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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 26 July 2024 11:24 am One out from another inning on this, the eve of the Summer Olympics. The Mets had handed out pickleball paddles to lucky ticketholders when the night began, though I don’t think pickleball is an Olympics sport. I don’t think baseball is an Olympic sport this year, either, but that’s OK. We’re not going for the gold. First Wild Card isn’t even the bronze, but baseball has chosen to be not so choosy. Everybody gets a medal? Not quite, but the top six finishers in each league do get a ribbon. And despite having no designs on taking any bows when the year started, it turns out we really want one.
That’s for much later. The only finish line we can worry about in the present is the finish line of this game. We’d like it to materialize magically with us rushing through its tape before we use up our next out. Good luck to us getting there, for we are that one out from pushing our luck into the eleventh. One out from having to do more than we’ve already done, which is withstand vintage Chris Sale; escape a replay review that probably shouldn’t have gone our way but did; extract zeroes from our perpetually beleaguered bullpen; and defuse a botched squeeze play in which one throw was a little high and one catcher was bumped a little hard. One out from wondering whether we could bring Francisco Lindor back to the plate ASAP, because without Francisco Lindor, we would haven’t made into the tenth inning, the inning currently in agonizing progress. Lindor homered with a man on in the third. That was the extent of our scoring. The Braves scratched out one run in the second, another in the fifth. That was the extent of their scoring. Statistically, we’d been as close to beating the Braves as we’d been to losing to the Braves. Emotionally, a matter of time before the Braves did something dastardly to us was on the clock.
Then with that one out remaining, Jeff McNeil, the Met who hadn’t hit most of the first half and the Met who’d started hitting like crazy since the All-Star break — and the only Met not named Francisco Lindor to have recorded a hit all of Thursday night — gets ahold of one.
Maybe “gets ahold of one” overstates the case. Jeff has, however, struck a long-ish, high-ish fly ball toward the right field corner.
Is it long enough to…no, it’s not that long.
Yet it is high, so it hangs up there a while.
Not a pop fly, by any means. Kind of a rainbow, an arc, a parabola. This is no time for SAT synonym prep. The only meaning we want out of his ball is it landing fair, out of the grasp of a Brave’s glove. Should it cooperate with our wishes, it will facilitate our ghost runner, Jose Iglesias, scampering home from second with the winning run.
Win in ten, here and now.
Don’t play eleven, when who knows what could go wrong?
Discover that pot of gold (or gold Wild Card medals) awaiting at the end of that rainbow, if everything I’ve ever learned about rainbows in cartoons is accurate.
The ball’s not deep enough to leave Citi Field, but it’s not obvious it’s going to be caught. You watch the ball at first. Then you watch to see if a fielder is going to be there to meet it. The right fielder, Ramon Laureano, starts coming into view. He’s racing over from right-center. We will track no leg of any relay from the Parisian Olympiad with the intensity with which we are viewing this race.
Laureano had just entered the center of our consciousness a half-inning ago, in the midst of that botched squeeze play. Laureano was the ghost runner who’d moved up to third. Jarred Kelenic, speaking of beings that might haunt, was at bat. The ex-Met prospect could have made us once and for all totally regret our trade of his potential, receipt of Edwin Diaz notwithstanding, with one well-placed hit. Instead, Kelenic showed bunt. Not exactly a squeeze play. More like a squeeze play ploy. But delineate the difference to Laureano, who broke for home. Francisco Alvarez sized up the situation and threw to third when there was no contact on the part of Kelenic. A little above third, I thought, but Mark Vientos grabbed the fling before it could sail into the outfield and effected a successful rundown. Alvarez absorbed a brusque shouldering from Laureano. Like any commuter shoving onto the 7 as the doors are closing, Francisco did not take kindly to it.
An inning earlier, a Brave baserunner also came close to causing trouble in the vicinity of third base. That was Whit Merrifield, the pinch-runner who had stolen second (despite an accurate zip from Alvarez) and now sought an encore. This time, Francisco had him dead to rights at third. Vientos caught the throw, put down his glove and, crap, did Merrifield get his hand on the bag before Mark made a tag? Mark wasn’t particularly aggressive with the leather there. Fortunately, the umpire was too impressed with the throw beating the runner to call the runner safe. The Braves challenged the call. The replay proved a little too inconclusive for the judges back in Manhattan. Honestly, it looked like Merrifield pulled a headfirst slide version of that Michael Phelps half-stroke move from the 2008 Olympics, the only specific Olympics moment — certainly the only one involving swimming — that’s ever sprung to mind for me in the midst of a tenth inning of a baseball game. Bottom line: the call stands and the Braves are all wet.
