Hats Held Onto

“Does anyone still wear a hat?” Elaine Stritch was known to ask. If anyone does — and I know it’s done at Citi Field — I hope hats have been held onto tightly, for the Mets won a ballgame in their ballpark Wednesday night. Surprising, I know.

The Mets, losers of 10 of their previous 11, looked liked their old selves, the selves who’d won 45 of 69 ahead of the skid that commenced nearly two weeks ago and paused only once. Now, they’ve won one of one. Now, overall, they’ve won of 47 of 81, which is to say they are 47-34 after 81 games, which is also to say we have reached the halfway point of the 2025 baseball season.

How the hell did that happen? Wasn’t it just March 27, the Mets in Houston, the new year getting underway? Where did it go? It went to some of the highest Met heights in recent memory before plunging back toward the middle. The heights were too high to let a even a severe two-week dip dent the record too badly, though I suppose there’s still time.

There’s always time. It’s the thing that flies.

Fortunately, there are also still the Mets of the current campaign, the Mets who were, I’m pretty sure, too good to continue spiraling. Living in every season at once as I do, the way the Mets have played versus the Braves and Phillies in particular has sent me back four years to 2021. Remember 2021? I’m gonna guess, despite its relative recency, not much. It’s one of those seasons that evaporated from common Met discourse as soon as it was over. Luis Rojas was the manager. Several people were the general manager (one of them signed James McCann; another of them traded Pete Crow-Armstrong). Marcus Stroman was the rotation’s rock. Miguel Castro saw more action out of the pen than anybody. The Bench Mob — Villar and Pillar; Peraza and Mazeika, Prancer and Vixen — constituted the collective toast of the town for an eyeblink. Things looked good for a while before things looked dicey. Then things went simultaneously west and south.

As of August 12, the 2021 Mets sat in a tie for first place with a record of 60-55. Their next four series encompassed two apiece versus the Dodgers and Giants, a pair of clubs en route to crashing the 100-win mark. You know why L.A. and San Fran won 106 and 107 games, respectively? Because they had the good sense to schedule the Mets. Between August 13 and August 26, they combined to play the Mets 13 games and beat them 11 times. When the carnage was over, so, effectively, was the Mets’ shot at reaching the playoffs.

Ancient four-year-old history, except the contemporary Mets, after losing three of three to the Rays at home; going to Atlanta and losing three of three; going to Philadelphia and losing two of three; and coming home and losing their first two against the Braves, gave me unwanted flashbacks to that not-so-golden interregnum of Jake Reed and Chance Sisco. We’re good as long as we don’t play good teams? Playing good teams is what torpedoed us in ’21.

It’s not ’21 anymore. We have Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz and Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil and David Peterson now. We had them then, too, but it’s much different in ’25. I’m sure of that.

Pretty sure.

True, we’ve cycled through our share of Dicky Loveladys, Tyler Zubers, and, as of Wednesday, Jonathan Pintaros — 30 pitchers in all this season, plus a designated hitter who threw a scoreless inning — but we also have Juan Soto in ’25. We’re slated to have him in years I can’t guarantee will arrive in a world-teetering-perilously-on-the-precipice-of-extinction sense, but we’ll worry about those years should they get here. We have the Soto we craved in December, the Soto I remember looking at during that first series in Houston, when he was exchanging a few words with Jose Siri in the Daikin Park outfield after one of them had called off the other on a fly ball, and thinking, “Wow, he’s actually a Met, not just a stunning acquisition who shows up at press conferences and swings for sizzle reels, but the guy in right who communicates with the guy in center for our team, just like any Met would.” Except he was Juan Soto, celebrity baseball player I wasn’t yet used to being a Met.

I’m not a hundred percent certain I’m used to it yet, but I’ll take what he’s gotten in the habit of giving us when swinging in real life, a real life that includes two swings like those Soto put on two Brave pitches last night. Juan homered twice for the 27th time in his career, or more than anybody ever has before the age of 27. When Soto was with other teams, we’d hear of such youthful exploits and at most nod toward his excellence. Yeah, that Soto is quite a hitter. What’s that got to do with us? Apparently, everything. Based on his output of June 2025, when Juan Soto of the New York Mets has scalded like the temperature and passed the previously unassailable Polar Bear for the club’s home run lead, Juan Soto being a New York Mets is a condition a Mets fan could and should get used to.

