Astros 4, Mets 3: Is This Rock Bottom Yet?

The first three weeks of the season haven't exactly gone the Mets' way, while everyone — fans, beat writers, mongos — dump ceaselessly on them. At this point they're so steeped in negativity and pessimism that every bad thing that happens only feeds the dark cloud of misery. Some more bad things happened tonight, and so the cloud continues to grow.

David Wright went 0-for-3 with two more strikeouts, and the cloud grows. Angel Pagan was tagged out trying to score from third on a passed ball in the bottom of the eighth, and the cloud grows more. Josh Thole pops up a bunt and Jose Reyes gets doubled off first in the ninth inning, and the cloud is about to burst. Trade Reyes. Trade Wright.

The Mets have dropped two straight to the Astros, who just won two straight for the first time this season. The Mets have the worst record in baseball, and they certainly haven't played much better than that. And they have a high payroll, and some people were duped into believing they'd be good, and so those people are angry and they want results and they demand that things have to change. Fire Terry. The mongos want Wallyball.

But things weren't really so bad tonight. Some flukishly bad things happened, and you can say that the Mets are somehow prone to suffering in flukishly bad ways because Moneyball is stupid and they don't play the game the right way and because they don't have the heart or the grission to compete with the heart-y, grission-y Phillies. But those things aren't really true even if people think they're true, and the Mets playing poorly certainly won't convince them otherwise (if anything will). R.A. Dickey pitched eight innings tonight, the longest outing of any Mets starter this season. That probably says more about the Mets than anything else, and Dickey still allowed four runs, but he only walked two in those eight innings and he coaxed twice as many ground outs as fly outs, both of which are great signs for him.

Reyes, who did commit a baserunning gaffe in the ninth, also had four hits and two stolen bases and has looked pretty good at the plate overall. Carlos Beltran had three hits of his own, including two doubles, and continues to look healthy in the field and on the bases. Daniel Murphy went 3-for-4 and hit his first home run of the season, a two-run, blue-collar blast to tie the game at three in the sixth. So those are all good things.

But the bad things cloud the good and so everyone is upset. The Mets are 1-8 at home, their worst ever record through the first nine home games of the season. I support everyone's right to react negatively and defeatedly, but whinging and moping don't really make me feel better, so instead I'll look forward to Jason Bay's return Thursday night and hopefully a better game from the Mets to boot.

Unintentionally sexual quote of the game: "With the pitcher backing in like that, if you go in the backside, he's got no chance." - Gary Cohen (via Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright).

K Counter by sparbz

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* The Crawfish Boxes Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Daniel Murphy, +49.1% WPA, Jose Reyes, +23.4% WPA
Big losers: Josh Thole, -40.8% WPA, Justin Turner, -32.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Murphy two-run home run in sixth, +28.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Turner strikeout in eighth, -32.7% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -22.8% WPA
Total batter WPA: -27.2% WPA
GWRBI!: Hunter Pence

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by JoeBighead; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.