Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight - Mets Write Obit

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

---Dylan Thomas

*****


(What's Maria Sharapova got to do with the Mets? Sweet fuck all. But let me ask, what do you want to look at this morning after the Braves stuck the thousandth dagger in our collective hearts? A glum Mets dugout assessing the failure of the season? Pedro Martinez frowning with disappointment? Carlos Beltran choking in the clutch? Kaz Matsui holding the ball on a certain double play to allow a run to score? I didn't think so, so Sharapove it is!)


*****

Not much can be said for this gang any more. Like so many Met teams before them they've committed the harshest of all Met sins: losing to the Atlanta Braves.

Like (virtually) all Met teams before them they let us down though this season, later than usual, fed us little morsels of hope, just enough to sustain us, nourish us to the next day when they would lay another brick of hope that this season would be almost as good as 2000.

The Mets were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, and in dropping the first two games to the Braves, they are 1-for-19 in those situations. If you don't score, you won't win, as they say in Baseball For Dummies.

Worse still they lost it and the season with their ace on the mound. For Pedro Martinez, the alleged King of New York, it was his 7th loss of the season against 13 victories and although the Mets bullpen blew their fair share of potential Pedro victories earlier on this year, in the end, the truth of the matter is, for whatever reason, Pedro faded in the second half. Since the All Star break he is 3-4 with a 3.41 ERA. Granted, this isn't a stunning failure as much as an inability to maintain an obscene level of greatness for an entire 162 game schedule. We knew this and might think harder next season about starting Pedro's season sometime in late June if we expect to be competing still by September. We won't mention the bonehead play that caused a run in the 6th because frankly, even had he thrown Giles out at the plate, it still would have been a 2-1 Atlanta victory instead of 3-1.

For the alleged superstar of Queens, Carlos Beltran, it was another listless evening filled with failures - painful reminders that unlike the Astros of last season (who appear to be managing just fine without him), the Mets will not be led into the postseason by a burst of Beltran blasts. Instead we will see another night of ineffectual Beltran fly outs, another man left in scoring position without being brought home, another night of wondering why not instead of thanking the baseball gods that we did it. Note to Carlos: Met fans will not be generous next season and anything less than explosive will give you 81 loud and long reminders at home that we do not appreciate the overrated.

John Smoltz, coming back into the rotation from the bullpen, improved to 3-1 with a 1.61 ERA in four starts against the Mets this season.

Not that it matters. If it hadn't been Smoltz, it would have been Thomson or Hudson or Ramirez or some other character plucked from the pages of nowhere into Braves immortality.

*****

The Mets fall to four games behind in the Wildcard race and although technically and numerically, there is still a chance, it is the chance of a snowball in hell, momentum pissed away.

There is another game to be played tonight. Somewhere, perhaps in the living rooms of Philadelphia or Houston or Washington or Florida, it will be meaningful but not, I'm afraid anymore in Queens.