 Phelps was safe. Merrifield was out. As Mets fans, we fret instinctively at the sight of the tomahawk, the aura of the Atlantans, and the reality of a pitcher like Sale (7.1 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 9 SO, just that 2-R HR to Lindor) too much to notice, hey, those bleepers aren’t accomplishing anything offensively, either. Luis Severino engineered another not terribly efficient (95 pitches over five-plus) outing that still proved reasonably effective (two earned runs), if not as long as we’d have liked. The Braves didn’t take advantage of Luis, and they sure as hell couldn’t touch secret weapon Jose Butto. He won’t be a secret much longer. Three innings pitched, nine batters faced, no runners on base. Butto aces the math portion of his examination.
Diaz got us a bit nervous in the ninth, but there was that out call at third that stood, which diminished the residual anxiety associated with Edwin’s leadoff walk to Eddie Rosario (which was why Merrifield on base to begin with). Phil Maton doesn’t have enough equity in orange and blue to not get us immediately nervous in the tenth, what with the automatic runner nonsense hovering overhead and him being a Met reliever, but that squeeze/not squeeze only served to squeeze the Braves out of a chance at scoring. We didn’t do anything against any Brave reliever between Sale leaving in the eighth and McNeil’s at-bat in the tenth.
Prior to newly redubbed Happy Jeff taking his best shot, we did have Iglesias trotting out to second to start the bottom of the tenth because Rob Manfred said so, and we did have Pete Alonso trotting to first because Brian Snitker said so. J.D. Martinez had struck out between the intentional ghosting and intentional walking. Vientos had struck out directly after. Almost ten full innings of waiting for the dam to burst or have it burst all over us.
Hey, wasn’t there something about a long-ish, high-ish fly ball a few paragraphs ago?
Yes, there was.
Whatever happened with that?
Ah, let’s see…
Laureano sprinted as best he could.
The ball began its dive, a little shy of the right field corner.
It was going to be fair, it appeared.
But where it would land?
A tad behind Ramon Laureano, it turned out.
Dude won his race, in that he sprinted right by the darn sphere — and the darn sphere fell in.
Hot damn!
Iglesias indeed scampered home, crowning the Mets 3-2 winners, shoving the Mets a hot breath from the Braves’ standing atop the Wild Card leaderboard, and extending our Amazins’ string of triumphs to four.
Let Paris have its opening ceremonies. Let the games continue in Flushing.
by Greg Prince on 25 July 2024 10:33 am The first wave of excitement crested Wednesday night with the completion of the Subway Series sweep, both this week’s and this year’s. Of course it was exciting. It was Mets 12 Yankees 3, with five home runs for the visitors who made themselves at home inside the surprisingly friendly confines of Yankee Stadium. Two for team category leader Francisco Lindor (21), one apiece for current team runner-up Pete Alonso (20); Mark Vientos (13); and Tyrone Taylor (6). Taylor collected three hits overall and made a swell diving catch in center besides. Sean Manaea could have been more efficient and lasted longer — he needed to be bailed out at the 4⅔-inning mark following his 103rd pitch, a ball four that loaded the bases when the score was still kind of close — but the bullpen came through when the bullpen had to come through, starting with Adam Ottavino doing the bailing out of Manaea, and continuing with our two Young guys, Danny and Alex, combining to post three scoreless.
I watch every Mets-Yankees game braced for the worst. When Lindor went deep for the second time, depositing a three-run shot somewhere in the Bronx night to make it 11-2 in the eighth, I unclenched completely. When the game went final, the excitement washed over me. The Empire State Building was lit in orange and blue and so was I.
The second and more telling wave of excitement gathered momentum on this, the morning after.
Yes, I could hear myself think, we swept the Yankees. That’s always great. How could it not be great? I hear they’re not as good a team as they were when the year began, but they are who they are, and we are conditioned to fear and loathe them. No fear after going 4-0 in ’24. Loathing is always in style.
Hence, take that, Gerrit Cole, Cy Young winner we can’t pound enough for my taste. Take that, Juan Soto, mercenary who’s apparently selling something called Fig Urine on August 9, if the sign behind home plate these last two nights was to be understood at first glance (oh, it’s a Juan Soto FIGURINE giveaway…never mind). Take that, Aaron Judge, whose walks are victories for the pitcher walking him, and all ya got out of ours were walks on Tuesday and a hit-by-pitch Wednesday. Take that, the rest of you in your alleged collective slump, no doubt playing possum just to get innocent folks like me overconfident. Take that, you pinstriped hordes who sure do find the exits early when the competitive heat is on (kudos to ESPN for posting a camera outside The Stadium to record the voluminous in-game foot traffic). Get your asses back inside and take your medicine! Oh, it really is great to sweep them.
