One Bleeping Run

When watching television, I sit on the audience-left side of our living room sectional, which means it’s my right arm that flexes out at the end of a particularly frustrating Mets loss, and the side of my right fist that instinctively punches the nearest cushion. Disgust thus manifested, I can move along to my cooling-off period before getting over one lousy ballgame in a lifetime littered by them. Yet Sunday, when the Mets came up one bleeping run short of the Pirates, 4-3, in ten innings, the cushion punch wasn’t enough. Thus, without thinking about it, I stood up, took a couple of steps, and kicked at air. My podiatrist would be glad to know no damage was incurred by my stockinged right foot. The doctor preaches prevention, and I learned long ago from Pat Zachry never to get mad near steps constructed from cement.

I punched. I kicked. I cursed. I muttered. But the irritation associated with this particular loss wouldn’t simmer down. I knew it was Just One Game. I knew it was only the season’s first loss, which I understood was going to show up eventually. Usually, I almost welcome a year’s inaugural defeat (when it’s not on Opening Day), because it represents a quiet victory for withstanding adversity. There’s no getting the game out of the ‘L’ column, but tomorrow comes, we’re still here, let’s go get ’em.

Here it is, tomorrow, and I’m still as annoyed by this loss as I was when it ended. I try not to toss the word “annoyed” around too much because if I let it fly too freely, I will never reel it in. Yet, wow, what an annoying game, and what an annoying end to such an annoying game.

Self-preservation suggests treading lightly over the most damning of details, so I’ll confine myself to the tying run that didn’t score in the tenth, the one Francisco Lindor carried to within inches of home plate from first base on Juan Soto’s double to deep left with nobody out and the Mets down by two. It was clearly enough to score unearned runner Francisco Alvarez from second, which was good, because Alvarez had to chug to make it the required 180 feet. But he did. Lindor I expected to be shadowing Alvarez, because Lindor can be as slick on the basepaths as Alvarez can be sludgy. The faster of our Franciscos whisked to third on a non-obvious triple earlier. I expected Lindor to be sent and I expected Lindor to score.

He was, but he didn’t. The Pirates made the plays they had to make, and even with an offline throw, they nailed Lindor at the plate. One out. Tying the game would have to wait. Soto, who’d landed on second, boldly took third on Bo Bichette’s ensuing grounder to short. Two out. Tying the game would have to continue to wait. Jorge Polanco then unleashed a blast to deep right, but not deep enough. It was caught in front of the wall. Three out.

No tie. No win. A lot of being annoyed, with the punching and the kicking and the cursing and the muttering indicating the level of annoyance. I would have liked to have seen an isolated replay of Lindor taking off from first, but the revamped SNY truck didn’t fire one up, so I don’t know if my confidence in the trail runner and new third base coach Tim Leiper was misplaced. I felt OK enough about the new three-hole hitter and his reputation for clutchitude perhaps picking up for whatever didn’t go right on Soto’s double, but that guy is having his own adjustment issues. Fans in Flushing were booing Bo once his nascent season line descended to 1-for-14 in the tenth. The third baseman acknowledged the reaction and empathized. “If anything,” he said of the impatient reception, “I thought it took too long.”

The new cleanup hitter, Polanco, did what he could do to effect a Luis Robert, Jr.-style ending from the day before, but it was the next day, and good ol’ baseball is the box of chocolates chock full of daily mysteries. Prevail in extras on a big swing from one of your fancy imports on Saturday, fall short in extras when the big swing from one of your fancy imports dies a little shy of glory on Sunday. You couldn’t blame Polanco. You could get miffed at Bichette if you wanted. You could dissect the decision to send Lindor. You could take apart bullpen tactics, too. It was one loss, which a person can mostly accept, certainly in March.

So why the hell was I so mad? Maybe the one-run nature of it was a bit much so soon for me. In August and September of last year, the Mets lost twelve one-run games, six of them at home. Every one of those Citi sags ended, to some extent, the way Sunday’s did. Just one more hit here. Just get the runner home. Just get a rally started. Just do something to avoid losing this very winnable game. But it never happened and 2025 couldn’t have wound down as any more frustrating or any more annoying. It’s 2026, and two exhilarating wins have been followed by a one-run loss that’s had me using the a-word for going on 24 hours.

It’s never really the couch cushion’s fault.