The Residue of Design

The first step toward a decisive Mets victory over the Braves on Sunday came whenever a 1:40 PM start was rescheduled for 4:10. Billy Eppler and Buck Showalter looked ahead at Saturday’s day-night doubleheader and understood their team would be better off with an additional two-and-a-half hours after what loomed as a grueling day. Saturday had the Mets playing nearly seven hours of baseball over approximately nine hours of clock. The Met brain trust saw an opportunity for a little extra rest in the heat of August, in the heat of a pennant race, in the heat of the most crucial head-to-head series of the season. They saw an edge to be had and they grabbed at it. If it was going to provide a little extra rest to the Braves, too, so be it.

Had Sunday’s game started as originally slated, it would have been interrupted by a deluge. By 3 o’clock, Citi Field was withstanding a reported “monsoon”. Hyperbole or not, at best there would have been a holding pattern and uncertainty around first pitch. At worst, the Mets’ first pitcher might have been limited in his utility and a heartily worked bullpen would have been forced into action, throwing sooner than anticipated and maybe more than desired.

The Mets’ first pitcher, oh by the way, was Jacob deGrom. Do you really want one of his starts, let alone his first home start in thirteen months — against the Braves, of all teams — dampened, drenched or possibly set aside out an abundance of caution? Would you prefer a modified all hands on deck situation, the modification being only a few hands were available?

No. You want a 4:10 start that could be easily nudged to 4:30 once the rain passed and the tarp was rolled. You want Jacob deGrom to stride to the mound as if it had never rained, as if the previous thirteen months measured merely five days. You want to feel the complex ecstasy of witnessing the righthander who warms up to “Simple Man”. And then you want what you almost invariably get from a healthy, active Jacob deGrom.

Did Eppler and Showalter know weeks in advance that it was going to rain mid-afternoon in Flushing on August 7 and that deGrom, rehabbing so long, was going to be on track to start that Sunday? Probably not. But I swear I wouldn’t put it past them.

I didn’t know about the rain hours or even minutes in advance. I didn’t know about the rain at all until I glanced at Twitter. There was no rain whatsoever in my neck of the woods, which Google Maps claims is a mere 14 miles south and east of 41 Seaver Way. Seems longer, just as Jake’s absence suddenly seemed much, much shorter. Was he ever gone at all? If he was, why did I feel chills at the first strains of Skynyrd? Why was I so attuned to the ace’s reputation as a matinee idol, pitching even better in afternoons than he does at night, and he pitches wonderfully at night? Before and after the rain, I found a new deGrom anxiety that had nothing to do with injury. We know he’s Sunshine Superman when he starts games in the 1 o’clock hour. Would 4:10 or 4:30 have an impact on him?

Yes. It would make him completely unhittable, as if they invented a new daypart designed for Jacob’s benefit…and the discomfort of Braves batters.

Damn, Eppler and Showalter are clever.

Shadows, sunshine, Superman, Simple Man. Together they struck out practically every Atlantan in sight. Whatever else was going to go right (much) or wrong (vexing in the regulatory realm if not ultimately deleterious), Jacob deGrom held the whole world, certainly our portion of it, in his right hand. He palmed the Braves for five-and-two-thirds perfect innings and slam-dunked them. I normally shy away from non-baseball expressions to describe baseball events, but Jacob is too good to be contained by any one sport.

They didn’t hit him. They didn’t touch him. Until there were two out in the sixth, his predetermined final inning — he’s still building up stamina after his alleged layoff — they may as well not have been in the same ballpark as him. Eighteen straight sliders swung at slid by as strikes instead. Seventeen consecutive Braves made outs. Twelve of them went up on the K counter. If Braves management wanted to get its guys a little extra rest, nine bystanders could have been hired off the street to hold or wave bats while deGrom performed. Same effect.

By the time 4:30 Jake finally revealed a flaw (walking nine-hole hitter Ehire Adrianza) and committed a substantive imperfection (allowing a two-run homer to Dansby Swanson), hastening by one-third of an inning his planned exit, he had been staked to five runs of support. It’s easier to say the Mets never score for deGrom. It isn’t always true. It wasn’t Sunday. Most of the damage inflicted on Braves starter Spencer Strider and his psyche happened in the third inning, during which Met batters and baserunners did the sorts of things they’ve been doing all year long for every one of their pitchers. This bunch seems to like doing favors for Jake as much as they do his staffmates.