Soto’s two home runs accounted for two runs batted in. Ronny Mauricio’s one home run, one of three hits for the kid who seems to be warming to major league competition, accounted for one run batted in. All three Met homers were spectacular to watch soar into the sweat-soaked night, but they were, when you got right down to it, solo home runs. The beauty of the Mets finally beating the Braves Wednesday was that four other runs scored as a result of other hitting outcomes: two runs on sac flies, two runs on singles. Five runs in all scored in the home fourth, as if the Mets just found out about this new thing called keeping the line moving.

Run prevention also came in handy. McNeil, never a center field for more than a minute until this year, robbed Marcell Ozuna of a home run in the first inning. Clay Holmes, the starter from March 27 and every five or six days since, continued in what had been a novel role for him, going five and allowing only one run. You’d like more length from your starter, even if you have to keep reminding yourself Holmes is a starter like McNeil is a center fielder — just lately. Though you’d always like more length from your starter, you’ll accept as something for your starter-length troubles scoreless innings from Brandon Waddell, Jose Butto, and Ryne Stanek. You’ll even give Pintaro a pass for not quite shutting the door in the ninth inning when tasked with protecting a six-run lead. It was his first-ever big league appearance, and things never got too out of hand. He was even thoughtful enough to create a save opportunity (four-run lead, two men on, potential tying run in the on-deck circle) for Diaz, who efficiently cashed it in by recording one quick out.

The 7-3 win by the triumphant team that makes you forget how bad they look when they lose (just as when they’re losing 10 of 11 they make you forget how good they look when they win) was gratifying especially from a big-picture perspective. The 47-34 record they hold at the season’s halfway point is damn fine. Practically, it’s good enough to have them a half-game out of first in the present. Historically, it’s the same mark the 1969 Mets and 1984 Mets held after 81 games, and we know those live on as transcendent years in the common Met discourse. I’ll try to ignore that the 1991 Mets were also 47-34, yet finished 77-84, having experienced their own 2021-style plunge but worse in the second half (a 4-23 stretch ended not only their division title hopes but destroyed what remained of the most successful era the franchise has ever known).

However other Met years have shaken out, 47-34 after 81 games remains damn fine. Still, the way we were going this year, when we were 45-24 two weeks ago, I figured we’d have touched if not passed 50 wins by now.

OK, I assumed we’d have touched if not passed 50 wins by now.

OK, I assumed we’d have passed 50 wins and be waaay ahead in first place, no sweat.

Alas, there’s been a lot of perspiration in these parts these past few days.

Get a grip…

As for time flying, let me redirect your attention to Clay Holmes’s mound opponent in the 81st game of 2025. The Braves’ starter Wednesday night was Didier Fuentes. Didier Fuentes is a young man. How young? Didier Fuentes was born on June 17, 2005. On June 17, 2005, this blog was busy commemorating the 10th anniversary of Bill Pulsipher’s June 17, 1995, major league debut, a 7-3 defeat at the hands of Houston, an event that is a touchstone in the development of Faith and Fear in Flushing. It’s the game for which Jason and I first met in person, outside Gate D at Shea Stadium. We were online friends for a year prior, now we were friends for real. Not quite 10 years later, on February 16, 2005, we started a blog about the Mets, a blog that is still going more than 20 years later.

And, we have learned, four months and a day after we started this blog, a baby was born in Colombia, and that baby has grown up to pitch against the Mets — and lose to them by the same score Bill Pulsipher lost to the Astros in front of Jason and me exactly ten years prior to the day that baby was born.

That baby, now 20-year-old Didier Fuentes, is the first major leaguer younger than Faith and Fear in Flushing. That’s a youthful exploit not even Juan Soto can claim. Living in every season at once as I do, I shouldn’t be shocked at how time’s flight path maps out directly overhead. But, oh baby, this piece of information would have me holding onto my hat if I wore one anywhere outside of Citi Field.