A Lot of Oysters, But No Pearls

“And it’s one more day up in the canyon,” Adam Duritz observed joylessly some thirty years ago, “and it’s one more night in Hollywood.” In that same chilly Southern California spirit, here’s to no more nights in Chavez Ravine.

The doubly defending world champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, extended their winning ways not once, not twice, but thrice by completing an inevitable three-game sweep over the New York Mets, 8-2, on Wednesday night. Shohei Ohtani pitched without bothering to hit. Like the Dodgers with World Series titles, Shohei Ohtani tends to grab every MVP award in sight. He is so honored because he can pitch and hit (though judging by the impact of his absence, is any player in the National League more valuable than Juan Soto?). Shohei Ohtani pitching might be enough to merit a trophy case expansion. The living legend went six, struck out ten, and allowed no hits, except to the newly recalled MJ Melendez, who can proudly tell anybody who asks that he became the 1,300th Met in franchise history when he started as our, if you’ll excuse the expression, designated hitter. Lefty reliever Josh Walker became our 1,200th Met less than three years ago, though we couldn’t tell you whether he still mentions that to any of his Oriole minor league teammates these days. MJ nicking Ohtani for an earned run with one of his two doubles will make for a less esoteric brag. Shohei came into Wednesday with an ERA of 0.00. Melendez raised it to 0.50. The rest of the Met offense kept it from rising any higher.

Instead of using Ohtani as their DH per usual, the Dodgers deployed their reserve catcher, Dalton Rushing. Rushing might not be the hitter Ohtani is, but we can’t say he was overshadowed at his quasi-position by Melendez. The Dodger DH doubled to set up L.A.’s first runs — which scored on Hyesong Kim’s subsequent two-run homer in the second — and cast off any appearances of a competitive contest when he walloped one of Devin Williams’s less effective deliveries for a grand slam in the eighth. Not a bad night for a backup.

What a bad night for the Mets. That can be said about almost any night in an eight-game losing streak. A little less so when the losing streak reached seven, as Nolan McLean’s excellence versus Yoshinobu Yamamoto almost made the final score (LA 2 NY 1) spiritually immaterial, but you can only silver-line so many clouds. Eight losses in a row will age a season, no matter how relatively young the math says it is.

The Mets were conceivably viable on the scoreboard through seven-and-a-half. Clay Holmes was no Ohtani, but he and his left hamstring were sound enough through five. Tobias Myers got touched for a Teoscar Hernandez homer to start the sixth, but otherwise tamed the champs for a two frames. It wasn’t until the eighth, at 3-1, that things totally fell apart, instigated by Francisco Lindor not charging Hernandez’s leadoff grounder. It became an infield single and the second wha…??? moment of the game committed by a Met named Francisco. Earlier, Francisco Alvarez, on first base, undermined a Met rally by misreading a fly ball that was trapped in left field. Alvy thought it was caught. It wasn’t, but he was — off of first, where he retreated toward despite Carson Benge standing on it after his single. You could almost excuse the blunder, based on Benge’s ball being hard to read; and the third rather than second base ump signaling it fell in; and the heavy night air at Dodger Stadium; and everybody wearing 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, which has got to be confusing. There’s always an excuse.

In the inning of Alvarez’s infamy, the Marvelous Mr. Melendez, rescued the Mets from total situational futility by doubling home Benge. In the inning of Lindor’s iffy approach to the Hernandez grounder, the floodgates were just begging to open. Williams, presumably preserved to close out Met leads, whatever those are, was likely rusty after not pitching since his club’s previous victory. Of course somebody not properly fielding a ground ball was going to pave the way for the Dodgers to load the bases. Of course the Dodger DH who wasn’t Ohtani would slam grand when granted the opportunity. Of course Austin Warren, up for Joey Gerber, who was up for the since-released Luis Garcia until a blister got the best of Joey with the high leg-kick, would give up a homer as well, this one to Kyle Tucker, who over the winter was reportedly en route to signing with the Mets until he was sidetracked by a boatload of Dodger dollars.

Instead, we pivoted to Bo Bichette, and what a get, we were told. Same for the rest of the transformation that has transformed the Mets from a team that endured three losing streaks of at least seven games between June and September of 2025 to one that has built an eight-game losing streak in April of 2026. Nice transformation, everybody. Perhaps that will be how 2026 gets framed if a turnaround isn’t imminent. It was a year of necessary transformation fror the organization. Everybody had to get comfortable with one another. Better on-field results would have to follow in years to come. Then, give or take a lengthy lockout, we can be reminded that David Stearns is building something sustainable that can’t be measured in terms as grubby as immediate wins and losses. David Stearns was quite a get in his day, you might vaguely recall.

The season’s still young. It feels very old.