Visiting the Incredible Sinking Mets

Honestly the rain delay was the best part.

The Mets led 1-0 in the top of the second on Saturday and were at least mildly threatening to lead by more, with Mark Vientos at the plate against the Pirates’ Bailey Falter, two outs and runners on first and second.

Then the skies opened up. It would be 89 minutes before Vientos could resume his AB, this time against Braxton Ashcraft. Vientos struck out; the Mets sent Paul Blackburn back out to the hill and he gave up five straight singles. Exit Blackburn, enter Jose Butto; by the time the inning was over the Pirates had a 3-1 lead.

Emily and I spent the rain delay wandering PNC Park, which upon a repeat viewing lives up to its reputation as one of baseball’s best parks. There’s the journey to and from the park over the Roberto Clemente bridge, the dazzling view of the Pittsburgh skyline across the Allegheny River, and the statues of notable Pirates outside; these attractions have made PNC famous, and with good reason.

But there are also ample areas in which to stroll and gather and even hide from a downpour, and the people who run PNC Park have a welcome laissez-faire attitude toward what you get up to. Emily and I were looking for a spot offering shelter from the rain but also exposure to a cooling breeze, and at one point sought refuse in a semi-closed-off nook next to a Pittsburgh police officer, used to house trash bins and a booth for the Pirates’ kids club. I waited for someone to tell us we couldn’t be there, but that was years of conditioning from Shea and Citi Field — no one so much as batted an eye.

The Pirates fans and Pittsburghers in general proved good hosts on Saturday: The fans at PNC accepted an invasion of Mets fans (many gathered, like us, by the 7 Line) with cheerful grousing at worst; the folks at the flagship Primanti Bros. managed to stay friendly despite New Yorkers’ ignorance of all the sandwich shop’s decades-old routines.

(PNC had a pregame moment of silence for Dave Parker, the legendary Bucs slugger who died just a month from induction at Cooperstown; about half the crowd hadn’t heard of the Cobra’s death, and the shock and grief in the park were palpable.)

Post rain delay, the Mets’ sorely taxed bullpen performed admirably, or at least it did so initially, with Brandon Waddell and Reed Garrett following Butto to the hill and keeping the Pirates at bay. Meanwhile the Mets continued being annoyingly peaceable at the plate, but did draw within one run on a Brandon Nimmo RBI single; in the seventh Nimmo came within a whisker of tying the game, driving a ball to the left-field fence but not off it or over it.

But in the eighth, everything fell apart. Earlier this season Huascar Brazoban looked like he’d figured out how to trust his stuff and throw strikes, chalking up a win for the Mets’ pitching development corps. But Brazoban has given back all those gains in recent weeks, and once again looks like the chronically wild, saucer-eyed reliever the Mets acquired last summer. Brazoban was terrible and newcomer Colin Poche was worse in his Mets debut; Poche arrived with an ERA of 11.42 and somehow left with an ERA of 12.54, which is both hard to do and not advisable. (He also has annoying baseball cards to track down for The Holy Books, which isn’t his fault but … actually who cares, I’m going to blame him for that too.)

When the Mets finished ducking and covering it was 9-2 Pirates, not much of an improvement on Friday’s debacle and proof, I suppose, that baseball offers multiple roads to disaster. The Mets then held a postgame players’ meeting, something they’d resisted during this depressing swoon until it all apparently became too much Saturday.

I’m normally cynical about players’ meetings, but hey, last year’s get-together did coincide with a turning point, when the Mets were far worse in the standings and seemingly far more of a hopeless case. Will the 2025 Mets now also import fast-food mascots and vague-wattage digital-meme celebrities? Encourage Brett Baty or Ronny Mauricio to try their hands at Latin pop songs? Hey, whatever works — because right now nothing is working.

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A postscript: An oddity of my baseball fandom is that I’ve never come away from an MLB game with a baseball. None secured off a foul at the plate, no home runs, nothing tossed into the stands by a fielder or a bullpen catcher.

I’ve come close a number of times, and the problem is that I just don’t react. Balls have bounced in front of me, whizzed past me, spun at my feet — all for naught. Emily, witnessing a ball nearly take out our child while in my arms, exclaimed “for God’s sake give me that baby!”

It’s become A Thing, but Saturday at PNC took it to another level. After the bottom of the first, a Met flipped the last out into the stands, over the net. I was busy taking a picture of the Pirate Parrot for some fucking reason; the Mets fan next to me was looking at his phone. The ball stuck between our shoulders, somehow not hitting either of us in the face and attracting no apparent notice from anyone in front of us.

The next-door fan looked at me; I looked at him; he took the ball. I now feel safe in saying that I will never wind up with a ball at an MLB game — and that this is not an injustice.