It’s a basic rule that you cannot, in fact, win ’em all.
It’s also a common error as a baseball fan to forget this bedrock truth.
It sure felt like the Mets would win ’em all, or at least this next quantum in the set, when Mark Vientos [1] blasted an early two-run homer off Bryce Elder [2] to give David Peterson [3] and the Mets a lead Sunday afternoon.
Surely the Mets would pour it on as they had the last two days, tormenting various Atlanta relievers and leaving us to wonder where, exactly, this exceptional play had been for much of the summer.
Surely Vientos — the most essential Met for the rest of the season — would stay on his recent heater for the rest of the year, lengthening the lineup as he did in 2024.
Surely Peterson would keep being the rock of the rotation, taking pressure off a still-evolving bullpen and maybe even inspiring his fellow starters.
Which delivered us to the doorstep of another common fan error: mistaking a short distance for a clear view.
This topsy-turvy, stop-start Mets season has been bad for not only our mental health but also our predictive powers, as the Mets have been reliable only when it comes to being confounding.
And so it was again: A ninth-inning flurry notwithstanding, the Mets stopped hitting. Peterson got into the sixth but found the last out elusive, departing having lost the lead. The relief faltered, with Gregory Soto [4] hitting Vidal Brujan [5] and giving up a two-run single to Jurickson Profar [6], long ago the subject of near-constant Mets trade gossip and now one of those guys who’s quietly been around forever and turns up each season on a new team. The defense didn’t get it done, as Profar’s single plopped down in front of Cedric Mullins [7] and spurred questions about why, exactly, he was playing center instead of Tyrone Taylor [8].
Would Taylor have made the catch? That’s a three-in-the-morning question in a season that’s been full of them, no doubt with more to come. He didn’t, in answer to the larger question the Mets didn’t, and rather than make ourselves crazier perhaps we should draw a curtain on this one with a shrug and remind each other that you cannot, in fact, win ’em all [9].