Giants give Mets a feel-good win, lose 11-4

We have officially reached “I’m not mad, this is actually funny!” territory on the 2017 season.

The odds were against the Giants going into tonight’s game. A night game in Atlanta last night, with an hour and a half rain delay, followed by a cross-country flight does not add up to a win. I’m just proud none of them fell asleep on the bench. Truly, they were the real winners tonight.

Wait, no they weren’t. They were blown out by the Mets. The Mets, for crying out loud! Look, this series is a “two terrible teams enter, one terrible team leaves with some dignity” situation and tonight was a bad start. They made the 2017 Mets look like the baseball equivalent of the Monstars.

And, hey, good for the Mets. Everybody needs a good night now and then. Five Mets players had three hits a piece, the team had 20! Their bullpen was solid, pitching three and a third scoreless innings. Someday the 2017 Giants might know what that feels like. Maybe.

Meanwhile, the Giants. Oh, the Giants.

Let’s look at some positives. Cory Gearrin pitched two scoreless innings, allowing only a hit! That’s encouraging! Mark Melancon pitched through traffic in the ninth inning, but managed to get out of it unscathed!

/checks notes furiously

Umm, Brandon Crawford was robbed of a grand slam! I know, I know, that doesn’t sound like a positive, but if you mentally squint and imagine they weren’t playing at home, alternate-universe Brandon Crawford had a grand slam! And Buster Posey had a 9th inning home run as well!

Alternate-universe Giants would still have lost by five runs, but at least there would have been dingers.

Now on to some less positive things. Ty Blach barely made it out of the third inning, having allowed 11 hits and seven earned runs, all of which came by the end of the second inning. We’ll get back to that inning in a minute, but that’s not great.

Steven Okert, who was called back up earlier today, gave up four hits and three earned runs in one inning. Josh Osich, the other resident lefty, pitched two innings and gave up three hits including a home run to Lucas Duda. At this point, I’ll take it.

Back to that second inning. The score was tied at one run a piece as Blach took the mound in the second. Then suddenly, Oprah Winfrey appeared, announcing extra-base hits for all Mets players. The Giants had to comply because it’s Oprah Winfrey and she makes the rules.

We’re not talking well hit liners into the gap, we’re talking doubles off the end of the bat that just found every single hole in the Giants’ defense.

I made a list of how the inning played out, recount the horror with me, won’t you?

Double, pop-up, double, sac-fly, single, home run, double, double, double as the Mets batted around and scored six runs. For those keeping track at home, that’s five doubles, six extra-base hits, and 11 hits overall in the first two innings.

The Giants had the makings of a rally of their own in the sixth inning. Joe Panik singled to get it started, followed by a walk from Brandon Belt. Austin Slater singled to load the bases, bringing up Crawford who hit the imaginary home run that was actually just a long sac-fly that scored Panik. Nick Hundley walked to reload the bases, and Gorkys Hernandez hit a bloop single that scored Belt and Slater.

Then Kelby Tomlinson struck out to end the inning, just as Mike Krukow was saying there was no one else you want at the plate with a two-strike count.

Mind you, the Giants were down 10-1 to start that inning, as Okert had already allowed another rally to the Mets in the top half of the inning, but really, what does that matter. The Giants went down quietly for the rest of the game, allowing me to carefully craft this masterpiece haiku for you all:

The Giants are 1-10 over their last 11 games. Sleep well.