Sunny Sunday, slight chill, right field corner, Citi Field. It’s September with a lead over our more or less blood rival in the Wild Card race, and I’m just waiting for the Mets to do something. Do something, do anything? No, I’m being vaguely specific in my desires. I’m waiting for the Mets to do that thing they do. In polite company, I’m cheering a little here and groaning a little there. In my head, I’m practically screaming at them to be what they’ve been for nine consecutive games dating back to Resurrection Thursday in Arizona. Make with the timely hitting and the clutch relieving and then wave the OMG sign around once you win your tenth in a row, because I’ve heard yours is a ballclub that never loses. C’mon, be the Mets I’ve been watching on TV, except do it in front of me!
The Mets, alas, turned into Michigan J. Frog as soon as I got close to them. No singing. No dancing. Not nearly enough hitting, save for one measly inning. Plenty of pitching, except at the end, when we really could have used more. All in all, it was just…ribet.
Goodbye, ma baby
Goodbye, ma honey
Goodbye, ma ragtime gal
For one day, anyway.
If I had told you in late May that we’d get to September, and a 3-1 loss to the Reds would land like a fastball to the ribs because it allowed the Braves to drift back into a tie with us for the final playoff spot, you’d likely think (after insisting I submit to a breathalyzer test) that the season had turned around dramatically since bottoming out so thuddingly. You’d be absolutely right and probably plenty pleased. Except we never fast-forward to the present and this isn’t quite the right time for “if I had told you” hosannas. We live in a present every day en route to the current present and we adjust our relationship to the standings accordingly. The standings of late May said we were dead. The standings of late August suggested death’s doorstep was nigh. The standings at the dawn of the second week of September say we’re dead even with the presumed invincible Braves. The moving of mountains and traversing of oceans to get here has constituted an epic journey, yet it is immaterial to our mood the morning after our first loss in a week-and-a-half.
We know we were thisclose to staying a game, maybe moving two games ahead of Atlanta. Except we lost in the ninth to the Reds, and the Braves beat the Blue Jays in eleven. It’s the time of the season when every opportunity is golden, and we just witnessed a pair sail agonizingly slightly to the wrong side of a surprisingly short foul pole. Thus I groaned a little louder than I cheered on Sunday. Mostly I thought, from a dark place the sun didn’t reach, COME ON ALREADY, YOU STUPID TEAM!
Oh, you’re not stupid. I’m sorry for screaming, albeit in my head. If it were a September Sunday without significant stakes, what a lovely September Sunday it would have been simply for baseball’s sake. The sun, the chill, my old pal Ken with whom I’d somehow never seen a game live and in person until this one. Ken activated a lovely Ken-nection and got us seated in that right field corner, where we watched Luis Severino do all he could do for six-and-two-thirds innings of one-run ball — with acrobatic infield defense playing its usual essential role — but otherwise breathed in the frustration of the Mets not stringing together hits for the sake of a run more than once. In the bottom of the sixth, when it had been nothing-nothing all afternoon, a facsimile of a rally occurred: a one-out walk; a two-out infield hit; then Starling Marte lining a single into center to bring home Pete Alonso. There — 1-0. Surely the floodgates were open.
That next sound you heard was the floodgates being fastened. The Mets, a little less deep without the services of Jeff McNeil, scored no more. Not even Francisco Lindor could get on base. Severino, whose only blemish erupted on a dying quail of an RBI single on his last pitch, was succeeded by Reed Garrett, who prevented further Cincinnati trips to home plate as he closed out the seventh. Garrett locked down the eighth as well, but then Phil Maton cracked. Phil Maton had done almost nothing wrong since relocating to the Met bullpen from Tampa Bay’s right before the All-Star break. Yet like the Mets losing at last after winning so much, Maton grew fallible all at once.
He hits a guy. He gives up a grounder that required so much effort on the corralling that nobody could be thrown out anywhere. He allows a double that there’s no need to examine more closely on a day when video replay was called into action repeatedly. It’s clearly a no-doubt double that scores the two decisive ninth-inning runs that are about to seal our Sunday fate. You want to believe the Mets can come up in the bottom of the ninth and pull off in miniature what they’ve been pulling off writ large for more than three months, but then you see them mostly flailing at Alexis Diaz, not exactly the Reds’ answer to his brother Edwin, but close enough. “I’m six-three, I throw ninety-seven miles per hour, and there’s two of me.” The wrong Diaz got the save.
What a friend recently convinced me had been the Tom Seaver Redemption Tour, wherein we sweep every team The Franchise never should have been loaned out to, came up a veritable Jimmy Qualls shy of perfection. Three out of three from the White Sox. Three out of three from the Red Sox. Two out of three from the Reds. Next for us are the Blue Jays, the team that signed Dennis Lamp in January 1984, enabling the White Sox to choose a player from the short-lived, ill-conceived compensation pool where Tom was left to float while Frank Cashen abandoned his lifeguard chair for five minutes. On Sunday, we rooted against the Reds in our game and for the Blue Jays in the Braves’ game, with neither result working out to our satisfaction. Tonight, we root against the Blue Jays in our game and for the Reds in the Braves’ game. It’s September, you’re either with us or against us or both.
We as fans are always with us, even when we’re silently screaming at us.