Four runs scored in the bottom of the third on two two-run doubles. One of the doubles was struck by Pete Alonso, which isn’t very newsworthy, given that Pete has spent two-thirds of the season driving in more runs than any National Leaguer. Still, watching Francisco Lindor tear around third to bring home the second run was a sight to behold. Not that Lindor being on base is news, either. The second double got a person’s attention, as it was produced by Mark Canha, formerly more or less the regular left fielder, lately a de facto platoon partner to Tyler Naquin. Canha is a righty. Naquin is a lefty. They’d been starting according to matchups. It wasn’t working for Canha, who for much of the first half was reverse-split on-base machine. Buck absorbed that reality and readjusted his plans. Canha the righty batted against Strider the righty and took him to the wall.

Daniel Vogelbach and Pete Alonso celebrate Mark Canha’s doubling in of Vogelbach from first base in the third inning Sunday.

That brought Alonso home from second and then, perhaps not a matter of seconds later, Daniel Vogelbach home from first. Daniel Vogelbach is a player I can’t take my eyes off, and not just because he fills so much of my field of vision. You’ve probably seen silent movies in which the walking appears a little sped up, due to the technical limitations of the era. When Vogie takes a pitch (he takes a lot of them) and ambles away from the plate to collect himself, he may as well be Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin in motion. It’s not for comedic effect. He moves quickly if not exactly speedily. He knows everything he is doing out there. If he’s come to grips with his limitations, he’s just as determined to take advantage of his capabilities.

One of them is running the bases. From what we’ve seen, he can turn it on when he has to. To score from first on Canha’s double to left-center, he had to. A little flub in the outfield aided his cause, but Joey Cora had no compunction against sending him. Vogelbach was so certain he’d score, he didn’t slide. Daniel doesn’t strike me as the kind of fellow who’d slide just for kicks.

Those were the first four runs accumulated on Jake’s behalf. The fifth came in the fifth, primarily on Jeff McNeil’s moxie, turning a single to right into a double when he determined Robbie Grossman’s arm wasn’t the equal of Ronald Acuña, Jr.’s (Acuña didn’t start in deference to an amalgam of lower-body soreness, moist grass and Jacob deGrom). Jeff continued to factor throwing into his calculus on Canha’s ensuing fly to right. He tagged up and took off on Grossman, alighting on third. A wild pitch cued Squirrel to scurry home. The Mets had five runs with deGrom on the mound. They might as well have had fifty.

It should be noted they very well could have had something on the board prior to the third. In the first, Brandon Nimmo led off with a single. Starling Marte’s right-side grounder got Nimmo thinking. His conclusion was to duck Adrianza’s tag on second. Adrianza laid his glove on Nimmo. Except the ball was in the second baseman’s throwing hand. Second base umpire Jeff Nelson called Brandon out anyway, ahead of Marte beating the relay throw to first.

This would not stand, not within the walls of Buck Showalter’s Baseball Rules Academy, an institution ideally attended for two weeks every winter by every ump everywhere. Buck correctly challenged the out call, as Nimmo was never legally tagged. Matt Olson fired a dart to second after Marte made it to first because the first baseman seemed to grasp Nimmo had altogether avoided the ball. This was a budding reverse Utley situation minus the violence. Chase Utley never touched second in the 2015 NLDS but was somehow awarded it after breaking Ruben Tejada’s leg. Here, replay confirmed Nimmo wasn’t tagged and therefore shouldn’t have been called out. But, in whatever disregard for logic was invoked, Brandon wasn’t awarded second, as it was decided it didn’t matter that he was told he was out, implying Olson’s throw absolutely would have nailed him at second had he kept running to second, which he didn’t because Nelson told him he was out.

The twisted misinterpretation (the Mets work at not being tagged, and they were rewarded for their heady physical agility in Miami earlier this season) cost the Mets a baserunner and maybe short-circuited a rally. Telling the Mets their protest was righteous — they weren’t deducted their challenge — and then penalizing them with an out regardless did not bode well when you were relying on a pitcher for whom you traditionally don’t score enough.

But some traditions wither and die. Like the Mets not supporting deGrom. Like the first-place Mets not fending off the Braves. In late July 2021, after Jake was done for the season, the Mets lost three of five to Atlanta at Citi Field, leaving the door ajar enough so that the Braves figured they could make a bunch of moves and aim for the lead in the East. We know what happened then. We strongly suspect it’s not happening now. At Mets 5 Braves 0, after New York had already taken three of four, and with our ace dealing dejection to opposing hitters, we could feel absolutely sure everything was gonna work out for the best.

Then Swanson hit that homer and deGrom was done after 76 pitches, and the game was turned over to Joely Rodriguez.

