I’ve Often Heard That Kind of Talk Before

Every time we come to Southern California, we are absolutely the Clampetts.
—President Jed Bartlet

Albert Hammond offered a rather broad assertion in 1972 when he informed the nation’s pop radio listening audience that it never rains in Southern California. Seems it rarely rains in Southern California. On May 12, 1998, the Mets visited San Diego and were, in fact, rained out. The Padres had gone fifteen years between such postponements, but the Mets had been rained out seven times already that young season. Something had to give. When informed his club was the first since 1983 to have the tarp pulled over its plans at the recently rechristened, suddenly soaked Qualcomm Stadium — always the Murph to us — Mets manager Bobby Valentine dryly replied, “Well, I’m glad we’re here.”

More figuratively than literally.

Back in New York, I’ve learned to dread Met trips to San Diego because I always expect disaster to unfold late. Maybe “always” should be avoided the way Hammond might have rethought “never” in the face of meteorological aberrations (his song’s No. 5 peak on Billboard notwithstanding), but I’ve seen enough.

• Thirty-two walkoff losses since 1970, the year after the inception of Mets @ Padres interactions.

• Seventeen walkoff losses in the past thirty years we’ve visited the southernmost of MLB’s Southern California outposts.

• Seven walkoff losses at Petco Park before the aesthetically pleasing facility turned eleven.

• And, after a decade of slipping out of town without Met reality meeting my perception, in August of 2024…wham-o!

Jackson Merrill took Edwin Diaz deep to break our hearts on a Sunday afternoon and push the Sisyphean Mets straight downhill, boulder tumbling alongside and perhaps over them. Of course the 2024 Mets, propelled in part by the musical stylings of the indefatigable Candelita, were a pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again enterprise. Jackson Merrill slaying Edwin Diaz didn’t kill the Mets. At the time, however, I didn’t suspect it would make them stronger.

It’s almost a year later. The Mets entered the East Village section of San Diego feeling strong. The Mets had won seven in a row, four at Citi Field, three at Oracle Park. Neither of those venues is Petco Park, so forgive a weary Mets fan who knew he wasn’t going to make it through nine innings Monday night for bracing groggily for the worst. The single walkoff loss the Mets had experienced in the shadow of the Western Metal Supply Co. building since 2014, the one last year, seemed destined to double.

It did. In the moment, it was a debacle. In the long term, it’s not necessarily a disaster, but they’re all disasters as they’re happening. The seven consecutive wins that served as prelude to this disaster of a debacle/debacle of a disaster figure to cushion the aftereffects of Monday night’s fall. We’re still in first place. We’re still a game-and-a-half up on the Phillies. We’re still in as good a shape as possible despite the Padres inflicting as acute a case of the Mondays on the Mets as one could imagine.

There are dry spells, there are debacles, and there are disasters. Somewhere in there, there are the Padres eventually defeating the Mets in their last at-bat.

Mark Vientos hit a grand slam. That’s the good news. He hit a grand slam after an intentional walk was arranged so Vientos could bat with the bases loaded. That was the better news, harking back to the “I took it personal” homer he hit after the Dodgers chose to pitch to him rather than Francisco Lindor in 2024’s NLCS. The bad news is that for the third straight year — and the twentieth time in franchise history — a Met hit a grand slam in a losing cause. One of those hard-luck slammers, in 2009, was Fernando Tatis, Sr., then known as simply Fernando Tatis. The cause was winning when Mark unjuiced those sacks. He’d catapulted the Mets ahead, 5-1. This was after Fernando Tatis, Jr., had robbed Mark of an earlier home run (son of a Met!), and after Juan Soto was robbed of a legitimate ball-strike count by Emil Jimenez. Soto all but dared Jimenez to eject him. Carlos Mendoza stepped between his star right fielder and the judgment-impaired umpire and took the heave-ho bullet instead.

Going to the bottom of the fifth, Vientnos’s granny should have assured us everything was going to be just fine, that we could drift off to sleep without the Padres lurking under the bed coming out to haunt us. Silly me, however, remained awake. I saw the bottom of the fifth. Before the bottom of the fifth concluded, I thought I was seeing the bottom of the sixth from Opening Day 1997 at Qualcomm, just after San Diego forgot how to name its ballpark properly. That was the afternoon Pete Harnisch nursed a 4-0 lead until it died an agonizing death. Harnisch and three relievers combined to give up eleven runs before recording three outs. The season turned out OK and then some, but it didn’t start well.

The fifth inning Monday night disintegrated on contact. Before the game started, SNY’s cameras spotted Frankie Montas in something of a prayer circle with his family, our starter at the railing, his kin in the stands. It was a very touching tableau, and maybe the congregating with loved ones helped Frankie on the mound. He withstood trouble in the second and third pretty well and put down the Pads on seven pitches in the fourth. But in the fifth, “where’s your God now?” felt a reasonable question to wonder.

Tatis doubled off Brett Baty’s glove to lead off. Brett Baty was playing second base at the time. Balls of the second baseman’s glove (Brett dove) don’t usually become doubles, but Tatis had accomplished a bank shot, and the kind of inning the fifth was about to be was more than hinted at.

Luis Arraez, who would have punished Mets pitching before July 28 this year if only he’d batted against it, lofted one of the oddest home runs you’re ever going to see. It was basically a pop fly down the right field line that you never doubted was going to stay fair and go out. Luis Arraez has Luis Arraez power and it comes out in the funkiest ways. It also trims Met leads in half.

In the manager’s absence, Mendoza’s brain trust maintained its faith in Frankie for three more batters. Their faith was not rewarded. Merrill didn’t damage Montas, but Manny Machado (single) and Xander Bogaerts (double) sure did. John Gibbons and Jeremy Hefner said goodbye Frankie, hello Huascar. Mr. Brazoban was an instant faith-rewarder, getting Gavin Sheets to foul out, but the part where a pitcher covers first base flummoxed the reliever on duty. Jake Cronenworth lashed a ball up the first base line. Pete Alonso corralled it (Pete’s in there for his defense), but Huascar chose to watch the play develop before opting to participate in it. Cronenworth beat Brazoban to the bag, allowing Machado to score the run to make it Mets 5 Padres 4. Instead of there being three outs, two hits from the next two batters made it Padres 6 Mets 5. A wild pitch and a walk loaded the bases for Arraez. Yeah, this was going to be April 1, 1997, reincarnated, with Huascar Brazoban as Yorkis Perez, Toby Borland, and Barry Manuel all rolled into one, except Arraez, the Padre contact machine who regularly evokes comparisons to Tony Gwynn, somehow made the third out of the inning.

We were losing by only one run, but the vibe was unmistakably off. And my eyes were soon unmistakably closed, not to open again until I saw a graphic on the screen that announced a final of Padres 7 Mets 6. By then, I was trying to remember if that was the score when I nodded off. It was not. Apparently, Ronny Mauricio homered to tie the game in the top of the ninth, which would have been great to have seen live, then Gregory Soto received his full Met reliever initiation in the bottom of the ninth, which I have to say I didn’t mind missing. In the middle of the rally that permitted the Padres to walk off the Mets for the thirty-second time ever, our newest Soto practically threw a ball away in attempting a forceout at second. The hitter? Candelita himself, Jose Iglesias, last season’s master of the vibe. Jose was with us then. The spirit of OMG was with us then. Now, regardless of the words the Montas family might have shared pregame, forces were conspiring against us. Gregory got two outs, but gave up the game-winning single to Elias Diaz.

It may rarely rain in San Diego, but girl, don’t they warn ya, it pours. Man, it pours.