Midwestern Rules of Displacement

So I was having a conversation the other day with an Ohio State student. I asked her how upset they were about losing to Florida in two separate championships, in two separate sports. I paraphrase the answer:

"When we lost in football, we were too shocked to be really angry...because we were supposed to win that game. So there really wasn't a lot of anger on campus.

Then, when we lost in basketball, as we were supposed to as the underdog, we really couldn't get too upset about that, so we got really mad at the football team. And all the anger started coming out."

Displaced anger. What a concept.

And that's why I can't get upset over Sunday night's brutal loss to the Yankees, making the 2007 Subway Extravaganza a complete wash. Because I really didn't expect much from this matchup between Orlando Hernandez and Chien-Ming Wang. I figured that if the Mets went down meekly against sinkerballer Brandon Webb, their luck probably wouldn't be much better against sinkerballer Wang. Hernandez would have had to have been lights out to merely get the Mets to extra innings, and to the tenuous Yankee bullpen, to have the best chance of taking this rubber game.

Not to be.

That's why Saturday's game still sticks with me. All of a sudden, I'm throwing pizza boxes again, just as I did on Saturday, but without the shock and mindlessness of it. This time, the anger was more calculated, if not timely.

That's why the Los Angeles series still sticks with me. Swept by a team that fired their hitting coach for their lack of offense, except for their sweep against the Mets...of course.

That's why the Philadelphia series still sticks with me. Even one win would have put the Mets in a significantly better position than they are now. That one win should have been the middle game...the Aaron Heilman 0-2 home run to Jimmy Rollins and Endy Chavez exploding hamstring game.

With every loss from here on in that holds the Mets back in the standings, I'll keep being angry about those games. I'll keep throwing pizza boxes.

This upcoming homestand doesn't give the Mets a breather, as the Twins and Athletics come to town. The Mets have a chance to take care of two bugaboos that they have: Win at home, and win against tough American League competition. The Mets have an interleague record of 4-5...considering that consists of a split against the Yankees, and one win in three tries against the Tigers in Detroit, that's actually not so bad. But the Mets need to turn it around this week. They need to turn it around at Shea, where they are only 17-16, and they need to turn it around against pitchers like Carlos Silva on Monday (4-7, 4.07), Scott Baker on Wednesday (1-2, 7.33), and Lenny DiNardo on Friday (2-3, 2.21, five runs in 3 and 2/3 on Saturday).

If they wait until the 25th when the putrid defending champion comes to town, then how good will it really feel? And will they be in first place by the time that day comes? And how many pizza boxes will I have thrown by then thinking about Heilman's gopher ball, Glavine giving up thousands of runs, Hong-Chih Kuo, and Carlos Beltran swinging at the first pitch?