 What’s all this fuss about Juan Soto selling Fig Urine on August 9? The thinking continued. But that’s over. The Braves are coming in for four. This is an important series. We’re a game-and-a-half behind the Braves for the first Wild Card. I might rue doing these calculations if this weekend turns sour, but if we take three of four…no, don’t go there, not yet. They’ve had their problems lately, but they’re the Braves, just as the problems-have-lately Yankees are…yeesh, I hate to admit this out loud in my head…the Yankees. Some teams you just HAVE to beat, regardless of circumstances. The Braves fucked us over in 2022, and the Braves have been fucking us over since late in the last century, and there’s never enough payback where they’re concerned. Yet we have to look forward, not back. We want to edge closer to the Braves. Catching the Braves and passing the Braves comes if and when it comes. We need to establish some distance between us and everybody who’s chasing us. Look forward, but not too far ahead. One game at a time, like Bobby V tried to drill into our heads. Tonight’s game is the most important game of the year, ’cause it’s the next one we’ve play.
And then, as the first-light thinking proceeded, it dawned on me what was truly going on.
Holy Joe McEwing, I’m actually excited about this team, these Mets, without irony, without cynicism.
I’m actually waking up thinking about them and their chances. I did not see this coming in April. In April, Tyrone Taylor hit a long fly ball in Cincinnati that just missed going out, and I didn’t quite mind because I didn’t want to be told Tyrone Taylor was some kind of undervalued gem only a genius like David Stearns knew enough to pluck from Milwaukee when he’s probably just another outfielder and this 2024 edition of the Mets shapes up as just another team filled with a bunch of Tyrone Taylor-type castoffs, and if there’s one thing I’ve come to detest on a going basis besides the Yankees and the Braves, it’s Met mediocrity being oversold as something brimming with promise. Last night I watched Tyrone Taylor being interviewed postgame, going on about how much he appreciated the Mets fans who filled significant acreage of Yankee Stadium’s seating, and I said to the screen, “That’s my guy!”
I did not see this coming in May. They were so dreadful in May, almost a parody of a bad team. They couldn’t have been as bad as they were in May, but how did that mean they’d get good in June? And don’t tell me “team meeting” and “Grimace”.
As much of a roll as they got on in June, I did not see this coming then, either, except that maybe they’d keep things interesting into August. I wasn’t totally sold on them as recently as this past weekend when they seemed so so-so in Miami. But they’ve kept this up for quite a while now, and they have some really good players who really embrace winning and each other, and that’s gotta be worth something. They didn’t lean on enduring a delayed flight out of Florida as an excuse for exhaustion and therefore losing. They just went out there on limited shuteye, held tight in one game against the Yankees, and then kicked their asses in the next game.
Five games over! Last year, on the Sunday just after they traded Scherzer and just before they traded Verlander, they crept to five games under and I wondered if maybe they weren’t done as at least a fringe contender. No, they traded Verlander and they were done. They never got back to as few as five games under. That was last year, a million years ago. They’re not done now. They’re the opposite of done. They’re in the second Wild Card spot! A real shot at rising higher! Good lord, I’ve got chills just realizing how much I can’t believe this is all happening.
I know the ultimate goal of a baseball fan is supposed to be seeing his or her or their team win World Series. Mine, I relearned this morning, is to feel like this.
by Jason Fry on 24 July 2024 12:25 am Plan A, in all likelihood, was not to have Jake Diekman face Juan Soto and Aaron Judge with the Mets clinging to a smidge of a one-run lead. You could hear that judgment in Gary Cohen’s voice as WPIX went to the break before the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium. You probably heard it expressed by someone on your own couch, or from a neighboring barstool, or from a friendly Mets fan or philosophically inclined Yankee fan if you were at the stadium in the Bronx.
But there was so much that led to that pass. This was a classic game, with riveting confrontations, agonizing near-misses, intriguing connections and plenty of strategy to chew over. And yes, I would have said so even if the outcome had been different, though I’d have offered that assessment with a lot less pleasure.
Jose Quintana was craftily maddening for the Mets, knowing exactly which Yankee hitters he didn’t want to face and which ones he did. In the former category went Judge, whom Quintana walked in the first, third and fifth; in the latter category you found poor J.D. Davis, whom Quintana struck out twice and once coaxed to hit into a double play, ending all three innings in which Judge had been bypassed. (By the way, it will never not be startling to see Judge make Pete Alonso, a fairly sizable human being, look like a polar-bear cub.) Five walks in five innings doesn’t look ideal in the box score, but it was an essential component of Quintana’s plan, one he executed to near-perfection.
