Dallas Green Gives Not Profanity-Laced Advice on Having Patience

Does the New York Post go out of its way to make the Mets look like a frolicking gaggle of pre-pubescent, pigtailed girls?  I have never seen a 1-2 punch of newspaper-sports team that seems to make a habit of informing the public that their favorite club consists of 25 guys playing an increasingly giggly game of grab-ass?

Mm-hmm.

Also, it’s live chat time tomorrow night, so show up, or miss out on the hilarity of three guys who know what they’re talking about and me, a guy who likes to shout at walls after bumping into them.  Which wouldn’t happen so often if they would just learn to GET OUT OF MY WAY.

And you like hockey, obviously, because it is a sport where half serial killers/half gladiators glide around on razor sharp blades and the only punishment for crimes that, if committed anywhere else would land you in prison for ten years, is two minutes in a clear plastic box.  So go here.

Padres 6, Phillies 5

So you may have noticed that I decided to start today with a grade school level insult to a team we didn’t even play. But childish bitterness has no place on this blog, at least today, because the Phillies took two out of three from the first place Padres.  And in the grand scheme of things, that’s a slow exhale, and for once, I don’t taste blood.

There were some blips on the EKG this weekend.  Offense was surfacing in a way we haven’t seen in over a fortnight:  at all.   Friday and Saturday were slow advances in the uphill return to form, with Sunday being a short, embarrassing stumble backwards.

What could have been a nice little recovery sweep ended sourly, making today’s game all about one pitch.  It was thrown by Heath Bell, it was 97 miles an hour, and it was swung at and missed by Jayson Werth.

Bell has the potential to really Lidge things up, and he seemed like maybe he would, and then didn’t.  Placido Polanco tried getting a little aggressive going to third with one out, and then couldn’t.  People were coming up short all over the diamond.

But the “two weeks ago Phils” wouldn’t have even made it a game, fought back, put the bat on the ball, or smiled willingly.  Or gotten to third base.  Or been able to say “Well, we took the first two.”  Or moved… quickly… and… with the intention to score.

There were 11 hits, and 5 runs.  There were numbers higher than zero and runners in scoring position.  There was progress.  After tomorrow, if all that can be said about this series is that it ended and we didn’t truly humiliate ourselves (Polanco being thrown out at third was ballsy on his part, and he had the right idea, so whatever), hey, cool.  We’re a team again.

"“Best thing he can do is have patience.”"

This is Dallas Green talking about Charlie Manuel in the midst of our recent unpleasantness.  Of course, Green giving advice about patience is like somebody trying to tell the Mets how to touch each other’s butts.  He’s kind of an expert. At screaming his patience away.

But, in regards to patience.  We don’t have any in Philly.  We’re very enraged, most of the time.  And now, it’s getting hotter and humid-er and everybody’s sweating and yelling and the A/C doesn’t work in anybody’s cars and the garbage is piling up and me, my speakers don’t work, so if I want to hear sound, I have to wear my headphones, and then my ears get really hot and my head feels like it’s going to explode.

So, patience is running a little thin in Philadelphia.  Also, the rage thing.  That’s year round.

Everybody, from Dallas Green to Chipper Jones, has said our bats waking up is just a matter of time.  I almost don’t even want to mention the minor success we experienced this weekend, with Ryan Howard especially stepping up, because I’m worried it’ll be scared off.

But that’s baseball:  A series of terrifying moments in which you learn that from your seat on the couch, or your computer chair, or your prison cell, that there is nothing you can yell at the TV or car radio or 400 level seating that will change this game.  Patience, as fans, is all we really have to offer.

It’s a healing process.  It can get a little messy.

TBOH is on Twitter, guys.  Also, Facebook.  Come on.