There was a lot to like about the Mets on Monday night.
Jose Reyes tripled twice and continued to show that he's healthier than he's been in several years as he motored his way around the bases. David Wright hit a long home run to the opposite field to spark a comeback attempt in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Jason Isringhausen was summoned to put out a fire in the seventh inning, got the job done and, momentarily, brought some hope to the bullpen. Those were all nice things, things that felt as warm as the first beautiful day in New York this year, but they weren't enough.
They weren't enough to get the team a win and they weren't enough to overcome a feeling that, at the moment, there's more whitewash than actual change to the roster we've watched the last few years. The Mets lost 7-6 because they couldn't avoid shooting themselves in the foot.
Willie Harris lost a ball in the lights, allowing a double that turned into the first Rockie run. The second run scored following a Reyes error.
The hits kept on coming. Angel Pagan got thrown out on the bases, Ryota Igarashi couldn't make a good throw to the plate to stall a game-tying rally and Bobby Parnell airmailed another one to give the Rockies the lead.
If you saw a montage of all that sloppiness, you would swear that you were watching a tape from May 2009 or July 2010. Alas, it all went down here in 2011 alongside the stomach turning stuff we've grown accustomed to this April.
Sports
Igarashi and Parnell made their poor fielding all the worse by getting hit by Rockies batters, with Troy Tulowitzki's home run off Parnell making you think that throwing hard and straight will work out as well for the Mets reliever as it has for every other mediocre reliever featuring that skill set. Both of them had to pitch, alongside three other relievers, because Mike Pelfrey, while better than he was in Philadelphia, could only get one out into the sixth before needing relief.
It was an ugly game, one that felt all too familiar. It won't take too many more like it for an all-too-familiar pall to cover Sandy Alderson's first Mets team.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
