A hazard of the recapping trade is you spend the game field-testing narratives in your head while the bedrock story is still unfolding, trying on summations variously grand, tragic or farcical.
After Kodai Senga‘s disconsolate departure, this was my first draft for this entire recap, channeling Dean Wormer’s caustic advice to Flounder in Animal House:
Bad at pitching, bad at defense and bad at hitting is no way to go through life, son.
And that would have sufficed. Senga had pitched horribly; the Mets’ defense had done him no favors, with yet another mental mistake from Francisco Lindor more worrying than the physical gaffes; and the hitting had remained largely somnambulant. Plus Jeff McNeil continued to terrorize his old mates, with auxiliary getting even from once-upon-a-time Brooklyn Cyclone Carlos Cortes.
But after Senga departed the Mets seemed to rouse themselves. They got competent relief, they chipped away at the Athletics’ lead with home runs, which still counted even if they went over fences by inches or were actually helped over by West Sacramento defenders, and no Met wearing a glove stepped on a landmine or managed to garrote himself with his own sanitary socks, which counted as progress.
The Mets, in fact, drew within 7-6 with six outs left to play with, and you could feel Citi Field stirring, thinking there might actually be a reward for having endured the last few days of lousiness. I didn’t have a new narrative ready to trot out — the Mets’ recent play has made me more than a little wary of assumptions — but I was superstitious enough to stick to what I’d been doing, which was reading a novel on my couch and pretending not to watch the game.
And then, well, it turned out Luke Weaver decided to have some of whatever Senga had been having. Tyler Soderstrom had hit his second home run of the day, just like that the Mets were down five, and the remainder of the accounting was best left to masochists.
After the game, I watched Carlos Mendoza be oddly candid by Carlos Mendoza standards when asked about Lindor’s recent run of inattention: “It’s weird … it’s hard to explain.”
It is. Is it lingering effects from hamate surgery? Is it discombobulation at lining up with a new double-play partner? Is it something personal that shouldn’t be our business … except it’s showing up on the field, so it kinda is?
I’m sure wondering about that will be a cottage industry until Lindor looks a lot more like Lindor, which is only fair. As for what the Mets look like, well, last year taught me not to assume an ill-shaped team will magically take on a more pleasing form. And Saturday’s game taught me not to trust any evolving narrative.
In the end, I settled for this on Bluesky: a bit plaintive, a bit angry, more than a bit despairing. At least for now, I think it sums things up all too well:
Well my answer to that question would be: “You call these Mets??”
Well, at least this team has shown us the last couple of years that the first 2-3 months of the season aren’t a strong indicator of where things end up. Thought it might be Garcia instead of Lovelady sent down but it doesn’t matter much. His turn will come when Minter’s ready.
This team is hard to watch. It’s not just the losing – it’s bad baseball.
The question I sometimes ask myself: why do I care? Why do I invest my time and emotional capital in a team that doesn’t seem to care and/or pay attention?
That’s the question that should concern Messrs. Cohen and Stearns. Because unless things change in a jiffy, the answer from fans will be, “We don’t.”
Some of the most frustrating seasons were the most ‘fun,’ if you know what I mean. The 1985 and 1987 seasons in the underachieving era of our team were the most tension-filled times one could imagine. Filled with anger, disappointment, etc., and so much fun (quotes removed).
I don’t know – I guess it’s all a question of perspective. As a young fan in the mid ‘80’s, I had experienced nothing but last place teams until the arrival of Davey Johnson in ‘84. To me, Davey’s teams weren’t about anger and disappointment – there were actual pennant races every single year, which made it fun and exciting for me even when they didn’t win it all. Now I guess I’m more jaded. I’m just hoping that this team doesn’t turn into yet another rebuilding project.
Agreed that those years were indeed fun and exciting.
Regarding Lindor, interesting how Mendoza and announcers, including Zeile last week do not take ownership of their warranted criticism of others. They say, “He will be the first to tell you that.” It works, too, as it gets their message across without appearing that it came from them, and that the one they are criticizing would readily agree.
Why are there Mets?
Another way, relatively benign and entertaining, of keeping humanity in its place, showing how billions spent by billionaires on games are no guarantee of anything. In the end human fallibility calls the shots.
Reminds me of Lindor’s behavior during the “thumbs down” 2021 season.
Balance in the universe. There are Mets because there are Yankees.
Roger Angell put it best, way back in 1962, in the very beginning:
“…there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us…”
Since we’re getting philosophical…remember the movie “Twins”? The Yankees are Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Mets are Danny Devito. If you get it, you get it.
This team sucks. .. nuff said..
(Edited bc Greg’s recap of the 4/12/26 game posted right after I left this.]
At this juncture, Texas Rangers’ Brandon Nimmo already has 1.0 WAR points, more than any Met. And, according to a Mets TV commercial from a couple of years ago, Nimmo also answered the phone in the office – something Stearns shouldn’t have done when the Rangers GM called asking for Brandon in a trade. I wish Brandon had exercised his no-trade clause.