If you were beginning to worry that the All-Star break would impede the Mets’ gathering momentum [1] for a push toward playoff contention, rest easy this week. There is no momentum. There will be no playoff contention.
All provisional prognostication is subject to change with the emergence of the next six-game winning streak, but by the time the Mets win six games in a row again, the All-Star break and the success that briefly preceded it before disappearing amid a lost weekend will be a faded memory — though should they somehow confound expectations and bolt from the “second half” gate winning six in a row to give them twelve of their last fourteen and make us all look like ninnies for giving up on them so soon, mazel tov. When we’re sure our team is sunk and they upend our certainty by rising to the surface and then some, we couldn’t be happier to be wrong. Our mood relative to the Mets is subject to change, too.
But we’re not going to be wrong. This ballclub’s brief peek at the light at the end of the tunnel revealed too much glare for them to handle. It’s dark in there again, likely for good in 2023.
Bill Parcells is oft-quoted on the subject of your record directly reflecting who you are. The Mets are a 42-48 baseball team. Moreover, they are what their Games Behind status says they are. After playing as well as they have all year for six games, before playing versus the Padres as they have more typically for the next two, they sit seven games behind the third-best non-first place record in the National League, with more teams than it is worth counting between them and that final postseason qualification slot. Had they gone into the All-Star break on an undeniable high note, they’d still be fairly far away and still need to step over a fistful of opponents, but momentum makes a fan see all kinds of crazy things over the horizon. And fans want to see all kinds of crazy things over the horizon. We don’t need to patronize comedy clubs. Given the slightest opportunity, we’re delighted to kid ourselves.
No punchline remains to this would-be 2023 rush into the Wild Card scramble. Fifty years after [2] we learned to never say never, it’s over before it’s over. Saturday’s loss [3] in San Diego a person could perhaps slough off as a pause in escalating fortunes, adequate pitching being shaded by better pitching. Sunday, though, was a bow out of conceivable contention most apropos of these Mets. They didn’t pitch well. They barely hit at all. They were hit five times (a franchise mark for pitches leaving a mark). They incurred an injury that had nothing to do with hit-by-pitches. They looked defeated. They were defeated.
In a good year, limiting our advice to “Let’s Go Mets!” is sufficient. This isn’t a good year. Thus, at the risk of presumptuousness, I will take it upon myself to issue instructions to the players who have lost 48 of 90 and in whom I’ve expressed little faith regarding their next 72.
• Each Met who was dinged by Joe Musgrove and Tom Cosgrove on Sunday should apply additional ice to their bruises as applicable.
• Tommy Pham and his groin [4] should take it particularly easy for four days, following imaging.
• Max Scherzer (5.1 IP, 5 ER) should put his uncooperative slider out of his mind much as Manny Machado put it out of Petco Park.
• Pete Alonso and replacement pick [5] Kodai Senga should enjoy their All-Star jaunt to Seattle and not get hurt.
• Everybody from the hottest-hitting rookie catcher to the most interchangeable optionable reliever should take a breather over the break. Drape yourselves in comfy bathrobes and order in pancakes [6], or do whatever major leaguers who are not going anywhere after this [7] actually do on their days off.
• Rest up for a few days and don’t dwell on a season that’s gone to hell and shows no sign of coming back.
Actually, that last bit applies to us. Mets fans deserve a break today. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Come Friday, maybe we’ll be kidding ourselves anew that can’t we wait for our team to return. We’re hilarious that way.