The Mets cuffed Luis Gil around when the two teams met in June, but Gil has been a lot better since then, largely because Luis Severino took him aside for slider instruction. Severino, you may recall, wears our uniform; Ron Darling sounded both amused and exasperated when he suggested that lesson would have been better delivered in the offseason.
The Mets tied the game at 1-1 when Gil tired in the fifth, hitting Francisco Lindor with the bases loaded, then went on top when Jeff McNeil homered off Michael Tonkin, who’d pitched pretty well as a Yankee after his double DFA with the Mets. McNeil’s eight-pitch AB against Tonkin was a clinic, with four foul balls, one of them the merest whisper of contact to keep McNeil alive and waiting for Tonkin to make a mistake, which he finally did.
That AB was a classic; in a lot of others, though, the Mets looked like the same aggravating bunch we saw in Miami, failing again and again to land a knockout blow. The fifth inning yielded just one run in part because McNeil misread a Tyrone Taylor drive off the fence that should have scored him and sent Luis Torrens to third; later in the inning, Brandon Nimmo just missed a grand slam and then looked out of sorts in striking out. The eighth saw Torrens and Taylor strike out with runners on second and third, though it’s only fair to note that Luke Weaver‘s change-up was nigh unhittable; the ninth saw Lindor strike out after a DJ LeMahieu error put Harrison Bader on second with nobody out, after which Bader tried to break early for third and was out by approximately the length of a 4 train.
Meanwhile, the Mets’ relievers mostly held the fort with both Jose Butto and Edwin Diaz unavailable. (And let’s note here that aircraft problems in Miami meant the players didn’t get to bed until 6:30 am or so if they were lucky.) Adam Ottavino allowed a sixth-inning run to let the Yankees creep within a run at 3-2 but was bailed out by newcomer Alex Young, whose arrival unfortunately came about because Christian Scott has a sprained UCL and is on the 15-day IL, with the 380-day IL an all too possible outcome. Dedniel Nunez started the seventh with an error and a wild pitch, but struck out Soto (yes, it can be done), walked Judge intentionally and then got Ben Rice to fly out deeply but harmlessly to end a wonderful/terrifying eight-pitch battle between talented rookies, followed by a groundout from Anthony Volpe. Phil Maton worked a scoreless eighth, but a walk scrambled Carlos Mendoza‘s likely plan to have Maton start the ninth and hand things over to Diekman.
Nope, it was Diekman all the way. He got Trent Grisham to fly deep to center, then walked Soto on four pitches. Up came Judge with the game in the balance and Yankee Stadium in full cry. Judge! Who has 35 homers and 89 RBI and it’s not yet August! Diekman surprised him with a fastball down the middle, followed that with a changeup off the plate, then doubled up on the change, which got a lot of plate but Judge fouled off. Diekman went back to the fastball, putting one inside on Judge’s hands. Then he doubled up on that, throwing probably his best pitch as a Met: 96 on the inside edge to lock up Judge for strike three.
That left Rice as the Yankees’ last hope, and I had visions of a terrible anticlimax, in which Diekman lost the strike zone or left a sweeper where Rice could give it a ride. Diekman got two strikes to start, which only made me more nervous about how much a reversal could hurt; two balls didn’t exactly help me find my center. You could see Diekman looking for the key to the lock and the pitch that would finish off Rice; the kid fouled off the fastball, then the sweeper, and then finally smacked a fastball to McNeil, and just like that the Mets had won.
They’d won by sending Diekman up against two of the mightiest hitters on the planet. Just like I’m sure they drew it up.
by Jason Fry on 22 July 2024 10:37 pm Monday night’s game against the always delightful Marlins in always delightful New Soilmaster Stadium unfolded as your recapper and family made their way from coastal Maine to an ancient inn outside of Boston, and the game kept morphing and changing shape along with our situation and surroundings.
While we were bombing down 95 south of Portland it was anonymous and a little dull: The Mets laid into Yonny Chirinos, with a seemingly resurgent Jeff McNeil connecting for an early two-run homer, Francisco Lindor hitting the first of two on the night and Jose Iglesias not connecting but getting connected with, giving the Mets a 5-1 lead via a bases-loaded HBP.
We missed some of that while eating dinner in Kittery; my kid conveyed the at times slapstick doings via Gameday updates, accompanied by shakes of the head at the indignities involved. The Marlins were up to typical Marlins things, which is to say they were not fielding balls as one ought to or throwing them as one ought to or sometimes both. The Mets were also doing recently Metsian things, though, never quite landing the big blow and letting the Marlins hang around being detestable, which always makes you worry that they’ll transit over to being Detestable.
