A Laugher? In This Baseball Economy?

Baseball is a sport of long-term truths that fight their way out of short-term noise, so the Mets winning a rain-interrupted laugher over the Cubs was only a surprise from an emotional standpoint: It had been pretty obvious to us loyal diehards doughty faithful pathetic masochists that they would never win another game in 2023, and were only an even bet to score any additional runs.

But somehow they did, thanks to a monster night from Pete Alonso, who clubbed a pair of homers and drove in six, and a pretty good one from Kodai Senga, whose ghost fork entrapped its fair share of Cubs.

Absent from the proceedings was Starling Marte, felled by the groin we were all told had been surgically repaired, and Brett Baty, who’s a more interesting case. Baty was sent down in a bid to arrest the deterioration that’s been evident in both his offense and his defense, and admitted in his exit interview that the game had become a little fast for him.

Having watched Baty’s season curdle firsthand, it was hard to disagree with excusing him for a bit, despite the Mets’ fortunes having evaporated. It’s true that the rest of the season’s to-do list is topped by “valuable experience for young players” and it’s also true that what Baty has to learn is best taught at the big-league level. But one size doesn’t fit all, and the only things Baty has learned over the last month is that progress can be interrupted by frustrating reversals and failing in public is miserable. Neither strikes me as lessons one needs to have hammered into one’s skull over and over again. Baty will be back, hopefully having caught his breath and refilled his reservoirs of confidence a bit, and then we’ll see.

The Mets won, which was of course something to take pleasure in; we also got the little moments that make baseball strange and beautiful and occasionally funny, the ones that are there to value even in the lousiest games of a humdrum season.

Take the way the top of the fifth ended: With two out Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ singled. Clay Bellinger then dropped a little dunker down the left field line, which fell in and brought Hoerner home. Happ came into third standing, stumbled past the base and fell down, and was tagged out by Danny Mendick. (Who’d later hit a three-run homer — hey, he’d want it in to be included in the recap.)

Anyway, that last out is kind of hilarious on replay: Happ, finding himself on the wrong side of third base, twists his body back toward it, fingers stretching for the corner of the bag. But there’s Mendick, and between Happ’s fingertips and the base is another fingertip’s worth of space, one that can’t be filled. Happ realizes the gap is there and going to remain there and slumps onto his back, hands to his head, staring up into the darkness above Citi Field and thinking about what he’s done — and, perhaps, wondering if it would be possible for him to just remain there undisturbed for a while. Or at least for someone else to bring out his glove, so he doesn’t have to go back in the dugout and accept pitying back slaps or polite silence.

A small moment in an inconsequential game, but it made me smile. Baseball can do that for you, even when so much has gone awry.