Among the many troubles with living in Massachusetts and rooting for the Mets is that often our weather is on a 12-to-24 hour delay.

So this morning I woke up to slush on the ground and on the cars and had to do a little shoveling and a lot of car brushing and if the Red Sox were home today they would not play - it’s actually still snowing (not accumulating, though, right now).

But, I know this is what was coming through Queens the past couple of days, and I was hopeful it was done there in time for the Mets’ rescheduled games - a doubleheader with Detroit.

So I sent that note you see there to my weather spotter just a couple of miles from Citi Field - aka Dad.

So it looks like we’ll have baseball this afternoon - a lot of baseball. Two games!

Do the Mets break into the win column? Maybe even twice?

Let’s spend the day together and do another Thursday afternoon live blog.

For what it’s worth, Mom also weighed in on the weather, saying there was some sunshine in Queens this morning.

The girls had another early release today, everyone is home from school, we have hot dogs and chips for lunch again - it’s almost like Opening Day Take Two. (The Mets, of course, still have zero wins.) Let’s get started:

And, as always, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to join in by commenting here, or through any of the social media feeds linked at the bottom. And let’s keep things positive! (Unless things go way south today.)

12:14pm: A 1-2-3 inning for Adrian Houser. Ron Darling stole my thunder - after that first fly ball to Marte I thought, “Uh-oh, Houser needs ground balls…a fly ball might not be a good sign.” But then he got two grounders and Darling offered the obligatory “Houser is at his best when he’s getting those ground ball outs.” I guess it’s not the worst thing to be on the same page as Ron Darling.

12:16pm: Speaking of ground ball outs, I saw this morning Major League Baseball changed the little ground ball that should have been an out in the first inning on Saturday from a hit to an error on Zach Short. So that’s 3 runs that went from earned to unearned for Luis Severino, which I think is deserved. That would have been a key out. Maybe that’s a confidence booster in some way for Severino moving forward.

12:25pm: When I posted on Twitter about the post from the other day about the Mets not scoring a lot of runs, I accidentally wrote that they were 0-5 instead of 0-4. But then I made a joke that I thought was good enough to repeat here:

They’re 0-4 but it feels like 0-5. Like a wind chill factor.

I like it anyway. Might as well give it a little more exposure.

Speaking of wind chill…I was supposed to drive down for last night’s game. Obviously we were watching the weather and by Monday it looked like that would be a bad idea. And I kind of doubly won the gamble because while the Tuesday rainout tickets were supposed to be used for today, unless you exchanged them, last night’s tickets got you a rainout voucher for an equally-valued game anytime this season. That was exactly the outcome I was hoping for. My next game will be Sunday the 14th, when the Mets retire Dwight Gooden’s number.

12:32pm: Unofficial stat: Tyrone Taylor, after a really long at-bat on Sunday and a couple of foul balls there, must lead the league in foul balls.

12:35pm: Gary Cohen must be reading, just now sharing the Severino news. Hi Gary!

12:40pm: Good first three innings for Houser. And good Houser background information from the booth that half inning.

Work update, more as a way to remind myself than for your entertainment: I got a good amount of work done this morning, knowing I wanted to watch the Mets and write all afternoon. (I really like doing this.) I have two more projects for the week due by the end of the day tomorrow, which maybe I’ll be able to put a little more of a dent in later today…but I also have many hours tomorrow to complete them. There is always more time for work in the week than it seems when I sit down to work Monday morning.

12:57pm: What a good bottom of the third. The Mets just haven’t been stringing hits together…and it seems like when they do anything it’s with two outs, and they run out of outs before they rally. This time with two outs, a Francisco Lindor hit by pitch, followed by an opposite-field Pete Alonso single, set up Francisco Alvarez for a 2-run double into left field. That’s the guy you want up right now in that situation. Brett Baty followed with a walk, bringing up the other Mets hot early-season hitter, Starling Marte, and he tagged it pretty good but the ball just isn’t carrying today. Good hitting inning though - no one swung for the fences - just good contact, well-placed hits.

I should add, I like watching this Tigers team - I watched them a lot in that 2021 season, which I’m remembering now with Casey Mize back. They’ve built a good team.

1:05pm: GREAT top of the 4th. That was almost disheartening - the Mets get their first lead since - what, last Friday? - and Houser immediately walked the first two guys. Then a ground ball and a line drive double play gets him out of the inning. This is why I’m feeling good about Houser - he might allow contact, but he can get outs and get out of jams that way. That was exciting.