Pessimistic me says we scored 45 runs over the last 10 games. In most situations, given that according to Baseball Reference the average team has scored 4.42 runs per game this year, we’re lucky to have gone 9-1 rather than 5-5. Particularly as our hitting has been quite Lindor-centric which probably can’t last forever.
Optimistic me has more to say just, as always, at a lower volume. That me says pitching trumps hitting and our pitching has been beyond great, giving up 19 runs in those same 10 games. Even our bullpen, despite Maton last night, has been fantastic. And pitching is generally more reliable/repeatable than hitting. AND, if we get there, pitching is usually the big indicator of winning in the postseason. Besides, even if Lindor cools off, somebody will step up.
Then there’s philosophical me who I probably should really be listening to. That me says, “In late May who thought we’d be here by mid-September?” It’s already been a hell of a ride. This team, despite all its flaws, is genuinely likeable. And for all the angst and griping we’re still technically in a playoff position. Sure, a handicapper might rank us 4th in likelihood given the schedule before the respective WC contending teams but we are still here. Let’s play the games and see where it ends up.
Of course then we have Dreamer me. Dreamer me says, “You know two games from now it would be very possible for us to be 7 behind Philadelphia with 17 games to play and wouldn’t it be absolutely glorious if . . .”
OK, Dreamer me needs to shut up. But still, wouldn’t it be absolutely glorious if . . .?
You may as well indulge Dreamer you because 7 against the Phillies out of 19 remaining means the Mets most likely need to beat the Phillies to keep up in the wildcard race. After what the Phillies did to the Braves to help the Mets, 4-3 against them seems optimistic, yet at the same time, the Mets may need to go 5-2 to keep up in the wildcard race. I figure the Mets need 6-1 to seriously threaten for the division lead just because it’s hard to believe the Mets would gain 4 games on the Phillies in the other 12 games. 2 games over the other 12 is a reasonable amount of help.
But if the Mets need to go 5-2 against the Phillies to keep up in the wildcard race, then 6-1 may prove necessary. So you may as well indulge Dreamer you.
4 against the Phillies, then 3 in Atlanta–that’s a doozy. At least there’s an off day between series. If the Mets are holding a wildcard at the end of it, then they need to keep it in Milwaukee with no off day there.
“That me says pitching trumps hitting and our pitching has been beyond great, giving up 19 runs in those same 10 games. Even our bullpen, despite Maton last night, has been fantastic.”
Pitching is the Diamondbacks’ weakness, the worst in MLB in September. Worse than the cellar dwellers. They’ve also scored the most runs in September. Result: 4-4 in September.
If there were 50 games left with the standings this close, I’d be confident that their pitching would sink the Diamondbacks, and the superior pitching Padres, Mets, and Braves would be the wildcards. But at 18 left for them and 19 for the Mets, it’s game by game. The defending NL champions don’t have 7 left against the Phillies and 3 against the Braves. But they do have 3 against the Padres.
I know, no one ever wants to hear someone say “You can’t win ‘em all” after a loss. But you can’t win ‘em all.
One of these lifetimes we’ll have to do something about that.
They haven’t won ’em all, they’ve lost 65 of ’em! Now they need to win the rest of ’em. OK, maybe not so realistic.
It’s time for Alonso to get hot.
Lose the strikeouts Pete!
Losing a game in classic deGrom fashion is always frustrating. The Mets have lost a number of winnable sweep or rubber Sunday games. Falling back to a tie when the Mets were so close to a 2-game lead on the Braves is frustrating. Up 1 going to the 7th inning and tied going to the 9th. The Braves were down 1 in the 9th and again in the 11th.
It helps that while the Mets and Braves went 2-1, the Padres, Diamondbacks, Cubs, and Cardinals went 1-2. Again, either the Padres or Diamondbacks is guaranteed 2 losses in their season-ending series. They both have 64 losses. The Mets and Braves have 65 losses. The Cubs at 70 losses and Cardinals at 71 losses aren’t out of it. So it was a productive weekend in the standings, just not as productive as it could have been…and maybe not as productive as the Mets will need.
The win streak isn’t enough. Like the June-July run, it only enabled the Mets to catch up to the wildcard leaders, not pull ahead in the wildcard race. The Mets need to keep winning to keep up.
“The Mets, a little less deep without the services of Jeff McNeil, scored no more.”
This sums up my concern about the loss of McNeil.
34-year-old Iglesias replacing 32-year-old McNeil as an everyday player for the small sample of the stretch run is okay: Iglesias’s defense and base-running are superior and his hitting has been better than McNeil’s this season. But with Iglesias taking McNeil’s place, who replaces Iglesias’s depth? Not Reyes or Stewart.
McNeil’s versatility on defense was a key cog in Mendoza’s substitution strategy that kept McNeil’s bat a constant in the line-up. The Mets could play Iglesias and McNeil at the same time. Stewart theoretically (not really) replaces McNeil’s bat while Reyes theoretically replaces McNeil’s versatility on defense, yet neither of them does both.
It looks like Lindor’s bat is cooling off and the other cold Mets bats haven’t heated up. McNeil, who had a stronger 2nd half, posed the threat of a recent batting champion who could heat up and help carry an offense. That’s gone.
It may not be obvious now, but if the Mets fall short, losing McNeil may stand out for several reasons.
RIP Ed Kranepool. Geez, it’s been a rough year, there’s no more room for memorial patches!