Into each baseball fanatic's quest to get to as many games as possible...

A little rain must fall.  After five baseball games in five different cities, I finally went to a game in New York.  Actually, I went to three games, two at Citi Field and one at Yankee Stadium.  I was planning on covering that all in one post, but my day last Saturday at Yankee Stadium really deserves it's own post.  So for now, I'll tackle the two Dodgers-Mets games I went to two weeks ago at Citi Field.


My dad and I went last Friday night to Mets-Dodgers with one of his friends that he used to work with.  It had rained all day and I was hoping they would call the game before we left the house.  I didn't feel like sitting and waiting during a rain delay.  I figured the game wouldn't be finished, so I just wanted it called before I wasted any time there.  As it turned out, they got the whole game in without a delay.


We were running a little late to get to the stadium.  We picked up my dad's friend first and then headed to the game.  My dad told his friend that I wanted to get to the game on time so that I could see Matt Kemp's first inning home run.  We made it to the game on time and Matt Kemp did hit a home run off Johan Santana.  Santana only lasted three innings.  Luis Cruz hit his first career home run and the Dodgers had a 6-2 lead after three innings.  I thought those home runs wouldn't count because the rain was coming down pretty hard in the second and third.  But right when I thought the game was going to get delayed, it started to lighten up.  The Dodgers held on to win 7-6, with Aaron Harang getting his seventh win of the season.

This was my view for Friday night.  I'd rather sit behind home plate, even if I was higher up.  But the good thing about these seats was that it was easier to judge fly balls than when you're sitting behind home plate.

My dad and I went again on Sunday, with the Dodgers going for their first sweep in New York in 10 years.  On the way into the stadium, I came across this for the first time:

The site of Shea Stadium's home plate.  The other bases and the pitcher's rubber were also marked.  So that was cool.

We sat up high behind home plate.  One of the best parts of this game was sitting in front of these guys that had songs and/or chants for every Mets batter.  They were really really good.  For Ruben Tejada they had one that went, "Ay yi yi yi, our shortstop is Ruben Tejada.  It should be Reyes, but Ruben costs less, so now we have faith in Tejada."  They had a few for Lucas Duda, but my favorite was just "Duda Duda Duda" to the tune of the Super Mario Brothers underground music.

We were one section away from being directly behind home plate.

As for the game, the Dodgers took a 2-0 lead in the fourth when Juan Rivera's blast cleared the Great Wall of Flushing.  Other than that, Jon Niese pitched well for the Mets, allowing 3 runs in 7+ innings.  In what turned out to be Nate Eovaldi's final start with the Dodgers, he allowed 1 run and 7 hits in 4 and a third.  The Dodgers led 3-2 in the ninth, but Don Mattingly didn't want to use Jansen or Bellisario because they had pitched the previous two days.  Former closer Javy Guerra blew the save.  If the Dodgers lost because their two best relievers were unavailable, I could live with that.  The Mets had plenty of chances in the ninth and extra innings to score and win, but they couldn't do it.

The teams combined to use 40 out of 50 players.  That's Clayton Kershaw pinch hitting and successfully executing a sacrifice bunt.

Before I get to how the game ended, I was really bothered by something as the game went on:  people were leaving.  It wasn't a blowout (if people wanted to leave after the Dodgers took a five run lead, I'm fine with that, but they were leaving long before that).  It wasn't too hot (the high in Flushing that day was 83 degrees).  It wasn't late at night on a weeknight.  Where were these people going?  In the words of Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, that's a bad job out of the Met fan in that scenario.


The Dodgers ended up scoring 5 runs in the 12th and won 8-3, completing a three-game sweep in which the Mets never had a lead.  But I want to focus on a decision made by Terry Collins.  With the game still tied, the Dodgers had runners on first and third with Andre Ethier coming up and two outs in the 12th.  Because of a double switch, the pitcher's spot was up after Ethier.  Collins decided to walk Ethier and put another runner in scoring position.  Matt Traenor came up as the pinch hitter (the last available position player for the Dodgers).  I think Traenor was hitting .208 coming into that at bat.  With two strikes, he hit a two-run single and the Dodgers ended up tacking on three more.  Obviously, the move completely backfired.  And generally, you don't want to intentionally walk a guy with a runner on first.  I think it was the right move, though.  Ethier is the second best hitter on the Dodgers.  The Dodgers bullpen didn't have many guys available, so if Ethier got out, the Dodgers were leaving  Josh Wall (who ended up getting the win in his Major League debut) in the game to pitch the bottom of the 12th.  And it made the Dodgers use their last position player.  So by walking Ethier, you avoided pitching to the second best hitter on the team, you got another pitcher out of the game for the Dodgers, and forced the Dodgers to use their last position player (who was somebody hitting almost .100 points lower than Ethier at the time).  It was good strategy, but it didn't work.  Things like that are another reason I love baseball.