The Mets proceeded to lose the last two games of the series to the Marlins. Then they lost two of three to the perennial bottom-feeding Washington Nationals. Then they lost two of three to the Colorado Rockies. They entered a series against the St. Louis Cardinals and lost the first game. Their record stood at three wins and seven losses. It was Mets baseball as usual.
This leads me into my second 2010 Mets game story.
The matchup for the second game of the series pitted the aforementioned Johan Santana against Cardinals rookie Jaime Garcia. Game time was set for 4:05 (the game was on FOX, and took place in the Central time zone, explaining the slightly odd game time).
I was at my friend Joe’s house that afternoon. We were playing some dumb online game which we were obsessed over for a couple of hours. Every once in a while I would go to his nearby TV and check the score of the Met game.
His family invited me to stay for dinner and I obliged. At this point it was around 7 o’clock. As we ate our pizza, we turned on the TV in their kitchen. The game was still tied at 0-0 in the 10th inning. In that inning we saw Alex Cora, who had close to zero career experience at first base, dive into the stands to make an inning-ending catch.
After we finished our pizza, we played Skip-Bo, a relatively non-notable time passing card game. Joe and his dad each won one game. At this point the game was still scoreless, and in the 13th inning. We put away the card game. The time was around 8:30 PM, and, being not exactly party animals, that meant it was nearly the point where we called it a day. We’d just watch another inning, we said.
In the bottom of the 14th inning, with the game STILL scoreless, Joe Mather (remember this name) doubled off of Mets pitcher and 34-year old Japanese import Hisanori Takahashi. Brendan Ryan reached on a Takahashi error and advanced to second on defensive indifference. The Cardinals had runners at second and third with no one out. Surely they would break through here. This game can’t stay scoreless forever, we thought.
Two strikeouts later, the superhuman slugger Albert Pujols stepped to the plate. A base was open, so we walked him (this was a common theme throughout this game). Due to a dumb earlier move by St. Louis manager Tony La Russa, slugger Matt Holliday was gone from the game and the pitcher now batted behind Pujols. Instead of having to face the fearsome Holliday, we easily struck out the feckless Blake Hawksworth.
So I would stay for the 15th, I thought. My mom texted me that she was going to sleep, but that she left the door open. I live five houses down from Joe’s house, so that wasn’t a concern. In the top of the inning the Mets went down 1-2-3 (Hawksworth was not feckless on the mound like he was in the batter’s box). In the bottom of the 15th, rookie fireballer Jenrry Mejia entered the ballgame for the Mets. I was at the point where I wanted to call Mets manager Jerry Manuel and say “USE K-ROD ALREADY!”. K-Rod, for the uninformed, is Francisco Rodriguez- a declining but still very good reliever who was available in the Mets bullpen. Manuel sadly still refused to use his closer in this game. After two quick outs, the Cards drew a walk and singled to put runners at first and third.
“They’re going to blow it here,” I said, and my tired confidants concurred.
They didn’t blow it though. Mejia got Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan to ground out. We would go to the sixteenth inning, still locked in a 0-0 tie.
We all stayed put in the kitchen, eyes fixed to the TV. The top of the 16th was uneventful and was highlighted by an Angel Pagan single. The bottom of the 16th began. As the FOX camera crew showed the mound, there stood Mejia again.
I yelled “DAMMIT JERRY JUST BRING IN K-ROD ALREADY!” or something of that sort. I don’t think he heard me, sadly. The bottom of the 16th saw the Cardinals finally use their last position player, backup catcher Bryan Anderson. Anderson came up with one out and men at first and second. A groundout and Ryan Ludwick baserunning blunder later and we headed to the 17th inning, and still both teams were scoreless.
The FOX Sports research team or whoever the hell coordinates this nonsense started giving their viewers a barrage of completely meaningless statistics designed to put this game into proper perspective. This was the longest scoreless game since 1975, the longest game the Mets had played since 2006, nonsense like that which had no application to the game at hand.
The 17th inning saw literally almost nothing except Tony La Russa finally using his closer, Jerry Manuel bringing in Mexican League import Raul Valdes rather than K-Rod, and me yelling about how Valdes was in rather than K-Rod. This inning, like the sixteen others before it, would be scoreless.
I finally went home just before the 18th inning. After sitting in the Bevilacquas’ kitchen for the past 3 hours watching the Mets and Cardinals not score runs, I resituated myself in my bed. I proceeded to laugh out loud and roll on the floor laughing when La Russa brought in infielder Felipe Lopez to pitch, and pitcher Kyle Lohse in to play left field.
The Mets didn’t score this inning, though we may have if pitcher Raul Valdes hadn’t foolishly chosen not to slide into second base after his first major league hit. I shook my head in disgust. Damn, this was pretty sad! The Mets couldn’t score a run off of an infielder who was pitching. For those who are unaware, non-pitchers typically don’t have success on the mound on the major league level (that’s why they’re not pitchers). It seemed at this point that I could step onto the mound and hold either of these teams scoreless for an inning or two. You began to feel as if it were just destined to continue on forever.
The Cardinals did not score off of Valdes in the bottom of the 18th inning. This sent the game into a 19th inning. They had been playing for 6 ½ hours, played two full regulation games basically, and yet things still churned on.
In the top of the 19th, the Cardinals, surely just fooling around at this point, brought in outfielder Joe Mather to pitch. And believe it or not, after humiliating themselves once again by swinging at pitches thrown by a guy who clearly could not find the strike zone (considering said guy wasn’t a pitcher), they managed to score a run on a sacrifice fly by Jeff Francoeur. Amazing!
For the bottom of the 19th, Jerry Manuel was faced with a difficult choice. Should he go look for a glove and enter the game to pitch, or should he bring in his best reliever Francisco Rodriguez? Finally, he made the right choice. I was thrilled. Of course, since this game was crazy, K-Rod blew the save opportunity. Cards catcher Yadier Molina (brother of the infamous Bengie Molina) drove in a run with a single. We were tied at 1 run apiece. This was just dumb.
We headed to the 20th inning. Mather was still in for the Cardinals (as pitcher Kyle Lohse still stood in left field). The Mets scored another run on a sacrifice fly. They led 2-1. In the bottom of the 20th, starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey came in for the save and finished off the Cardinals. The clock was at just about 11 PM. This game took 6 hours and 53 minutes to complete. That’ll be one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
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