If you’ve found yourself uninspired about the 2013 New York Mets. If you’ve been looking for a reason to get excited about this season. If you’ve been looking for a solitary reason to believe. Well, the Mets’ 11-2 Opening Day demolition of the San Diego Padres was exactly what you needed.
How could you not take notice?
The game featured more than adequate starting pitching, solid relief work, clutch hitting and even a grand slam. The Mets’ already ostracized outfield corps went a combined 4-for-12, with three walks, six runs batted in, and the aforementioned grand slam. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the four strikeout performance by Ike Davis, there really wasn’t much negativity to be taken away from the first game of the season.
However, please heed this warning. It was only the first game of the season. Met fans, every single one of us. are searching for something. Whether it’s just a reason to head out to Citi Field, or to turn on the television and watch, or even a reason to simply stick around at this point.. each and every one of us is trying to find that one reason to believe. For some, yesterday’s game was just that. It was great. Great enough that as Colin Cowgill crossed the plate after his seventh inning grand slam my wife stared at me as I muttered over and over again, “I will not buy in..I will not buy in..I will not buy in.”
You see as much as I want to believe, I’ve spent the last two months convincing myself that the reason to watch this season was the maturation of young players like Matt Harvey and Ruben Tejada, along with the eventual promotion of Zack Wheeler and Travis d’Arnaud. I entered last season under a similar guise, but crumbled quickly under a 4-0 start that saw me quickly invested once again for the long haul. Of course that eventually led to the annual mid-summer heartbreak that we’re all so accustomed to at this point.
So while I, like many of you I’m sure, fight the urge to once again dive head first into the shallow end of what has all the makings of a fatally flawed 2013 New York Mets season, lets all remember that our team boasts a roster of unproven players searching to find their own way. Is it possible they shock the world as the Oakland Athletics did last summer? Sure..but its far more likely that we’ll soon be wallowing in the puddle of self pity we frequent each season. Only time will tell. If you chose to take the plunge early, don’t say you haven’t been warned!
Follow me on Twitter at @RobPatterson83.
