We’ve all heard Keith Hernandez [1] say it, that common word that a California accent (or maybe it’s just Keith being Keith) strips of one familiar consonant. And Lord knows we felt it on a long Sunday that wound up for naught.
The Mets took walks. and the Mets pounded balls all over Busch Stadium against a Cardinals team they’d manhandled to the tune of nine straight wins. But not Sunday — nope, on Sunday they wound up a run in arrears in the afternoon, and then again in the evening.
The first game was more interesting than the second, as it brought the at least moderately heralded debut of Blade Tidwell [2], who looks about nine years old, with a funny way of repositioning his feet on the rubber that makes it look like he’s sliding sideways along a track built into the mound, like one of those hockey players in an old 70s tabletop game.
Tidwell’s final line was ugly, but I thought he actually pitched pretty well: He was a mess in the first, with his fastball elevated and no location on his offspeed pitches, but that’s to be expected. After that he was better, but undone by dinks and dunks over the infield, and a couple of pitches he put more or less where he wanted them in crisis situations, only to have the Cardinals convert them. Meanwhile, Erick Fedde walked five and got hit hard, but wound up only a little damp while Tidwell got drenched.
The Mets mounted a furious comeback in the eighth against old pal Phil Maton [3] and JoJo Romero, and loaded the bases with one out and Pete Alonso [4] coming up. Alonso put together yet another terrific AB, and on 3-2 Romero threw Pete a slider low and away, the kind of pitch that’s sent the Polar Bear crashing through the ice in previous seasons. This time Alonso spat on it, which was good; unfortunately it caught the tiniest sliver of the plate for strike three, which was bad.
The ninth was even more horrifying: Against Ryan Helsley [5] the Mets got a leadoff single but then saw Luis Torrens [6] miss a hanger, Jeff McNeil [7] hit a bolt of a line drive directly at the right fielder, and Luisangel Acuna [8] pop out to end the game [9].
Buzzard’s luck, and then we all got two hours to fume about it before watching the second game, which in the early going was like watching two drunks wail away at each other in a roadhouse parking lot. Neither Tylor Megill [10] nor Andre Pallante [11] was any good, leaving the game tied 4-4 after three. Then the Cardinals called on Michael McGreevy [12], who was wonderful in his season debut, cooling down the Met offense.
That offense ran hot but also hideously inefficient: The Mets left 10 on base and once again kept rocketing balls right at people, with Juan Soto [13] particularly unlucky in this regard. Though not quite as unlucky as the little girl in a front-row seat who wound up flattened by Nolan Arenado [14] through the netting on a great catch in the eighth against Soto. In the aftermath Arenado looked horrified while the girl looked cosmically nonplussed, as you might if a large baseball player suddenly came out of the sky to Panini-press you into your seat. Fortunately all involved were OK, with the exception of Soto’s BABIP.
It was that kind of day. The Mets lost, then lost again [15], and looked supremely frustrating in doing so. Or, sorry, make that fustrating.