Beatin' Yer MEaton

This is a post I have waited to write since the advent of this blog, but first, I had to sit through six starts by Adam Eaton, grinning buffoon of defeat, a 6'2" totem of everything that I hated to watch during a baseball game. Namely, some journeyman sonofabitch, short on talent and long on having a career ERA+ of 88 (88!) baffle the Mets over and over and over again. Not that I am alone in this feeling. Other baseball fans have dealt with this before, and I'm sure everyone whose favorite team was beaten by the Satan-aided Aaron Small in 2005 pondered giving up on the game entirely. Still though, this was Adam fucking Eaton we were talking about here, not Greg Maddux or even Mike Maddux.

Yet somehow, in 9 career starts against the Mets, Adam Eaton compiled a 5-0 record with a 3.29 ERA. He struck out 36 and walked only 17 in 54 2/3 innings. Every other team he faced at least that many times took him to the cleaners, except for the Dodgers, but fuck them. It wasn't even that the Mets have lost every game Eaton started against them. It's just that they never seemed to jump on him the way they should, and even when they did, things still seemed to go awry.

Last year, Adam Eaton was 2-0 with a 3.86 ERA against the Mets. His ERA for the year was 6.29. He gave up 30 home runs. So every time I sat down in front of the TV and heard Gary Cohen telling me about the Mets' trouble with Eaton, I always figured this was the game they'd get over it, and I could write a triumphant post crowing about overcoming one's demons, and so forth.

I'd mostly given up on that, so I missed actually watching the first couple innings while I was busy trying to make sure dinner didn't become a total wreck doing something manly. I heard it from the TV, but I barely believed it. There were the Mets, stomping on Eaton like so many child muggers on an unfortunate gentrifier. I watched for a few innings then figured, even at 10-5, this was going to end a laugher, so I turned it off and started reading Watchmen, which, in retrospect seemed like a great idea. If I had kept watching, I would see things keep going awry, but for once, not completely over the cliff.

Maybe now that the Mets have finally tagged Eaton with that mythical "L", I'll be a little more calm regarding baseball's vagaries and about how sometimes a guy who I only think is good as a punchline can dominate my favorite team. When he spins his next 7 inning, 2 hit performance I'll just chalk it up to a good night for him instead of some curse. Somehow, I just don't see that in my future. I do however, see more triumphant blogging.