In a Strange Country

Friday night’s game … goodness, where do you even start?

Let’s start with the weather. It wasn’t supposed to rain in New York, or at least not seriously enough to matter, but it’s done nothing but rain in New York all May, so if it isn’t doing that you check and see if it just did or looks like it’s about to. The skies had been pewter-colored and heavy all day, so I had my suspicions beyond the recent baseline paranoia.

When the rain did come, it was enough to drive Griffin Canning and Clayton Kershaw from the game and send a fireworks night crowd to seek cover. (And watch the Knicks on the JumboTron.) To be honest Emily and I didn’t particularly mind, as we’d just gotten off the highway in Brewster to find something to eat — from our perhaps selfish perspective the rain delay was both perfectly timed and of perfect duration.

Well, until we entered a cellular dead zone in an unfamiliar part of western Connecticut. Lots of twists and turns in the darkness, but no Mets. (At least Google Maps kept working.) When we got reception back four runs had scored — one for us, three for the Dodgers — and Max Kranick was plying his trade.

And the game was getting weirder. We’d heard (via Howie and Keith in the car, no Apple TV for us this time) the strange play where Michael Conforto tagged up after an odd near-collision between Tyrone Taylor and Juan Soto sent a ball briefly airborne before being corralled. The Mets thought they had an out because Conforto had left too early; in fact the rule is you can tag on first touch, not final possession.

If you knew that, congratulations: I didn’t, Howie and Keith didn’t, and at least half the players on the field didn’t. (We’ll let all the umpires involved take the fifth.)

Once we got reception back, the Mets cut the deficit to 3-2 on another strange play: Teoscar Hernandez threw Starling Marte out trying to score from third, but Marte was ruled safe on obstruction. Not on Will Smith, who’d tagged Marte out, but on Max Muncy, who’d never touched him. The ruling was that Muncy had obstructed Marte by getting in his line of sight with Hernandez. Who even knew that was a rule?

The Dodgers scored two more runs after that to leave the Mets down by three again and frankly things looked fairly hopeless, as Dodger relievers dispatched our high-octane, empty-tank offense with little fuss. But then the Mets did something very un-Mets-like in the ninth, rising up against Tanner Scott. With one out and runners on first and second, Jeff McNeil tripled in two runs, then was chased home on a Taylor single into the corner.

The game was tied … alas, we didn’t know it yet but that was the high-water mark of the night. Taylor played it safe and wound up with a single — which loomed large two batters later, when Brett Baty‘s single only sent Taylor to third. Luisangel Acuna had a chance to win it, but Alex Vesia lured him into swinging at a high fastball and we were off to extra innings.

Extra innings, the other side of midnight in New York, and certifiable bonkersness ensuing. The effect of the stupid ghost runner has been to end nearly all games in a 10th inning, but Friday night’s game turned apparently unwinnable, defying all efforts at being driven to a conclusion.

First came Edwin Diaz, who loaded the bases with nobody out and had to face Teoscar Hernandez, one of many Dodgers you may remember killing us in October. Diaz got a ground ball to Pete Alonso, who this time threw to the catcher instead of above the catcher, cutting down the go-ahead run at the plate. Diaz then got Muncy — another October tormenter — to hit into a double play.

The Mets couldn’t take advantage: Francisco Lindor and Soto failed in the 10th, and Alonso made the last out of the inning on a flyball that came within a whisker of being a homer run, which doesn’t count even if it’s really late and the fans just want to see fireworks and go home.

Reed Garrett was spotless in the top of the 11th; in the bottom of the inning the Mets had the bases loaded with two out, but Acuna came up empty once again, unable to beat out a grounder to third.

By now, sprawled on the couch at my in-laws in Connecticut (no Apple TV there either) I had dispensed with all my usual rituals — no bringing on the enemy pitcher, no urging the forces of good to just get on base. There didn’t seem to be a point: The game had entered a strange country, one impervious to both logic and superstition, and we were all being dragged along in its wake.

Garrett got through the 12th, despite Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman (oh my); in the bottom of the 12th a Marte sacrifice put Mets on second and third with one out. Sensibly enough, the Dodgers intentionally walked Soto to face Luis Torrens (who was now playing first base, because of course). Torrens is one of the few Mets not afflicted with whatever malady has made the team allergic to getting big hits, but he grounded into a double play.

And then, in the 13th, it all came crashing down. The Dodgers scored twice; the Mets succumbed meekly, and I presume fireworks were the reward of the hardy souls who’d endured all that. Unless it rained again. Did it? You know what, I really don’t want to know.