1:10pm: Thrilled to see Tyrone Taylor single (and steal second!) but did you notice his foul balls? This is becoming a thing. I’m going to make it a thing.

1:45pm: Tuesday night was supposed to be Bark at the Park and today’s doubleheader, as I mentioned before as far as tickets are concerned, is the makeup of that game. It’s funny that the past inning-plus you can hear a little dog yapping in the background.

Yesterday I dropped my computer and it seems to have survived the fall OK, but every so often I’m typing and I hit a key and I am reminded that yesterday I dropped my computer. It’s almost time to get a new one anyway…this might have made it a little more urgent.

Baseball news: Good start by Houser, great relief appearance by Raley, I’d feel really good about a couple more insurance runs.

1:53pm: I was just thinking tomorrow night is an Apple TV game for the Mets so I’ll be listening rather than watching…which works out well, since I was probably going to have to set up two TVs to watch the women's Final Four anyway. Now I’ll just watch basketball while listening to the Mets…and worry about the overlap while (hopefully) watching South Carolina play in the final on Sunday afternoon.

2:15pm: Well, things bave gotten a little tight here in the late innings. Wild pitches, passed balls - a one-run game. Again, a couple of insurance runs would help me rest easy.

Jake Diekman’s beard reminded me that I was thinking about shaving my beard to turn the Mets’ luck around. I grew the beard from just around Christmas time to now, basically to see how much white hair was in it. It’s been at a good length lately and I think it looks good, but it’s time for it to go anyway before warm weather kicks in. I’ve just been lazy about actually doing it.

2:26pm: See, until the Mets turn things around I’m just not going to expect them not to blow a 3-0 lead by giving up an 8th inning home run the minute I see Adam Ottavino warming up.

2:38pm: Edwin Diaz entering a game is fun. It’s a little Mets party. But it would be so much better if they were giving him some save opportunities.

2:43pm: It is nice to have Diaz back, I’ll tell you that. It would be really nice for the Mets to win the game here in the bottom of the ninth, I’ll tell you that.

2:47pm: You know, that Nimmo at-bat to walk leading off in the 1st was maybe his best at-bat so far this season. Let’s see him do that again here to lead off the 9th.

2:49pm: OK, Nimmo. Now we’re cooking.

Side note: I feel like Gary Cohen has gone out of his way not to say the home plate umpire’s name. I like that strategy, since he’s kind of an attention-seeker. I’m adopting it.

2:50pm: Hey, Brandon Nimmo stole a base! Wonderful. Maybe there’s another demon exorcised. (But he would have been out with a better throw.)

2:52pm: I’m feeling good about Alonso here. He’s had some good at-bats today.

2:53pm: OK, a walk to Alonso. First and second, one out, and I feel even better with Alvarez at the plate.

2:56pm: Getting these runs home after lead-off walks have been such an issue for the Mets. I wish I could say I’m surprised at the way that inning went, but it has been such par for the course 2023 and 2024.

3:01pm: GREAT job by Jorge Lopez. Boy would it be great for the Mets to finish it in the bottom of the 10th. I don’t think I can take it if they don’t. Baty, Marte, McNeil - seems like one of those guys can get a hit.

Side note: Starling Marte has had such trouble with fly balls to right in the daytime…but I have not seen it bother the opponents at all.

3:05pm: There are many reasons why you don’t need Brett Baty to bunt there but prime among them is the Mets are in no position to be giving up outs right now. Just let him hit.

3:12pm: I know I’m stating the obvious here, but the longer this game goes on, the worse it is for the Mets. And now Michael Tonkin is coming in - he is the one who lost Monday’s extra inning game. So maybe he can put that behind him?

To clarify my previous point: The Mets have not had good at-bats all season. Why give away an out when they’ve needed no help getting out. LET BATY PLAY.

3:20pm: Well, that was an ugly half-inning. 4-3 seemed manageable. 6-3 seems like the Mets are headed for 0-5.

3:34pm: Well, the tying run is at the plate and it’s Pete Alonso. Didn’t seem possible, but they might as well take advantage of it.

3:36pm: The season-opening disaster continues. Not sure what more to say about this team. It’s the same thing over and over. If it’s not an inability to score it’s a reliever (the same reliever) giving up multiple runs in extra innings. 6-3 in 11.

I’m going to go have a snack and take a few deep breaths and I’ll be back for Game 2.

3:55pm: Ugh. What a bummer. 3 and a half hours and they don’t make it worth it.