(Seriously, the other night I asked, “Why would a benevolent God allow there to be Marlins?” and I wasn’t entirely trying to be funny.)
The Mets increased their lead to three runs courtesy of Lindor as we exited 95 and headed through the Massachusetts night on our way to Sudbury and the Wayside Inn, which has been around in one form or another since the late 1600s and is widely reputed to be haunted, but it’s OK because the ghost is my third cousin eight times removed. (No, seriously, she is.)
They were doing construction on the old Boston Post Road, which meant a detour off into the dark, with Google Maps trying to catch up with where we were and where we needed to be. That was about the time Edwin Diaz came in for the save, and pretty soon I was a lot more worried about Marlins going bump in the night than whatever scare the lonely spirit of my cousin might bring to some hapless traveler. The car twisted and turned down increasingly unlikely roads as Diaz, having secured one out, gave up a single and then a walk and then made an awfully casual throw on a grounder to the pitcher that didn’t get anybody.
The bases were loaded, the tying run was a double away from scoring, and Josh Bell was at the plate. We were fumbling through the darkness and so was Diaz, and it wasn’t entirely clear if any of us were going to reach our destination.
But then Diaz got Bell to ground out (making the score 6-4 but who cared) and got Jake Burger (so many detestable Marlins!) to pop a ball up, and a few minutes after that a winding ribbon of barely two lanes merged with the Boston Post Road and there was the Wayside Inn, a literal light in the darkness.
Whews all around. Should my ghostly cousin appear and seem bent on spectral mischief, I think I’ll say boo right back. Hey, if it works on Marlins, why not try it elsewhere?
by Jason Fry on 21 July 2024 10:57 pm “Why is Howie talking about LBJ? I wonder if that means … oh.”
It was quite a way to find out about the latest election-year earthquake, with the news delivered via MLB Audio a second after we tuned in while scooting around midcoast Maine with friends on the final day of this year’s summer residency. Discovering and then discussing the particulars squeezed out close attention to the game for a while, but a lifetime of listening to baseball has made me pretty good at assembling a narrative from little bits and pieces, so I registered that a Luis Torrens sacrifice fly had given the Mets a 1-0 lead after a couple of hits and some crummy Marlins defense.
Half an inning later, the narrative twist introduced by Jazz Chisholm Jr. was all too clear: a Christian Scott slider redirected into the stands for a 3-1 Marlin lead. After the game, there was some interesting discussion about Scott being undone by a couple of pitches a game, that his full-count slider to Chisholm wasn’t a hanger but a well-located pitch that would usually have resulted in an out, and that maybe Scott’s aggressive approach to hitters had needed a little modification in what Carlos Mendoza called “a teachable moment.”
Like I said, interesting — all those yes buts and on the other hands make for a good lively baseball debate, and it’s certainly been a year to note the significance of debates. But it would be nicer to discuss Scott having recorded an actual win than to speculate on all the wins we’re assured are in his future. In the present, though the Mets were only down by two, so far in the second half a two-run lead has seemed like it’s lugging a zero along behind it.
J.D. Martinez got the Mets within one in the fifth but Jake Burger restored the deficit in the seventh, and you could feel the air coming out of the balloon. Or judging from the sound, maybe it was a whoopee cushion — the late innings of this one were not exactly a showcase for the majesty of baseball. Balks, throws back to the pitcher gone awry, a cringe-worthy steal attempt and rundown, and the suspicion that replay review back in New York was being conducted while doing Whip-Its. In the ninth the Mets went down on a pair of Ks sandwiched around a flyout, and they have one more to play at New Soilmaster than any sane Mets fan would want to find on the schedule.
Will that game feature Howie Rose once again pressed into the role of town crier to announce world-shaking events? I suppose we’ll know tomorrow night. Will the Mets remember how to hit and/or the Marlins discover how to field? Same advice applies.
by Greg Prince on 20 July 2024 9:08 pm There’s a lot of disinformation circulating out there regarding current events. We would like to use this platform to help you sort out reality from fiction in one area of interest.
MYTH: The Mets always lose to the Marlins.
FACT: The Mets occasionally lose to the Marlins. They also occasionally beat the Marlins.
MYTH: The Mets never win at the Marlins’ soulless ballpark, whatever it’s called.
FACT: The Mets occasionally win at the Marlins’ soulless ballpark, an edifice officially known as the Marlsoleum.
MYTH: The Mets left a small village on base in Saturday’s game at the Marlsoleum.
