrow, they will have 2 off days in a row when we could have gone to games. Why don’t the Mets just do what the Red Bulls do and make a stadium that covers the seats from rain? Because the Mets are stupid and cheap. Now we might have to miss a great matchup of Dillon Gee and Gorzy. I’m upset.

I feel like Charlie Brown

The Week Ahead

This will be a big week for the KHH bloggers. Although we will skip tonight’s Mets-Marlins game (we didn’t feel like watching Josh Johnson lead the Marlins to a 1-0 victory), we will be going to the game tomorrow to see Jon Niese vs. Ricky Nolasco. Finally, we get to see a non-Cappuccino or Dickey Mets starter. And Raphi loves Ricky Nolasco. But this is only a preview for what we will see on Wednesday. On Wednesday, we will be attending Mets-Nationals, where we will see a pitching matchup of, drumroll please………TOM GORZELANNY vs. DILLON GEE. This will be one for the ages. I personally cannot wait for this game. More to come later.

Tom Gorzelanny