The Greatest Win of All

A staple of postgame postmortems, specifically in the games where leads got away within sports whose rigidly timed action flows back and forth, is that the team that lost played not to lose rather than to win. Their defense wasn’t aggressive enough. Their offense wasn’t opportunistic enough. Winning wasn’t the priority. Not losing was, and therefore ya lost. Such a balance of ying and yang is what has lit up the switchboards of call-in shows for generations.

I’m not sure the “they played not to lose” dynamic applies much to baseball, where the players don’t run east to west in an effort to score, then west to east as they attempt to prevent scoring. Managerial tactics can be questioned — why not a pinch-hitter in a go-for-the-throat situation; why not a better reliever even if it’s not a save situation — but there isn’t really that sense of intentionally sitting on a lead or laying back oblivious to a change of the competitive tides. The one clock that’s come into baseball isn’t one that can be run out in the strategic sense. Scoring another run for yourself isn’t something you’ll pass up if readily attainable. You might trade a run for an out, but you’re always gonna seek outs when you’re the ones in the field.

Baseball is a game designed to be won rather than not lost — except, perhaps, when you’re watching your team play the 2025 Colorado Rockies. Then all you can think on behalf of your team is, “Don’t lose.” Faced with this very challenge on Friday night at Citi Field, the Mets didn’t lose. They won, 4-2, though not losing loomed as the greatest win of all.

Individually, the Mets committed the acts of winners. Francisco Lindor socked two home runs (one righty, one lefty) and leapt to grab a line drive. Starling Marte showed his bat still has pop. Juan Soto stuck the ball well twice to outstanding effect and patrolled his position with élan. David Peterson bent without breaking. Reed Garrett was dominant. Edwin Diaz was untouchable. As a unit, there was no doubt the Mets played winning baseball.

But mostly they didn’t lose. The Rockies entered Friday’s series-opener at 9-47. Nobody who isn’t competing in an NBA tankathon enters anything at 9-47. Not last year’s White Sox. Not the Original Mets. But these Rockies have cracked the code on historic proportions of losing. Whether or not it was their goal, they’ve achieved it thus far. From 9-47, they’ve dropped to 9-48. The fact there’s a “9” before the “-“ indicates they are not a sure thing to lose every game they play. Nor did observing them hint that they are wholly incapable of intermittent victory. I recognized a bunch of Rockies. Some of them were on Colorado last year when the Rockies didn’t lose two of the six games they played against the playoff-bound Mets. Everybody who makes the majors maintains an ability to throw, catch, connect, prevail. The Rockies on Friday night made some good plays and some effective pitches and some hard contact. Garrett and Diaz shut them down in the eighth and ninth, but there was no reason to think producing one more run than the Mets totaled was beyond their skill set.

Usually, there would be no reason to think that would be a big deal. You might have heard in your life that you can’t win them all, especially when “all” encompasses 162 games. Lesser teams rise up with regularity to defeat those who have no conceivable business losing to them, because baseball allows anything to be conceived. Any game in the long march from 1 to 162 is just one game. Everybody loses now and then. If it happens to you, you get ’em tomorrow. It’s all so comforting and all so true.

Except if you’re playing a 9-47, now 9-48 team. In that case, just don’t lose to them. Friday, the Mets didn’t, which they couldn’t. I mean they could have, but that would have invited more shudders than rationalizations. However they approached it, taking their assignment of not losing to the Rockies to heart was the way to go.

And they won, which was also nice.