Mild to Wild

Opening Day brought balmy temperatures, runs a-plenty and good vibes. Most of Game 2, which arrived separated from Game 1 by the usual “rainouts happen” off-day, was the opposite: It was freezing, big hits were conspicuous in their absence, and the vibes were meh with a side of muttery.

David Peterson was very David Peterson: mostly good except when he lost the strike zone, as he tends to do, but he wiggled free of harm and departed in the sixth with no harm having been suffered. But Mitch Keller — the same Mitch Keller whose breakout has kept not quite arriving for the Pirates, like the bedroom door in Poltergeist — was just as good quantitatively and a little better qualitatively, not that the latter counts.

The Mets were no doubt glad to see Keller depart, but couldn’t break through against Justin Lawrence, last seen getting ambushed by Carson Benge and Francisco Alvarez on Opening Day. Nor could they do anything against Gregory Soto, who as a Met specialized in letting inherited runners score and not paying attention to baserunners and of course is now far more effective while getting paid by someone else. (Seriously, I fucking hate Gregory Soto.) And while we’re being muttery, so far every play Jorge Polanco is involved in at first base is improv. Polanco will get better, but until he does I’d buckle up.

The game was scoreless after nine, meaning it was time for another delightful round of Calvinball Presented by Rob Manfred. Luis Garcia (ha there are three of them so Baseball Reference can’t figure out how to do the link) allowed a Pirate run in the 10th, but we’re getting used to the idea that that’s barely a failure in Calvinball, let alone a fatality. The Mets immediately tied the game and had the bases loaded and nobody out against young Hunter Barco, which was when things took a left-hand swerve into bonkers territory.

Francisco Lindor hit a bouncer to second, a near-carbon copy of the play in which Isiah Kiner-Falefa and the Blue Jays failed to win the World Series. Brandon Lowe threw home as Marcus Semien slid home, but Henry Davis managed to keep a toe on the bag and the Mets’ first shot at a win had gone by the boards.

Up came Juan Soto, who hit a little excuse-me swinging bunt that Barco had to scramble off the mound to field. A lot can go wrong on a play like that — ask poor Orion Kerkering — but Barco made a nifty bare-handed grab and a perfect shovel toss to Davis to force Jared Young at home. Oh for two, and when Bo Bichette flied out the chance was gone.

Enter the peripatetic Richard Lovelady, who got two quick outs and looked like he was going to pull off a Calvinball near-miracle and keep the Manfred Man from scoring. (Do we have a name for this feat yet?) But with former Mets farmhand Jake Mangum on third, luck stopped being a lady, a development I doubt Richard greeted with much love. Bryan Reynolds sent a Lovelady sweeper ambling up the third-base line, a ball clearly destined to spin foul up until the moment that it didn’t and instead became a Mazeika Special that gave the Pirates the lead again. A lead they arguably should have padded when Marcell Ozuna lined a ball inside the right-field line, except Young played it well and the Pirates held Reynolds up at third rather than force the Mets to execute a perfect play.

(It’s just two games, but the Pirates look more than a little off-kilter: defensive lapses, strange bullpen and baserunning decisions, and players who don’t seem quite prepared for their duties, whether those include wearing sunglasses beneath a high sky or making sure the pitcher can get all his warm-up throws in.)

Anyway it was 2-1 Pirates, Barco was back out there for the 11th, and it was time for the Mets to climb that hill again in front of a chilly crowd that was fervently urging on a happy ending, if only to stay warm. Barco walked Polanco and started Luis Robert Jr. off with a bait changeup, which Robert ignored. Robert spent a good chunk of the spring on the back fields in Port St. Lucie, trying to rewire his batting eye to seek deeper counts — an laudable goal that’s awfully hard for hitters to make a reality, though the early returns from the first two games have been promising.

Barco’s second pitch was a slider at the bottom of the zone — another one to spit on, probably, but Robert found it to his liking. He connected and drove the ball toward left-center. A hit? Certainly. Up the gap? Quite possibly. Over the fence for a walkoff three-run homer? Indeed it was. Which maybe felt like the hard way, after the grinding frustration of the early innings and the surrealism of the late frames, but certainly got us to the outcome we wanted.