The Salad Days, As They Say

Games 21 and 22 - Mets

Mets 3, Cardinals 0
Mets 7, Cardinals 4
Record: 15-7

Sweeping the Cardinals in a 4-gamer any time during the season is impressive. Doing so via outstanding pitching when St. Louis came into town surging offensively is even more so. It just gives us denizens of Mets Township lots of reason to believe

Saturday, our troop of eight vacationers traveled to nearby Harbour Island for the day. It’s where the other half hangs, where Taylor Swift rents and Oprah owns. And we pop by for a quick visit. The island is 8 miles away from where we are on Spanish Wells, and here’s a quick rundown of how we traveled to get there:

• Golf cart
• Ferry
• Taxi
• Ferry
• Golf cart

That alone takes some doing and a chunk of cash to manage, and then you get to the super pricey island. It’s no accident that we stayed for just a handful of hours. We ran up a goodly bill at the Coral Sands resort with some good grub and a few piña coladas while overlooking waves of clear blue crashing down on pink sand. Naturally, amid all this beauty, Andrew and I also stared at a smartphone while the Mets shut out the Cardinals.

Senga is sharp, with 19 scoreless innings in a row under his belt. Bullpen’s airtight. And Pete continues to mash. A superb outing.

Yesterday we took a much shorter trip to the adjacent Russell Island, which coincidentally features a tiny but fun beach. (Hi, Rob!) The Sandbar and Grill hit the spot, with some painkillers and Sands Light beer washing down tuna poke and conch tacos. We left there mid-Mets-game to return to Spanish Wells and hit the beach. When Ryne Stanek closed the door on a 7-4 win yesterday afternoon, all was right in my world.

This week is inevitably coming off like a boastful, look-at-me series of posts, but as I reread some of the MLC historical scribblings as I embarked on 2.0, I really enjoyed the reminiscence of activities and aspects of my life from days long gone by. As such, incorporating travelogue into a drivel blog about the New York Mets (and the Boston Red Sox, ostensibly) is an appropriate part of the deal.

Brandon Nimmo made the defensive play of the game yesterday by robbing a home run from Jordan Walker, though Lindor flashed some serious leather on a 6–4 putout that put a damper on a burgeoning inning for the Cardinals. Frankie also mimicked his gorgeous game-winner from Friday night, leading off the bottom of the first by sending one upper deck. Add in Soto with a 3-RBI day, and these engines are starting to rev. The bottom of the lineup has started playing a lot less like the rear end of the lineup, just as Alvarez and McNeil are scheduled to return in the next week or so.

Being careful not to get too far ahead of ourselves in any way, it’s fair and reasonable to call these the salad days. I don’t preminisce that they will last forever, or even all that long, but it’s prudent to savor them while they exist.

Let’s go Mets!