On The Road – The Best Worst Game Ever Played

Mets and Cardinals play on…and on and on

ST. LOUIS – The beauty of baseball is that there is no time limit.

Sure, you may think the game will end at a certain time, but it is no definite.

You may budget three and maybe even four hours under the assumption that all nine innings, and maybe even a few extra frames will play out within that framework of time.

However, you just never know.

On Saturday, the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals treated baseball to a game that included history and at times, incompetence.

What began as a start in the middle of a sunny afternoon took us all the way into the night with most of us just asking for one of these teams to emerge victorious so we can all move on with our lives.

Thank goodness, because the ending prevented me from the thinking that perhaps slicing myself with a razor blade and bleeding to death was a better option than watching these two teams one-up each other in terms of ineptness that was on display.

If you had dinner plans for the evening, this was not the game for you.

I did. How do you think that worked out?

The end result of the Mets 2-1 victory in 20 innings that lasted nearly seven hours left those on the field and in the stands drained of energy, thankful that it was finally over.

At the start, the main attraction was to see Mets left-hander Johan Santana. His mound opponent for the Cardinals, Jaime Garcia, was making only his third ever major-league start. Originally, I thought Adam Wainwright was on the mound. Clearly, I did not read the MLB.com Gameday preview correctly.


Santana against Garcia on paper looked like a mismatch. However with the Mets offense resembling that of little leaguers swinging the equivalent of wiffle-bats, even today is not a guarantee.

While Santana struggled through the first few innings, Garcia looked like Sandy Koufax, fooling hitters with an assortment of breaking stuff and not throwing a fastball (according to the stadium radar gun above 90 MPH).

With no hits by a Mets player through the first three innings, each member of our four person traveling crew put one dollar into a pool and chose a player we thought would get a hit. David Wright (chosen by Eddie), Jeff Francoeur (chosen by me), Fernando Tatis (chosen by Dave), and Jason Bay (chosen by Will) were the candidates.

Surely, one of them would get a hit by the end of this game.

Right?

In a complete stunner to all of us (well, maybe not all), the Mets went hitless for the first five innings. Angel Pagan’s looping fly to center to lead off the sixth ended the no-hit bid, but did not win anyone money in the pool. Later, with first and third with two out, Garcia struck out Wright to end the inning, costing Eddie a chance at the money.

Santana rebounded from his early game struggles to pitch seven scoreless innings. In baseball, that’s called “gutting it out”.

The Cardinals great chance to score the game’s first run came in the bottom of the eighth with two out and Matt Holliday at plate after back-to-back two out walks. However, reliever Ryota Igarashi struck him out swinging to end the threat.

Mets lefty specialist Pedro Feliciano induced a double play from Lopez in the ninth to send the game into extra innings. In the tenth, he would pull a Houdini act by loading the bases after retiring the first two hitters. Holliday came up with a chance to win the game again and Mets Manager Jerry Manuel elected to replace Tatis with backup infielder Alex Cora (the man who Scott Boras somehow finagled the Wilpon’s to pay him $2 million to play the role of babysitter and occasional part-time player) at first base. This would prove prophetic, as he would make an incredible catch by diving into the stands to make a play for the final out of the inning, sending the game into the 11th.

If Cora does not get another hit or makes another play the rest of this season, he could say that he earned his pay right there.

Little did we know that this game would turn into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Angel Pagan worked a one out walk, and as I saw him take four steps off first base, I openly stated he would be picked off soon. Two pitches later, he leaned too far and reliever Mitchell Boggs (as predicted) nailed him to retire the side.

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa then made an interesting move. He would double-switch Matt Holliday in the 12th for pitcher Jason Motte. Holliday’s spot in the lineup in the bottom half was sixth, so only a rally would bring the pitchers spot up batting behind Albert Pujols.

It’s not as if that would actually happen would it?

With Fernando Nieve in relief, he got the first two outs before surrendering a single and then having Ryan Ludwick reach on catcher’s interference. Pujols was now up, and with Motte on deck, La Russa worst nightmare became true. The Mets walked Pujols to face Motte, a pitcher who would strike out as the crowd at Busch Stadium booed lustily.

How dumb was that? And how surprised could La Russa be that this would happen? By the way, he is on his way to the mound again to make another pitching change, sending us to another two or three minute breaks in the action.

At least you can plan your bathroom breaks accordingly.

(A side note on Busch Stadium – Very older crowd that attends these games. Unlike the younger crowds that you see at other ballparks, this is normally a subdue crowd with the exception of a few idiots. They only make noise when they need to. Besides, if you were nearing AARP status, would you stand up on every two-strike pitch as we do at Yankee Stadium?)

In the 14th, everyone’s favorite new Met Jason Bay had his chance to plate the game’s first run, but he would ground into a force out to end the inning, continuing to advance the belief that he is simply stealing money and quietly wished he could return to the Red Sox.

For those keeping track, we still have yet to crown a winner in the hit pool. Our selected players are 0-for-15 since the start of the 4th inning. After four hours of game, the Mets have averaged one hit per hour.

Ineptness reaching incredible levels.

Beer sales were over after the seventh and the food selection was not doing much for me. I’m sorry, but buying the turkey leg was not going to solve my hunger issue. The plan was to get food and drinks after the game.

Problem was the game was still going.

Most of the crowd decided to get a head start on their evening while we decided to stay. Hell, where were we going? It’s not like there was much in terms of nightlife that we had not already been to the previous night. When people are giving you plenty of free admission tickets to strip clubs, you know that’s a problem.

From the upper deck, Eddie and I made our way down to behind the Mets dugout to sit.

