Man oh man oh man oh man oh man.

That’s pretty much what I was thinking (heavily edited for family-friendly audience) as I watched Jon Niese — Jon Freaking Niese! — shutting us down, followed by whoever happened to make up the Pirates’ bullpen also shutting us down with little trouble.  And it didn’t get any better when Juan Nicasio and company shut us down as well.

It was your standard circa-2013 Mets offensive performance: two runs in two games, too many strikeouts, too few hits, and an estimated sixty-seven double plays grounded into.  It was completely unwatchable — and not just because I couldn’t get in front of a TV.  I daresay it would have been unbearable to watch even had I had the capability to watch it.

Jon Niese?  Did it have to be Jon freaking Niese?  Niese, who was perpetually malcontent and grumpy when he was here, the benefit of lucky defensive play after lucky defensive play, fortunate fielder position and line drives that just couldn’t buy a spot in the outfield grass, ball after ball that should have been hits but just couldn’t get there?  Why did it have to be Niese?

And, for that matter, what is it with the Pirates?  We’ve now lost at least eight in a row to them — home, away, 2015, 2016, it doesn’t matter.  We can’t beat the Pirates, which, I must say, is somewhat strange, seeing as the two pitchers we threw out today had E.R.A.s under 3.00, and the two opposing us had E.R.A.s above 4.00.

But hey, what can you do?  We’ll turn it around.  Keep the faith.

Honestly, it’s late, we played eighteen innings of awful baseball, and politics wonk that I am, I’ve been absorbed in Democratic returns for hours.  So I’m not too interested in begging recalcitrant Mets fans to keep believing in a team that just played badly for all of a day.

Tomorrow’s a new day.  We’ll get ‘em eventually.  But boy, today really sucked.