I keep getting ads for the Dwight Gooden number retirement game - I guess the Mets are just struggling to sell tickets this year. I will say, though - I think this is a great graphic for “Doctor K”.

I wonder if they’ll give away little posters that look like this that day.

4:10pm: Good work by the MLB.TV app not giving me a ‘Watch Live’ button for Game 2, trying to save me from myself.

I haven’t had a chance to tell this story here, I don’t think: Last week I told you how I was having LASIK on Mets Opening Day, so I couldn’t watch the game.

It turns out I kind of half slept, half watched the game, waking up every so often when the tone of the game shifted. (Which included the introduction of Veteran of the Game Seymour Wiener, which is a story for another day.)

Anyway, unbeknownst to me, one of my daughters watched the game and kept score so she could fill me in later. It was very nice of her. But the highlight for her was definitely telling me about the Veteran of the Game.

4:22pm: I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before in some form or fashion but let’s go back to 2005, the last time the Mets started a season 0-5. (Huh. 0-5 in ‘05. I don’t know that I appreciated that at the time.) That season opener I was teaching but it was a day game in Cincinnati and I TiVo’ed the game and rushed home after school, managing to hear nothing about the game, and started to rewind to watch the game.

I can’t remember exactly how this went down, but it was an ESPN2 game and as I was getting the TV ready I saw the crawl on the bottom of the screen with the final score, Reds 7, Mets 6. So I was bummed, and went through the game kind of in fast forward and saw that for a good chunk of the game it was tied at 3, and then the Mets were winning and I was like, oh, maybe I misread the crawl.

And then Braden Looper blew the save in the bottom of the ninth and that’s the story of how in 2005 I was disappointed twice on Opening Day.

Hey, it’s game time. The Mets are turning to Jose Butto to be their stopper. He was effective last year, so maybe it will work out. But not if the Mets can’t score any runs.

5:11pm: Had to go do my Thursday afternoon dance drop-off. Left after the first inning (Brandon Nimmo tried to steal second again, which was negated by umpire interference, and he would have been out with a good throw. Twice he’s stolen second and would have been out by more than a step with a good throw…maybe he should go back to not stealing.), back in the bottom of the third. Mets are down 1-0 and don’t have a hit. Color me shocked.

5:27pm: Forgot to mention in between games - I’ve been wearing different shirts each day the Mets have played. Not out of superstition, really, but just because I have a lot of Mets shirts. So far, though, none of them have proven to be lucky at all. And I intentionally didn’t change shirts in between games because that would be ridiculous.

But it’s becoming clear that my beard has to go.

6:25pm: Had to go cook and eat dinner. We’re early-ish eaters here. Not like much has been happening in the game. The Mets just got their first hit in the 8th inning, so at least they won’t be no-hit.

Not that it’s any consolation, but the Blue Jays have been just as bad offensively as the Mets, already no-hit by Houston and one-hit last night. But, this is important, they have won 3 games.

Francisco Lindor struck out with Harrison Bader at second base to end the 8th. This is just so upsetting to watch.

6:35pm: There’s a little kid behind home plate wearing a pinkish-reddish hat all bundled up, that I’m just now noticing is with a larger group and another little kid…but I only saw the reddish hat earlier - anyway, I think they’ve been there for six-and-a-half hours in the cold. Good for them, but the kid seems too young to have made that choice and I feel bad.

6:40pm: A Pete Alonso homer to lead off the 9th and tie the game! (Why do I feel like it only sets them up to lose again in extra innings?)

6:42pm: OK I like the signs of life in the dugout. This is the most life this team has shown so far. After a Baty walk, Starling Marte bunts him to second. One out, man on second for Tyrone “Foul Ball” Taylor.

6:45pm: Tyrone Taylor! Haha. Hilarious that it was just fair. 1-5 sure sounds a lot better than 0-6 right now.

6:49pm: OK. Dramatic 2-1 comeback win in the bottom of the 9th. That’s a nice way to start the weekend. Let’s see what the Mets can do in Cincinnati before they go to Atlanta, which has never been fun.

I very much like doing this live blog - it is very possible this could be a Thursday thing going forward. The Mets are in Atlanta at noon next Thursday, and then they have a couple of Thursdays off, but there is usually Thursday afternoon baseball. So maybe count on that. It helps me process everything happening…both in baseball and life.

A win can really erase so much that goes wrong.

I like what Tyrone Taylor just told Steve Gelbs on the field post-game - they got the first win, “and now we roll, baby.”

I’m ready for them to roll.

Let’s Go Mets.