FACT: Small villages usually have a population greater than 10, which is how many runners the Mets left on base Saturday.
MYTH: The Mets can’t win if they’re going to leave 10 runners on base.
FACT: Although it is quite challenging to win a baseball game in which 10 runners are left on base, the Mets did win Saturday’s game.
MYTH: The Mets can’t win if they’re going to score only run.
FACT: The Mets scored one run on Saturday and won.
MYTH: No team can win if it scores only one run.
FACT A team can win by a score of 1-0.
MYTH: Scoring one run allows no room for error.
FACT: The Mets committed one error, yet won, 1-0.
MYTH: The Mets never take advantage of scoring opportunities.
FACT: In the fourth inning on Saturday, the Mets loaded the bases and proceeded to score one run on Francisco Alvarez’s well-placed fielder’s choice ground ball.
MYTH: Met starting pitching always exits early.
FACT: Saturday’s Met starter, Luis Severino, lasted six innings.
MYTH: Luis Severino will look good for a while but eventually crack.
FACT: Severino gave up no runs while stranding six runners.
MYTH: The Mets’ bullpen will inevitably find a way to blow it.
FACT: Jose Butto, Dedniel Nuñez and Edwin Diaz each threw a scoreless inning. Among them, they stranded four runners.
MYTH: Nobody leaves as many runners on base as the Mets.
FACT: Both the Mets and the Marlins left 10 runners on base Saturday.
MYTH: Everything is home runs today.
FACT: No home runs were hit in this game.
MYTH: You just don’t see low-scoring games anymore.
FACT: The Mets won on Saturday, defeating the Marlins, 1-0. It was their first 1-0 victory over anybody in 2024, but it does happen now and then. It just did.
MYTH: Mets fans can’t believe when good things happen to and/or for the Mets.
FACT: For the most part, this is factual.
by Greg Prince on 20 July 2024 11:31 am Prior to the All-Star break, it was most every Met except Jeff McNeilpowering the Mets into playoff contention. Directly after the midsummer pause, it was mostly Jeff McNeil attempting to restart the Mets’ engine.
Things work better with more than one player revving us up, apparently.
We can certainly celebrate indications that Jeff McNeil’s ability to hit the ball and hit it with power are back, having returned in tandem with the season’s so-called second half. Three hits and two home runs attest to the Squirrel’s offensive capabilities being alive and well and spending the weekend in South Florida. A couple of nice catches in right indicate intermittently superb fielding remains another McNeil tool. There was a throwing error, but let it not overshadow the versatility we are occasionally reminded Jeff brings to the table when a manager decides to let him show it. We already know he can run. What we want to know is how far he can run from his .622 OPS.
McNeil’s out of the blocks in fine fettle. The rest of his team got kind of stuck in the mud at the sponsored facility that houses the Miami Marlins. The Fish swam by the Mets, 6-4, on Friday in a game that did not satisfy the yearning any Mets fan had to see baseball again following too many days off. Marlin home games, ever since they drained their port of call of its personality, inevitably bore from an aesthetic standpoint. Toss in the Mets trailing early and continuously (and my personal need for a nap that spanned the seventh and eighth innings), and it wasn’t quite the picking up where we left off we would have planned. Of course, we left off last Sunday with a loss, but it didn’t diminish the era of OMG feeling we carried into the break. A couple more like the non-McNeil portion of Friday, however, will have an impact, and not for the best where our interests are concerned..
By some miracle, we’ve come to view the 2024 Mets as this incredibly fun enterprise that has surprised and delighted us for about a month-and-a-half. I’ve rooted for several Mets teams whose best days unfolded in the middle of their campaigns. Started not so great. Ended not so brilliantly. But my gosh, the chewy center was delicious. They don’t hang banners for those campaigns. Whatever happens this year, I’ll remember it. That’s what I do. However many other Mets fans will be able to distinguish 2024 from its surrounding seasons will probably depend on whether this season’s center holds.
I’m moved in purely non-political terms to think of an answer President Biden gave at his post-NATO summit press conference when he was asked about his legacy. “Look,” he said, “I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job I started.” Different campaign context, but a single season’s baseball team doesn’t usually leave behind an easily recognized legacy without winning something extraordinary (or losing like crazy). Remember that year the Mets were really good in June and half of July? We were really into it, and there was a new meme we all latched onto pretty much every week to celebrate it while it was going on…no? Oh c’mon you HAVE to remember!”
