Like other varieties of stopped clocks, every so often the Mets are just right [1].
On Tuesday night they hit a barrage of homers, with Ronny Mauricio’s inaugural blast the most impressive; they got good starting pitching; and they survived the inevitable bad bullpenning to take a game away from the Diamondbacks.
Jose Butto [2] provided the good starting pitching, quietly picking up his first big-league win — I say quietly because Butto’s run of competence has kind of snuck up on us while we’ve been busy bemoaning the Family Circus “progression” of David Peterson [3] and Tylor Megill [4] and looking over to see how Max Scherzer [5] and Justin Verlander [6] are doing with their new employers. (Last night the answer was “not good,” as Scherzer left with a triceps injury and Verlander got beat by the A’s.)
Butto fell behind 1-0, but the Mets got even on a bad-hop triple from Brandon Nimmo [7] and the first of Francisco Lindor [8]‘s two RBIs. An inning later, Mauricio untied things with a prodigious blast to the very back of Sodaland, startling some of the numerous hounds in attendance — at least those whose doggy gaze hadn’t already been diverted by Mauricio’s impressive bat flip. After that it was on, with the Mets adding homers from Pete Alonso [9] and Francisco Alvarez [10]. That last homer was particularly welcome, coming after Grant Hartwig [11] and Sam Coonrod [12] sandwiched a competent inning from Phil Bickford [13] by doing what the bullpen does seemingly every night these days. Hartwig and Coonrod were nice stories for about five seconds earlier this season; now when you see either of those young men you consider hiding behind the couch before remembering that a) what the hell, the season’s already lost; and b) at least they’re not Trevor Gott [14] or Drew Smith [15].
Coonrod’s disastrous eighth let the Diamondbacks draw within two with the tying run lurking on second, but the Mets were playing this night’s game of bullpen roulette with only five bullets chambered: Adam Ottavino [16] coaxed a ground ball from Corbin Carroll [17] that was hit just hard enough and right at someone to become a very welcome inning-ending double play.
The rest of the evening? A couple of quick observations should suffice:
- By the late innings the SNY broadcast had become the baseball equivalent of wackadoodle free jazz, with Gary Cohen goading Keith Hernandez [18] to turn the dials of Keithness way past even 11 and putting Steve Gelbs on the couch about the misery of giving one’s heart to the Jets. And you know what? That’s exactly what SNY broadcasts should be these days. Wackadoodle free jazz all the way to Oct. 1 and start again next year!
- It was nice to see Ron Hodges [19] in the park and on the broadcast. Hodges is a deep cut for Mets fans, a journeyman noted for his longevity and for spanning two very different eras of team history, and it’s been wonderful seeing the Mets reconnect with that history by giving less-celebrated players from their past well-deserved moments in the spotlight. And it was fun hearing Hodges talk about catching Tom Seaver [20], for all the obvious reasons. But it got less fun when Hodges was asked about the modern game and started yelling at clouds. It’s never a good idea to ask men in their autumn years if the world were made of purer and better stuff in their youthful springs and summers, and the folks who call the shots at SNY ought to know that by now.
- The Mets hired David Stearns! This is great [21], and I can’t wait for … you know what? Nah. I am pleased, and I do have hopes that this will let blueprints be drawn up in relatively short order for the next great era of Mets baseball. But I’m also tired of winning offseasons. If there were flags for that, Citi Field would be so festooned with flapping banners that the stadium would be in danger of taking flight in a high wind. I’d prefer some real ones, the kind given out for in-season accomplishments.