Mar 27 2019 10:15 AM
You know, Hey, Nineteen, my ass. The season begins tomorrow, and Edgy is only up to L? That shit's only halfway through the alphabet. I'll be damned if you're gonna start the season without Hey Nineteen-ing me.
It's typical of me. I get jerked around, like, A LOT. I help save the 2016 season by working it like a velociraptor down the stretch. I'm starting games and spin-rating, and suddenly a depleted staff is re-energized and we make the post season.
So, the next year, I get like half a season of starts. And I didn't prosper. I OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE that I didn't prosper. But the Mets kind of lost faith in me even as I was turning a corner, but come on, I missed the first half of the season with a partially torn UCL after pitching for my beloved Puerto Rico. That's some serious shit. I'd already been through spinal fusion surgery in the minors and it was all very disturbing. I didn't feel the same confidence letting my curveball rip.
So, you know, a lot of teams were all, like, "Hey, Mets, if you've lost faith in that fake Puerto Rican guy, we'll take him off your hands for some future interests."
And suddenly, the fickle Mets were all, like, "No, fuck off. He's our boy. You know why? Spin rate, bitches." I guess I was happy, but I hadn't really been feeling like I was their boy.
So they give me another shot. In the bullpen. I'm all, like, "WHAT? THE? FUCK?" I'm no bullpenner. But I'm a dude, so I pour myself into my work. The Mets know I'm a starter, of course, so I think if I tear ass as a long reliever, they're bound to give me another chance. I mean, their fifth starter is Jason Vargas and he's a vet that got hurt in spring training. Something's got to give.
You know what I did? I tore ass. I didn't further tear my UCL neither. And then I waited patiently, while they cycled through starters. Starters that weren't named Lugo. They threw starts to the likes of Matt Harvey (LOL!) and P.J. Conlon, and they refused to deploy the stud missile that was biding his time in the pen, and bailing all these fakers out, no less.
I finally get a chance in the rotation at the end of May. Oh, first they had to "stretch me out," which is bullshit. Like I never pitched into the fifth before and it would be like thin oxygen or something. So I tore ass, which I am wont to do, in the first two starts, got hit hard in my my third, and then pitched more or less OK in the next two. I say that's a pretty good array of starts for a guy who has been banned from the rotation all that time. Be patient and you'll see more of ... nothing. They sent me back to the pen. And then the parade of pretenders starts again. Oswalt, Gagnon, Flexen, Blevins. JERRY FUCKING BLEVINS got his first career start and I'm sitting there in the bullpen revving my engines like a doofus.
Nothing I can do about it except pitch well, dazzle 'em with spin rate, and tear all kinds of ass ... and maybe grumble about not starting. It ain't fair, but it's a living. How's it going to spill out in 2019?
Oh, wait ... ¡Viva, Puerto Rico!