Or maybe you don’t. Winning something extraordinary will help jog your memory. But that’s for later. The 2024 Mets aren’t in this for their legacy at the moment. At 49-47 and in a virtual tie for the third Wild Card, the job does go on.
by Greg Prince on 15 July 2024 8:11 am On Sunday morning, I read the Mets had lost their final game before the All-Star break the previous seven years there had been an All-Star break (which is to say not including 2020). Hence, I kept my hopes in check that the Mets would extend their momentum to a six-game winning streak and burnish the sense that they have become unstoppable. The surprise in the short term wasn’t that they lost to the lowly Rockies, as any team can lose to any team at any time. The surprise in the context of a season that once appeared anything but promising is that there were hopes to keep in check.
The Mets have given us a license to realistically hope. They pull into the break — despite bowing, 8-5, in their “first-half” finale — in playoff position. The slight lead on the pack of Wild Card wanna-bes is gratifying, but even better is the knowledge the Mets are in it until they’re out of it. It’s quite a step up from trying to rationalize, as we attempted in 2023, that maybe if they get lucky they still have the slightest chance to get close to not being altogether done.
Sure would have been nice to have swept the Rockies. I thought we might once Pete Alonso remembered he’s an All-Star and a Home Run Derby participant. Pete, who’s definitely a star in any season if not an indisputable All-Star this season, belted his nineteenth long ball on the year, his first in nearly two weeks. That blast knotted affairs at two apiece in the fourth. A subtler rally — a single and three walks — put the Mets ahead several batters later. Jose Quintana had settled down from a shaky first, and here came that segment of the game where the decidedly good team takes over decisively from the decidedly bad team.
But that business about any team losing to any team at any time rang a little too true. The Rox, who entered Sunday thirty games under .500, retied the score in the fifth and continued to add on in every frame through the eighth. While Jose Iglesias was rapping out four singles, Michael Toglia produced the biggest sounds with three home runs, while Ezequiel Tovar backed him up with a pair that also popped. OMG, you can’t win them all.
Still, it wasn’t wholly one of those sleepy Sunday-before-the-break losses that feels characteristic of an Amazin’ letdown, the kind that serves as prelude to the Mets predictably wandering off a competitive cliff once the schedule resumes. A good fight was put up in the bottoms of the eighth (two runs) and ninth (two baserunners). Reaching the middish-season pause with a 5-1 homestand encourages us to anticipate rather than dread. If you can’t cheer a win in your final game before the break, at least you can feel like you’re rooting for a winner.
by Jason Fry on 13 July 2024 11:56 pm We’ve all said it. Made it a mantra, even. Enemy runner on first, maybe other bases too, maybe they’re loaded. Outs? Not enough of them. Maybe just one. Maybe none.
C’mon, get a ground ball.
It’s been called the pitcher’s best friend for a century or more — the ball put in play that yields two outs (occasionally even three), turning danger into relief. In its purest form there’s a kinetic poetry to it: one hard hop right at the second baseman or shortstop, letting you can see the play unfold before it actually does. A quick shovel to the other infielder, the enemy baserunner sliding in too late (that’s one!), then the ball thudding into the first baseman’s glove (that’s two!), with the added cruelty of the batter turned runner having to watch his best-laid plans gone awry.
Tailor-made, they call it when it unfolds like that. “Just get me a little love,” Kevin Elster used to say during meetings on the mound with spooked Mets pitchers, by which he meant, “you supply the ground ball, we’ll do the rest.”
Saturday’s matinee against the Rockies? It was a story of pitchers’ best friends, and three fateful ground balls.
The first one came in the bottom of the second. Colorado starter Ryan Feltner had struck out the side in the first but seemed to lose his way an inning later, loading the bases with one out. Luis Torrens hit a grounder to second, but Brendan Rodgers (a Gold Glover, no less) bobbled it and then threw it into left field. Instead of the inning being over with the game still scoreless, the Mets were up 2-0; three pitches later, a Jeff McNeil double gave Christian Scott a 4-0 lead.
Scott would need every bit of that lead, as he looked out of sorts all day. Perhaps it was that the Mets’ Citi Connect alts look kind of like Colorado’s uniforms — there was a lot of purple-on-purple crime in deciding a winner Saturday. Up 4-1, Scott got the first out in the fifth but then gave up a single, a homer, a double and a walk, making the score 4-3 with the deficit threatening to vanish entirely. Carlos Mendoza went to get Scott, whose first win will have to wait yet another turn of the rotation (ah pitcher wins, oft derided and yet still so avidly pursued), with the manager calling on Jose Butto.
Butto’s first assignment was Elias Diaz, the Rockies’ powerful catcher. Diaz hit a grounder — which, it must be said, wasn’t exactly tailor-made, but a ball hit at Pete Alonso, who flung it to Francisco Lindor, who fired it back to Butto covering first. The Mets executed a tricky play and Butto was out of the inning with the lead still at 4-3.
