Here's what taking two-out-of-three games on the road against the best team in the National League will get you-- Giants bloggers are actually experiencing glee. And why not? They did take two from the Mets in three incredibly tough, well-fought games, the game on Sunday being one of those only in baseball epics that skirts the line between high comedy and high tragedy, something that happens when you blow two leads late and have a starting pitcher used as a pinch-hitter late in the game. The starting pitching is coming along, the bullpen has steadied (excepting Benitez's choke job), mighty Mo comes of the DL today, and the Giants start a stretch where sixteen out of nineteen games are against losing teams. Here comes the Big Run.
Well, not so fast.
Sad to say, we've spent the better part of the last three seasons constantly thinking the Giants were on the verge of the Big Run, only to see the team fall quickly back into their typical pattern of being mired in middling mediocrity. We shouldn't even have to bring up the fact that before the Mets series, the Giants lost two out of three to the cellar dwelling Fish and did so with nary a sign of life. We could have sworn the big Giants' run would have came after their epic four run, ninth inning rally against the Dodgers a month or so ago, but that turned out more a blip than bloop.
In other words, there's still a good chance that what we got here is what we got here-- a slightly over .500 team. In fact, yesterday's game pretty much summed up the season so far. Morris pitched well but made a really bad pitch a 0-2 pitch that seasoned veterans are not supposed to make. Ellison made a great defensive play (only to be robbed by the ump) but followed that up with some bad base running. Barry got an RBI but went 0-3 and couldn't get to a ball in the outfield. And Feliz looked just awful up until he hit the game-winning hit. In other words, this game was nothing but one big "yes, but..." and so far, this season is falling according to design.