Joely Rodriguez. The lone lefty in the bullpen. To the greater conventional wisdom, it was as if there were no lefties in the bullpen. Before the trade deadline, the major deficit the Mets were urged to address was the lack of a reliable lefty. After the trade deadline, the inability to acquire one instigated the rending of garments accompanied by wailing that we had no lefty in the bullpen.

Except for Joely Rodriguez, who was treated as a burden or a liability. If we were lucky, he’d be mostly invisible until David Peterson got the hang of relieving at Triple-A. We’d been luckiest for five-and-two-thirds, riding deGrom and five runs of offense. Now we’d see if what Eppler (he swore he tried to secure a southpaw) and Showalter (he knew he wouldn’t be deploying most every middle/setup reliever normally at his disposal after using them plenty in getting the Mets this far in this series) had designed could withstand the necessity of Joely Rodriguez.

It could. Joely had his moment, his biggest as a Met, even bigger than his contribution to the combined no-hitter, which was fun as hell, but not essential. Sustaining the Mets’ 5-2 lead between deGrom’s departure and the sounding of Edwin Diaz’s trumpets was critical. Not as critical as most everybody is toward Rodriguez’s continued endurance as a 2022 Met, but almost as critical.

What happened? Only good. Rodriguez ended the sixth with a groundout of Olson, a lefty taking care of a lefty. If that was it for Joely’s day, even Ice Cube would say Sunday was a good day. But Buck kept leaning on Rodriguez. Austin Riley’s leadoff single to start the seventh could have been a bad sign, but data from the next six batters indicate it represented a false positive. Joely got pinch-hitter Acuña to fly out. Then he struck out William Contreras and Robbie Grossman. In the eighth, the lefty remained on. Ozuna swung to no avail at Rodriguez’s changeups. Same for personification of a kick in the shins Michael Harris. Adrianza made contact, but only to ground to Luis Guillorme at third.

That’s two-and-a-third innings of scoreless relief from Joely Rodriguez, or the bullpen equivalent of Jacob deGrom going nine or Rob Gardner going fifteen. It was the middle relief stint of the year. It probably buys Rodriguez at least 24 hours of goodwill before the sight of him warming in the pen reflexively gives everybody hives. As with a number of developments this Amazin’ year, you’d have to filed Rodriguez’s heavy lift as one you didn’t see coming.

Conversely, you could feel pretty sure you’d see Edwin Diaz enter in the ninth to protect the three-run lead and once the gate flung open and “Narco” pulsated, you could relax. If you were on edge, you haven’t allowed yourself to experience the full Edwin over the past few months. Or you just enjoy worrying. Concern is always advisable. Worrying is for chumps when you have Edwin Diaz and a three-run lead these days. If Sugar wasn’t fully and completely rested, he’d thrown only seven pitches on Saturday afternoon after giving two innings of himself on Thursday night after not being used at all for nearly a week. Plus there was that start time being pushed back from 1:40 to 4:10 and the rain pushing it back twenty minutes more. That’s sufficient rest for your state-of-the-art closer. Showalter resolutely stayed away from Ottavino, Lugo, Givens, May and Williams. He didn’t need any convincing to go with Diaz for three outs.

Three strikeouts, to be precise. Down went Swanson. Down went Olson. Down went Riley. Down went the Braves swinging on or staring at strikes nineteen times in all, matching the futility of the 1970 Padres versus Seaver and the 1991 Phillies versus Cone. Down went the Braves four times in five games over four days. Up, with this 5-2 triumph, went the Mets’ divisional lead to 6½ lengths, a distance that looks larger and larger the more you stare at it. The Braves rampaged through June and July to reduce their deficit from 10½ a little over two months ago to a piddling half-game barely two weeks ago. Where did all that momentum go?

To meet the Mets and move in with them for the foreseeable future. The Braves will have other chances to pick up ground, but there’s so much more ground for them to traverse after this series than there was before it. Fortunately, Atlanta’s losing pitcher was ready to alibi it all away. Strider, according to Journal-Constitution beat writer Justin Toscano, blamed his subpar outing on the Mets getting good calls — did he see what happened at second base in the first inning? — and “a lot of weird hits”. Strider’s a rookie, but he’s already making excuses like a veteran.

The Mets don’t make excuses. They make plans. Under Showalter, they lead the league in planning. They planned to make the most of something as simple as a Sunday afternoon start time and they finished Sunday evening in characteristic winning style.

As if they’d let the rain, the umps or the Braves get in their way.