Butto got the Mets through the sixth and seventh and was sent back out for the eighth, only to immediately run into trouble: a single and a walk. Enter Dedniel Nunez, among the most junior of the Mets’ relief corps and also one of its most trusted members, though that could be damning with faint praise. Nunez’s assignment? Yep, Elias Diaz. After a tough battle, Diaz smacked a ball to McNeil at second, who started a 4-6-3 double play. That moved Ezequiel Tovar to third but left the Rockies with just an out to play with. No matter: Nunez got Brenton Doyle to hit a foul pop to Alonso and the Mets were three outs away.
Three outs away, but up by a skinny run. Who would protect that slim lead? Edwin Diaz, whose last pitch to Tovar on Friday night was a slider that hung in the middle of the plate but was somehow swung over? Nope, it turned out to be Nunez — and to be a lot less of a nail-biter, as Lindor smashed a three-run homer off the launch tube of the apple to increase the Mets’ lead to a more exhalable four. (Nyet, Victor Vodnik, nyet.)
If a pitcher’s best friend is the ground ball, what’s a three-run homer in support of his cause? That has to count as a acquaintance to be cheerfully greeted, right? And definitely as a little love.
Postscript: It was fun to see Bill Pulsipher in the stands being interviewed by Steve Gelbs. For those who don’t know, Pulse’s big-league debut was also the first time your recappers met live in person. Pulse gave up five in the first — a heck of a crooked number even if it isn’t your maiden voyage — but the seeds of this blog were planted. Greg tells the story here.
by Greg Prince on 13 July 2024 12:03 pm I wanted to go home from Friday night’s game sick of “OMG”. I wanted it to be forced down my throat and stuck in my ear. I wanted it to be played to within an inch of my life. I want the Mets’ home run song to be blared incessantly because I want the Mets to homer incessantly.
There was indeed a ton of “OMG” at Citi Field, but we never reached the saturation point. Close enough, however, will do for now.
The Mets bashed five home runs Friday. Jose Iglesias therefore belted out his chorus in a veritable loop, including within two self-serenades. There was also the matter of his walk-up accompaniment, which happens to be the very same smash hit. Bring it, Candelita.
Between repeat airings of “OMG” and the eighth-inning karaoke crowd choice of “Dancing Queen,” I was ascending simultaneously toward musical and baseball heaven. Stephanie and I, ensconced in lovely Field Level seats down the third base line alongside our ever thoughtful friends the Chapmans (Sharon and Kevin, the undefeated couple of Mets baseball in any season), always perk up to ABBA, especially on a Friday night when the lights are low. Looking out for a place to go? Try over the fence, repeatedly.
Met noise. Bat noise. Fan noise. It’s a beautiful noise. Little remembered is the Colorado Rockies grabbing a 2-0 lead on a home run of their own in the second inning. Hard to forget is the Rockies nearly causing a fatal avalanche with four late runs, almost crashing our baseball party until it was on the verge of shattering. But in between, it was a Met gala the likes of which I’ve rarely experienced in July at Citi Field. Vientos goes deep! Iglesias goes deep right after! One out later, it’s Bader! All in the bottom of the second. So much for the Rockies jumping ahead early.
See that team, watch that scene, digging the big Mets lead. Once it got to be 7-2 in the fifth — another homer apiece for Jose and Harrison — it was unimaginable any harm could be done to the spectacular vibes. The only real mystery remaining was how many kids in the rows below us were going to reach out and touch Mr. Met. Yet my inner karma barometer told me the Citi A/V squad was pouring it on a bit too thick with the psych-out light & sound spectacular they unleashed on the scoreboards and ribbon boards every time the visibly downtrodden Coloradoans made a pitching change. Sure enough, close calls began going against us and the Rockies rose from the dead to nip Sean Manaea for another homer to dent his otherwise superb seven innings. Then they did to the Met bullpen what every team does to the Met bullpen. Versus Jake Diekman and Phil Maton in the eighth, they turned a laugher into a beseecher. We went from singing “Oh! My! God!” to thinking “oh dear God…”
Edwin Diaz and his blast-from-the-past entrance music became necessary for the ninth. Then Diaz became nerve-inducing. A couple of walks. A surfeit of preemptive grumbling. Ultimately, the vibes survived as the Mets hung on, 7-6. We’re still a playoff team months before the playoffs. Everything about this team is still fun as hell. But maybe next time you’ve got them where you want them, let sleeping Rox lie.
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