Mets fans wish it was still raining after disastrous start to doubleheader

All throughout December, January, and February, baseball fans count down the days until the season will arrive. It's a romantic and heartwarming notion, that one day in the not-so-distant future the cold, short, baseball-less days of winter will be replaced by the warmth of spring and the beautiful sound of the crack of the bat.

Finally the season arrives, but if you're a Mets fan, there's no romance, and certainly no beauty. Instead, you wonder what it was you've really been waiting for as the inescapable reality of another lost season smacks you squarely in the face.

The Mets are 0-5, and the worse news is that they have to play again in less than an hour. Three times already this season, Steve Cohen's ballclub has seen its game be postponed by rain, and perversely, those three days have been the best three days of the season so far. Like the Scottish-American rock band Garbage, Mets fans are only happy when it rains. Perhaps that band name is fitting for the product Mets fans have had to endure.

Mets fans don't ask for much, they'd just like to win a game

Thursday's doubleheader-opening loss to the Tigers was the cruelest one yet, as the Mets actually jumped out to a lead in this one behind the clutch two-out hitting of Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty, two of the youngest players on the roster. That 3-0 advantage was slowly leaked away, though, as the undefeated Tigers scored runs in the sixth, seventh, and eighth on a sac fly, a passed ball, and a home run.

Adam Ottavino gave up the tying homer, robbing the few people that showed up to Citi Field of their first chance this year to see Edwin Diaz in a save situation. Diaz did come in and shut the Tigers down in the ninth, but the Mets were unable to win it in the bottom half. The same thing happened in the 10th, as Jorge Lopez set Detroit down 1-2-3, but again the Mets failed to convert.

Mets fans have seen this movie one too many times, and it was clear that this game would end like so many have before. Baty tried to save the day by throwing a runner out at home in the 11th to preserve the tie, but Michael Tonkin promptly gave up a double and a couple of bloop singles to blow the game open anyway. The Mets managed to get Pete Alonso to the plate with a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the 11th, but the Polar Bear struck out swinging.

With the second leg of the doubleheader about to begin, we'll soon see if New York can get into the win column, or if rain really is the best conditions that Mets fans can hope for. The Mets don't play the 0-7 Marlins until May 17. Hopefully at least one of them has a win by then.