Ouch Ollie Part Deux

Well, the first series of the season is over, and all-in-all, it was a great series for the Mets.  A few notes:

Watch out J.J.: there’s another prankster in the bullpen.  Frankie thought he’d joke and kid with the fans in the 9th yesterday and loaded the bases with one out.  Then he decided to close it quickly, striking out one and then (in dramatic fashion) getting the final batter to fly out to the warning track.  Nice that you’re easing us into this whole idea of being comfortable with any size lead in the 9th.

I hate Indiana: apparently, my area of Indiana is close enough to Cincinnati so that I get blacked out for all the Reds games, even though you’d never find them on TV.  I was forced to follow the game via radio, and although I loved listening to Howie, it just wasn’t the same.

Big Pelf: It was nice to see him settle down after the first.  Yeah, he did give up four early, but he was able to get out of it and follow up with four scoreless innings.

Kevin Burkhardt fails at life: pre-game he interviewed Bruce, post-game it was ’09 Met killer Votto…can you not find any Mets players to talk to???

Difference from ’08-’09: a bullpen that can actually save games (even the ones Johan started), come from behind wins…with all these changes, it’s nice to see that there is some consistency between these two years (because regardless of how ’08 was portrayed, we were pretty good): Ollie is still…well, Ollie.  Oh geez, 8 runs in 4.1 innings?  Against the Reds?  Yep, that’s the Ollie I lost my beautifully manicured nails to last season.  Don’t worry, nails are gone already in 09!  His next start should be against the Padres…looks like we’re in for another rough game (remember, he pitches to the competition).

HD Rocks: after an overnight train ride, I made it home in time to shower before the game, and then enjoyed my first Mets game in HD of 09…and let me tell you, it is amazing.  How am I ever going to go back to watching games on my tiny computer screen?  One month until I’m home for summmer!

I’m not too worried about this loss.  This wasn’t one of those games that we’re going to look back on down the stretch and be kicking ourselves for letting that one get away.  No team goes undefeated, and even the little guys beat the good teams many times over the season.  If we can take 2/3 of every series, I will be a happy camper.

I’m home for Easter break (yay) and that means that I get to watch 4 Mets games on TV.  Yeah, I watch them via MLB.tv at school, but you miss pre and post game and it’s slightly delayed…I’d much rather watch them like I watch them at home.  Plus, like I said, not too many Mets fans at school (although I did get in a shouting match with a couple of Phillies fans at a party Friday…don’t worry, I held my own).

In other news, I am still sick (just a sore throat now though) and am aware that I am probably contagious.  Apparently, other things are contagious too.  What, you may ask?  Bad bullpens.  You know that one kid that comes to school sick one week, sneezing over everyone?  And then the next week, he’s perfectly healthy but three or four other kids are sick and blaming the first kid?  Yeah, well the Mets bullpen is the first kid, and Atlanta is one of the others (hopefully there will be plenty more to follow).  But seriously, did even the 08 Mets bullpen give up 8 runs in one inning?????  (if the answer is yes, please don’t tell me!)  I mean, you can’t even say that the Phillies won that game, they just sucked less.  Which, ironically, is exactly how I wanted this series to go.  Congradulations, Phillies, you are excellent at watching Atlanta pitchers self-destruct and walk like 3 guys on 13 pitches.  Trust me, I doubt Frankie and JJ will be that kind.

Hey, a .667 record isn’t bad…it got us a World Series ring in ’86, maybe it’ll do the same in ’09!