Pickin' Machines

On the surface, Pete Alonso and Rafael Devers aren’t that different: Huge dudes who can hit the ball a country mile and whose huge dude-ism means they aren’t particularly mobile. As has been the case since time immemorial, that means they play first base — which is where the similarities start to break down.

Alonso isn’t a great first baseman by any stretch, and it’s damning with faint praise to note that the Polar Bear has worked his furry white behind off to become at best an average one. But the hard work is real, Alonso takes enormous pride in playing the position, and he seems to genuinely enjoy it. Alonso’s range is suspect (though he has at least mostly stopped diving for balls better left to the second baseman) and his throws can go awry, but he’s become genuinely adept at saving his fellow infielders by scooping errand throws out of the dirt, a part of playing first base that’s always struck me as both difficult and potentially perilous. Saturday continued a two-game stretch in which Alonso made play after play when the Mets desperately needed him; on Friday night Clay Holmes was the beneficiary, while on Saturday it was David Peterson.

Devers, on the other hand, is at first base as the culmination of a series of dissatisfactions. He wants to play third, with the only problem being that he pretty much can’t. Which led to the Red Sox moving him to designated hitter in favor of Alex Bregman, then asking him to play first after an injury to Triston Casas.

Devers, understandably annoyed at being asked to play Position No. 3 after not wanting to play Position No. 2, refused and soon found himself getting paychecks from the San Francisco Giants … and now playing first base. As has also been the case since time immemorial, Devers’ attempts to elude fate have only accelerated its arrival.

Saturday night was Devers’ third-ever game at first, and it isn’t going well. To his credit, he did make a nifty scoop in the top of the fourth, which completed a double play and kept the Mets off the scoreboard. But mostly he looked like he was fielding grenades over there — blink your eyes and a ball was on the ground somewhere near Devers’ feet, with a whole bunch of large man in that ball’s general vicinity scrambling for a Plan B.

For a while it looked like the Giants might survive Devers’ misadventures: In the fourth they clawed a lone run out of Peterson, who didn’t look particularly sharp but offered a clinic in bending and not breaking. Unlike his counterpart Robbie Ray, Peterson was helped out by his fielders, with Brett Baty, Francisco Lindor and Alonso all making key defensive plays.

In the sixth inning the bill came due for Devers and the Giants: With one out and runners on first and second, Baty smacked a grounder to first. Devers made the start of a nifty play, turning to throw to second and start a double play. But the finish was less than nifty: The ball popped out of his hand before he could load up for the throw. Devers recovered and stepped on first to retire Baty, but that gave the Mets an extra out, and they capitalized.

They capitalized when Mark Vientos lashed a ball down the left-field line. Vientos had struck out with the bases loaded and nobody out in the fourth, the first fizzle of a fallen inning, and has had a miserable year so far, looking nothing like the breakout star who helped key the Mets’ playoff run last year and played so remarkably in the postseason. But hey, any day can be the first day of the rest of your life, right? Vientos delivered, turning a 1-0 Mets deficit into a 2-1 Mets lead and ending a trying day for Ray.

The teams trundled along scorelessly after that, with Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek holding the Giants at bay and a bevy of Giants relievers including Old Friend Joey Lucchesi keeping the Mets on the leash. Edwin Diaz was handed the ball to secure the save, and this is the place where our friends in the Giants fanbase should say “well anyway” and go read something else.

Diaz didn’t have it. He threw got two strikes on Casey Schmitt via sliders off the plate, but left a third one in the middle of the strike zone, which Schmitt smashed on a line to left field — right into Baty’s glove.

Stubbornly throwing nothing but sliders, Diaz left another one in the middle of the plate for Jung Hoo Lee, who crushed it to right. It hit that multi-angled nightmare of a brick wall, two or three feet shy of being a game-tying homer, and Lee cruised into second looking faintly disappointed.

Diaz belatedly opted for the fastball, using it to set Mike Yastrzemski up for a bait slider and a strikeout. That left the Giants’ hopes up to Patrick Bailey, who ripped another errant slider over first base, ticketed for the corner. It would score Lee and send Bailey to second, with God only knows what else tacked onto the play given the uncertain geography of that right-field corner.

Except Alonso leapt into the air, various limbs flailing for purchase, and caught the ball. He came down, kissed the possibly still smoking ball, Diaz exhaled about 100 cubic feet of dismay, and the Mets had somehow secured their sixth straight win. Reviewing the key moments this morning I’m still not sure how they did it, but hey … you could look it up.