Security did not mind. Other stadiums should take note rather than restrict access to lower levels (see: US Cellular Field). Problem is they worry about drunken unruly fans coming onto the field.

Dave and Will trooped it out in the upper deck, but soon found out they were the only ones (literally) up there and joined us.

St. Louis had another opportunity in their half of the 14th with runners on first and third with no outs. Dinner has my name on it and I’m ready to go. A Mets reliever named Hisanori Takahashi was on the ropes. He struck out Skip Schumaker (referred to us as “T-Pain” for his walkup music) and Ludwick for the second out.

Now Pujols was up again. Problem was that the pitchers spot was behind him still. The four fingers put the Cardinals slugger on first base, forcing reliever Blake Hawksworth to hit, promptly striking out to continue this charade.

Ugh.

Jenrry Mejia, the Mets highly touted pitcher (who by last count, is not able to pitch back-to-back days) came into the game because the team began to run out of pitchers. Brian Anderson, the Cardinals last available position player, came to the plate with two outs and runners on first and second in the 16th inning.

Obviously La Russa’s intelligence backfired twice and couldn’t take seeing it happen a third time, perhaps Anderson would get a hit, end this madness and look like less of a dope.

Instead, Anderson hit into double play to end the frame and kept my hunger at an all-time level and anger with this game at an all-time high. I highly doubt this will make “All Time Games” on MLB Network anytime soon.

An update on the hit pool – We still do not have a winner. All of our players have now hit 0-for-18 and Tatis, after Cora came in on a double switch, eliminated Dave from the money.

However, by reaching on an infield single in the top of the 17th, Wright is on safely. Eddie is the winner of a total of $4.00, surely to be used to buy two of the $2 O-Bomb shots at Fusion later on tonight whenever this game is over, which at this rate appears to be never as the bars would close first.

With no pitchers left, La Russa now had no choice but to have one of his position players start the top of the 18th inning. Felipe Lopez, a starter at third base when the sun was up, was now on the mound and pitcher Kyle Lohse now in left field to play defense as this game reached epic proportions of absolute ineptitude that you could only laugh at now.

This was the ultimate white flag move. When you get to this point, you are conceding defeat. If the other team cannot win now, they may as well banish themselves to Siberia.

In case you didn’t know, beer sales ended now nearly four hours ago. If you were not sober by now, call a doctor.

The recent Mets joke was that their offense couldn’t hit batting practice. Well, with Lopez pitching (with the help of a fan, we found that he had never pitched in high school or the minors) he held them scoreless.

Unreal.

Joe Mather, the Cardinals center fielder when the game began, now was in to pitch. He would load the bases on two walks and a hit by pitch (quite the rally). Francoeur hit a sac fly to deep left, Jose Reyes tagged from third and scored the game’s first run.

1-0 Mets in the 19th.

Finally!

All they had to do now was get three more outs from closer Francisco Rodriguez. He has been one of the best closers in the league, so one would think this should not be a problem.

Hmmm…

Rodriguez walked Ludwick to begin the bottom half to bring up Pujols. They had to pitch to him now unless the Cardinals did anything stupid.

On cue, Ludwick broke for second and was caught stealing.

No!

How stupid was that? What is he doing? Does he not know who is at the plate?

Pujols promptly doubled off the left center field wall two pitches later to make the move to steal even more ridiculous. Lohse grounded out and it was up to Yadier Molina (known Mets killer – see: 2006 NLCS Game 7) to keep the game going.

On 1-1, Molina lined a single to right, scoring Pujols to tie the game. It just had to be this way I guess. The looks on my fellow Mets fan faces told the story. It was a look of anger and disgust.

Eddie provided a smirk that told you “Hey, that’s the Mets for you”.

This game played the role of the song from the children’s show Lamb Chops t

hat goes as follows:

“This is the song that doesn’t end...yes it goes on and on my friend.”

Mather stayed in to pitch the 20th (who else did you think would come in, Pujols?) and after two singles moved runners to first and third. Reyes hit a sac fly to give the Mets a 2-1 lead, still needing three more outs to win.

Ironically, even having two position players throwing three innings, the Mets managed two runs that scored without the benefit of a hit against guys throwing the equivalent of BP.

Incredible.

Mike Pelfrey, the Mets starter from this past Thursday came into get the final outs and put me and everyone else out of our misery. The game was nationally televised on FOX throughout the country.

Surely, they did not expect to stay on this long and those watching on TV saw a good portion of

their evening ruined.

Pelfrey got Lopez on a ground out and Mather on a fly out. Two outs and no one on, one more out and we can all go home.

Brendan Ryan singled and then Schumaker worked a walk to move the tying run to second.

Oh no. Please not again.

It was up to Ludwick, the same man who could have sent us home earlier had he not foolishly attempted to steal second. A base hit here and a razor blade might come in play.

Ludwick took a 1-2 pitch and grounded it to second, Luis Castillo fired to first in time and the ballgame was over.

As Howie Rose would say, “Put it in the books!”

I was glad it was over. My fellow Mets fans, drained of energy, celebrated in victory. They didn’t win as much as simply survived.

Mets 2, Cardinals 1 in 20 innings. Time of the game a slightly unmanageable 6 hours and 53 minutes.

No food. No beer.

The four of us somehow pulled it off, staying from the first pitch until the end. At 10:06 PM, perhaps only 3,000 or so fans along with us remained in the park.

We were the survivors. Somehow getting through this day where we saw two teams play over two full games and try to upstage the other with utter ridiculousness as they proceeded to set baseball back about 50 years.

At least I could say I was there.