ABSolutely No Reason to Worry

So there had to be a few Mets fans who popped up from the couch Tuesday afternoon, with the top of the fifth inning just concluded, to hit the loo, walk the dog or perform some other mundane task. Perhaos they did so with a certain spring in their step: Huascar Brazoban had just rescued Freddy Peralta from harm, erasing Adrian Del Castillo with a pitch that ticked the inside corner to strand the bases full and preserve the Mets’ two-run lead.

Hey you …  guess what?

It’s 2026, and the era of ABS is upon us. Del Castillo challenged the strike call, and on further review strike three was rechristened a ball.

I wasn’t in the loo, walking a dog or trying to both at the same time. (You do you, but not advisable.) I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, following the game via Howie Rose and my airpods, part of a by-hook-or-by-crook regimen that had taken me from semi-clandestine video window at work to MLB Audio while walking across lower Manhattan, with my TV waiting for me at home, to be followed by another semi-clandestine video window during a Zoom meeting. Hey, move a game up to 4 pm on account of winds and general yuckiness and your recapper must adapt.

With ABS having dropped an extracted and still dripping Brazoban back in the soup, I sighed and hoped for the best: Brazoban has come a long way in terms of reliability, but still gets saucer-eyed when extra obstacles appear in his path. And, indeed, he left a ball in the middle of the plate to Del Castillo, who turned it into a two-run single. That was followed by a little parachute that became an unlikely Nolan Arenado RBI double, and suddenly the Mets were looking uphill.

The game became a battle of the bullpens, with the Mets looking for a hole in Arizona’s. And enter a new storyline: Carlos Mendoza pulls the right levers.

I mean, seriously. If you asked me for an assessment of Mendoza’s time in Flushing, I’d give him high marks for handling his clubhouse and then look a little pained when it came to grade him on in-game tactics. But starting in San Francisco, everything’s been coming up Mendy. (Managerial leveling up? Better advice from lieutenants? Just lucky? Show your work, kids.)

In the eighth, Jorge Polanco singled off Jonathan Loaisiga (boy did I not spell that one right the first time around) and Brett Baty moved pinch-runner Tyrone Taylor to third with one out. That brought up Mark Vientos, the just-concluded road trip’s newly minted hero, but Mendy considered Vientos’s wheels and Loaisiga’s groundball rate and opted for lefty Jared Young instead. Young connected, and while it was too cold and nasty for a home run, his sac fly brought in Taylor to tie the game.

The Mets came within a whisker of winning conventionally in the ninth, but Jorge Barraso made a circus catch to rob Carson Benge of what would have been a leadoff double, triple or possibly even a Little League home run. It was time for free baseball, and when Luke Weaver kept the Manfred Man from scoring in the top of the 10th the Mets had their chance.

In came Arizona’s Paul Sewald, and I admit to cackling nastily. I never had anything personally against Sewald during his Mets tenure, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to see him, perhaps because he was — at least among relievers — the Jonah-est Jonah ever to Jonah. (I explored this star-crossed status a few years ago in our A Met for All Seasons series, and c’mon, aren’t you dying to relive the 2017 Mets?)

Sewald eventually escaped the Mets and seemed to escape Jonahdom as well, becoming at least semi-reliable in Seattle and then in Arizona, and after having a heretofore unglimpsed modicum of success at Citi Field further endeared himself to us by trying to settle old scores. (Not that I blame him, completely: He was one of many Mets of his baffling, dispiriting era who was encouraged to pitch against his strengths.)

Not to get all Brian McCann, but there’s a reason you don’t egg on the fans, and in the 10th that reason presented itself to Sewald in the form of Francisco Lindor on third, one out, and the just-recalled Ronny Mauricio — another all-but-forgotten Met — summoned to the plate to pinch-hit for Tyrone Taylor.

Sewald threw a four-seamer at the top of the zone that Mauricio swung through, got a foul ball to go up in the count 0-2, and then put his ear to the pitch com to plot his next move. Slider in the dirt, right? I mean, Sewald’s gotten a lot of mileage out of his since leaving New York. But Sewald shook his head twice. Catcher Gabriel Moreno rose partially out of his crouch, mitt held way above the top of the strike zone: a high fastball, meant to bait Mauricio into swinging under it.

Well, maybe, except Sewald missed his location by a foot, leaving a pitch in the middle of the plate for Mauricio to send over the right-fielder’s head, one bounce to the periphery of the Cadillac Club.

Welcome back, Ronny.

Take that, Paul.

And as for the game, well, in hindsight we ABSolutely had it all the way, didn’t we?