Dumb and Humber

The only thing worse than the Mets blowing a sure win when a fielder overran what should have been a game-ending pop would be if it occurred the same day yet another ex-Met threw a no-hitter.

Fortunately, the Mets were able to rebound from Kirk Nieuwenhuis' ninth-inning misadventure and beat the Giants, with help from the Giants and manager Bruce Bochy. Bochy decided that the bottom of the ninth was the perfect time for 35-year-old veteran 1B-OF Aubrey Huff to make his first-ever appearance at second base. Huff's failure to cover the bag helped keep the Mets' rally going before they eventually won on an bad throw by Buster Posey.

As bad as the top of the ninth was - aside from the shades-of-Luis Castillo botched popup, closer Frank Francisco was pulled in the middle of an inning after surrending runs for the fourth straight appearance - the Mets showed more heart than recent teams by coming back to win on a great play by Scott Hairston, sliding into Posey to force him to throw wildly, but making a clean slide into the catcher who missed most of last season after being hurt in a home-plate collision.
 
As for Humber, good for him. It doesn't reflect poorly on the Mets that they let him go, considering he was part of the package for Johan Santana and it took him two more stops before he found some success with the White Sox.

On Philip Humber, Phil Hughes, Breaking Up No-Hitters, and Booing After a Missed Pop-Up

Last night, when Chicago White Sox pitcher Phil Humber was in the seventh inning of a no-hit game against the Yankees, I tried to jinx him on Facebook by talking about it. And within 20 seconds (I am not kidding!), Alex Rodriguez got a hit to break up the no-hitter. It was the highlight of the evening for me! (Oh, and by the way, a friend pointed out that if Humber had succeeded in throwing a no-hitter, he would have been the seventh ex-Met to do so, with the Mets still never having a no-hitter of their own. I loved telling Squawker Jon that!)

Now, the not-so-fun stuff. After a setback Monday, Phil Hughes has a date with an MRI tube today. I don't understand why the Yankees have been so reticent about having Hughes checked out earlier. I wrote on April 9, after his second start, that he should get a medical exam. It's now April 26, and he's finally going to be checked out, weeks after being put on the disabled list. What was the holdup? Did the Yankees had to get a referral from their HMO or something?

I felt terrible for A.J. Burnett -- we had the Great A.J. last night, but the Yankees couldn't get any runs to help him.

There was something very weird that happened in the ninth inning, when Rafael Soriano was on the mound, that I thought would be a pretty big story. But I only saw it mentioned in a Wally Matthews ESPN blog entry, and at the end of a Star-Ledger game article. Alexi Ramirez hit a popup in the ninth inning. Soriano pointed and motioned, as if to say that he couldn't get it. Derek Jeter came charging in, but he wasn't quick enough catch the ball, which dropped to the ground.

And then the crowd booed. Yes, Yankee fans were booing! Now, it was unclear whether the fans were booing Jeter, or Soriano, or both, but Twitter and Facebook were all a-flutter last night over the incident. (Unless I missed it, the YES Network, of course, didn't get into discussing the booing, and didn't show the clip again in the postgame wrapup.) At any rate, I thought this would be a much bigger controversy, but it's downplayed in today's papers. Very strange.

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