Summer Breeze

Did I hear him correctly? Did I hear Carson Benge, in the wake of his smashing major league debut at Citi Field, tell a friendly interlocutor that ”I want to keep playing here forever”? Don’t toy with us, kid. Because if you’re serious, we’re in the smitten state of mind to take you up on it.

Almost nobody who has indicated he was planning to play here forever plays here forever. It’s certainly not right to hold the freshest-faced of youngsters to such a sentiment. After all, there has been only one Wright in our lives. Proof of the transitory nature of unexpiring attachment to our environs and what they promise as permanent on a sunny, warm, and resoundingly successful Opening Day could be found in the box scores and bullpens of teams decidedly not rooted in Flushing. Did ya see who led off for Texas in Philadelphia? Who batted third for the Orioles at Camden Yards? Who didn’t need to get loose as the Dodgers pulled away from the Diamondbacks? Alas, as we learned anew amid the scalding flame of the Hot Stove, readjusting the parameters of “forever” is intrinsic to the business of baseball, and business was likely the last thing the 23-year-old right fielder of the New York Mets was thinking about in the minutes after he’d completed his very first game in front of an appreciative throng he could right then and there picture hitting home runs in front of for eternity.

Why wouldn’t Carson want to spend his career with us? He homered for us and was reciprocated a curtain call. He did a little of everything and was applauded heartily. He had Metsopotamia leaning forward with him, anticipating more homers, more walks, more steals, more hustle, more talent, more confidence, more of everything that marked our first taste of him and his of us. The fact that forever is a mighty long time escapes an interested party on Opening Day.

Let’s go crazy. Let’s funnel an Opening Day like Thursday’s into a nearby 3-D printer and crank out 161 copies. The weather sent winter to an undisclosed location. The lineup, with one Met entering our consciousness after another, was bountiful in its production. Eleven runs. Eleven hits. Ten bases on balls. A harmless hit by pitch. Nearly 200 pitches elicited from the hapless hurlers representing Pittsburgh. The Mets could leave double-digit runners on and we didn’t have to stress. The visiting Pirates could place one of the sport’s elite pitchers to the hill and we didn’t have to withstand his appearance for as long an inning. Granted, it was a long two-thirds of an inning. Paul Skenes, the Cy Young winner who was probably the reason NBC wanted this game to reactivate its association with baseball, threw 37 pitches to nine Mets. He recorded two outs. The Mets made him work, then made him go away. His center fielder, a converted shortstop of notable height, didn’t help his cause, but our guys — they are all our guys now — put patience in their approach, bats to balls, and Skenes in the dugout.

Erstwhile outlanders Bo Bichette, Jorge Polanco, Luis Robert, Jr., and Marcus Semien meshed marvelously with the holdovers Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Brett Baty, and powerhouse catcher Francisco Alvarez. Benge was the cherry on top of this beautifully blended sundae, evidenced most tantalizingly by his sixth-inning liner over the right-center field fence. If you’re serious about sticking around, Carson, you’re 263 off the franchise career record. But maybe we’ll savor your potential one swing at a time.

The new ace pitcher, Freddy Peralta, hung in for five innings. He was nicked here and there, but he was supported handsomely (including by ABS), so therefore we’ll call his first start splendid. Tobias Myers, the next ex-Brewer up, was leaned on for three frames, and he quashed any notion that the slugfest in progress might get a little too mutually sluggy. Luis Garcia finished up looking more like the kind of veteran Met reliever we’re used to picking up on the open market, giving up a pair of shaky runs out of the gate, but that’s what six-run ninth-inning leads for. The 11-7 final functioned as a satisfying down payment on the days and months ahead.. Results such as this one can’t be easily replicated, but if we could, we’d invite them to keep playing forever.

They probably won’t, but after an Opening Day like 2026’s, you can dream that we will forever pass this way again.