The Mets are a half-game in first place as the final action before the All-Star break approaches. That seems appropriate, given that so much of the Mets’ good fortune seems to depend on opposing baserunners being the equivalent of no more than a half-step off a base while a Met fielder’s tag is touching him. Actually, a half-step would be a generous measurement. Try a half-inch, if that much.
The latest example came Saturday afternoon in the bottom of the eighth at Kauffman Stadium. The baserunner was the Royals’ Bobby Witt, who had walked with one out. Edwin Diaz [1] is having a glorious season, but he still walks guys, and the guys he walks tend to run. Luis Torrens [2] knows that. Francisco Lindor [3] knows that. Harrison Friedland knows that. You probably know several of those Met names intimately and one in passing. The name Harrison Friedland passes through our consciousness every time there’s a close play on the basepaths, usually at second.
Witt was heading there in the eighth, where Lindor was waiting for Torrens’s throw. Friedland, the Mets’ analyst of video replays, was the most interested of observers, at least as interested as second base umpire Alan Porter. Porter thought Witt was safe. Couldn’t blame the ump. The Royals’ superstar looked supersafe.
[4]Hey VR, we’ve got your Sportsperson of the Year.
But our replay supervisor has super vision. Witt, he divined, might have breathed just enough to have removed some scintilla of his body from the bag in the process of sliding onto it. Challenge the call, Friedland advised bench coach John Gibbons over the replay hotline. Gibby passed the word to Carlos Mendoza. Mendy made with the earmuffs motion. Say what you will about the replay rule, but it has given us a wonderfully silly gesture that carries within it the power to alter the course of innings, games, and seasons.
Our favorite gesture, however, is the fist pump we make when an opponent’s stolen base is microscopically examined and eventually overturned. We may feel a little less than clean if he’s ruled out on the tickiest-tackiest video judgment call, but is it our fault MLB hasn’t instituted some kind of force field mechanism that proclaims, He was on the bag for 99.99% of that slide, don’t be swayed by the 00.01% that’s clearly incidental to the play? They wanna call runners out for the teensiest bit of daylight, provided a ball gets to the base and a tag stays on the guy, we’ll take it.
Good execution as always from Luis and Francisco. Outstanding microscope peering yet again from Harrison. Witt gets erased. Royals have two outs. Diaz gets the third, and then comes back for the ninth. By then, the 2-1 lead he was protecting is 3-1, and his two-inning save he’s attempting is en route to completion [5].
Great second game of a three-game set in Kansas City. Juan Soto [6] blasted a home run that turned their fountain into a wading pool. Frankie Montas [7] was Montastic for five innings. Middle relief in the sixth and seventh, from Reed Garrett [8] and Chris Devenski [9], respectively, warded off Royal spirits. Tight defense from Tyrone Taylor [10] and Luisangel Acuña [11] prevented leaks. Jeff McNeil [12], when he knocked in Pete Alonso [13] with a ninth-inning run insurance run, could have bumped Flor Cawley as State Farm Agent of the Day. And, perhaps most helpful of all, we had our video guy working marvelously within a system that allows for a video guy to do a thing we wouldn’t have guessed would exist when we fell in love with baseball.
Yet there he is and there it is. The Mets are first-place team by a half-game because sometimes a half-inch makes all the difference.