You know it’s bad when you’re relieved your team isn’t playing.
After getting curb-stomped by the 100-loss Pirates, the Mets didn’t play baseball Monday and that felt like a respite. Then they got rained out Tuesday and that felt like a gift. One could be forgiven for thinking, “Maybe they’ll be rained out for the rest of the year and both they and we can take this opportunity to reconsider our recent life choices.”
But the weather cleared, as it eventually does. The vast majority of us kept watching, as was probably inevitable. And so the Mets went back to work for a Wednesday day-night doubleheader against the Brewers.
The day part, which I listened to via a vaguely clandestine earbud while at work, went about as well as the last couple of weeks have gone. There was a sweet moment when the fans applauded Pete Alonso‘s RBI single with what sounded like empathetic delight; no one takes failure more personally than Alonso, who turns into a Margaret Keane waif during his achingly morose trudges back to the dugout.
That gave the Mets a 2-1 lead, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Reed Garrett reported for duty in the sixth and it didn’t go well: two middle-middle cutters spanked for hits, a robot-umps-now assisted walk, and a Joey Ortiz grand slam. That wasn’t ideal, to say the least, but let’s pause, shovels in hand, before burying Garrett: The Mets’ offensive output on the day consisted of a pair of singles and an HBP, and honestly, converting that into two runs was a near-miracle.
Emily and her dad met up for the night portion of the doubleheader while I was volunteering on the water for Brooklyn Bridge Park’s kayak program. My absence seemed like a wise choice with the Mets set to face Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski, whom I wouldn’t have been able to pick out of a police lineup but whose approximate scouting report I’d absorbed through box-score osmosis: stands eight-foot-two, fastball tops 130 MPH, slider comes in at 105 MPH, known to literally eat enemy batters if displeased.
So it was a record-scratch moment when I got off the water, fired up MLB At Bat and saw Mets 5, Brewers 0. Wait, what?
Let this be your latest reminder that baseball makes no sense. Misiorowski had started off his career by winning three straight against the Cardinals, Twins and Pirates but came crashing down to earth with two outs in the second inning against the now-lowly Mets: walk, walk, weird little squibber that Brice Turang couldn’t corral, Brandon Nimmo grand slam … followed, five pitches later, by a Francisco Lindor home run.
Yes, Nimmo and Lindor got flipped in the batting order; given the power of ballclub superstititons and recency bias, we’ll see if that was truly only a one-day thing. (Lindor also got voted onto the National League starting squad for the All-Star Game, an accolade he locked up last October.)
The Mets threatened to give the game back: Blade Tidwell ran out of gas in the sixth and the Brewers clawed their way back to within two runs. Milwaukee then brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth against Edwin Diaz, sending several thousand Mets fans under their couches. But Diaz came back from a 2-0 count, mixing up sliders and fastballs to freeze Jake Bauers, then punched out the Brewers 1-2-3 in the ninth.
Does one really rejoice over splitting a doubleheader with the Brewers in early July? If you’ve been through what we have of late, you better believe you do.
Good thing the Brewers pitcher with the unspellable name isn’t, say, 6 foot two. Otherwise even if Nimmo and Lindor go back to back to start the next inning we’re probably looking at another come from ahead loss.
But it’s baseball so . . .
Hayden Senger’s freak single was the turning point in the game.
I want to tell SNY that 2024 was last year, and the 2025 season is more than half over. I don’t want to spoil their fun reminiscing, but there’s urgent business at hand that has nothing to do with Lindor’s HR 9 months ago. Enough already.