New York Mets Anonymous

In The Year The Mets Lost Last Place, Ron Santo is spotted in the visitors’ dugout at Shea Stadium, prior to the afternoon game of July 8, 1969, examining the Mets’ starting lineup, one whose components had helped elevate the home team a surprising eleven games over .500 and an even more shocking five games from Santo’s first-place Cubs. “He walks over to it,” the tick-tock reports, “looks it over carefully, then shakes his head.

“‘I know Los Angeles won with pitching,’” Santo says. “‘But this is ridiculous.’”

A few hours later, Chicago center fielder Don Young would be befuddled by a couple of fly balls, and the Mets who started the likes Bobby Pfeil, Al Weis, and J.C. Martin, would top the Cubs, 4-3 and inch ever closer to top of the division. They won with Jerry Koosman pitching and enough of everybody else hitting. Come playoff time, Santo’s opinions on what constituted a ridiculous lineup would not be written down, as Ron was nowhere near an active big league dugout.

If Ron Santo were around and at Angel Stadium on Saturday night, one can only imagine what the master heel-clicker would have to say about Andy Ibañez starting in left and Austin Slater starting in right for his old National League East rivals. I’m sure it would have been nothing worse than any Mets fan was thinking.

Ibañez? Slater? How about they work Vidal Bruján into this mix?

Oh, just wait.

The inclusion of two journeyman outfielders with the starting lineup of what was widely considered as a serious contender no more than six weeks ago constitutes an early-edition angle. You didn’t have to know how Saturday night’s game turned out to be if not surprised or shocked then stunned that this is who the Mets are now. They’re a team that not only is down to Andy Ibañez (a fella the A’s didn’t need anymore) and Austin Slater (discarded recently by the Marlins), but decided for strategy’s sake that as righthanded batters it was imperative they flank Tyrone Taylor and take their swings against the Angels’ lefty starter Reid Detmers.

This would be a great spot for the story to pivot. “As it turned out, Ibañez and Slater were exactly the right men for the Mets on Saturday night” would be fun to write right here, detailing how two discards rose up to contribute to a Mets win. But this isn’t a season filled with great spots. Let’s just say that neither Ibañez nor Slater was the reason the Mets lost, 4-3 in ten innings. They actually did OK in their roles. Andy delivered a sacrifice fly in the seventh. Austin followed in the same inning with an infield single. Earlier, in the first, Slater made a very nice two-out throw from right that nailed Jorge Soler sliding into third just before Nolan Schanuel was about to step on home plate. Replay saw it pretty clearly. The home plate ump didn’t. The Mets manager didn’t. The Mets’ designated video reviewer didn’t. The official call — that the Angels had just scored a run off Nolan McLean — was ripe for a challenge. None was made.

Can’t blame that on Austin Slater or Andy Ibañez. McLean should have been out of that inning unscathed, but it wasn’t really a night for bemoaning our young ace’s lack of luck or support. Pitching where Nolan Ryan made the Mets regret not properly valuing the promise of a live right arm, Nolan McLean struggled more than he ever had previously. A glitch in the replay process can be blamed for one first-inning run. The fourth inning, full of full counts; complicated by a corralable wild pitch; and undone by a two-run Vaughn Grissom single, was ultimately on the pitcher. McLean didn’t see the fifth.

The Met bullpen was set up to fail, yet didn’t. None of its main men were available, having pitched in consecutive games lately. Leaning on Tobias Myers, Huascar Brazobán, and Craig Kimbrel became paramount. The trio didn’t collapse. It helps that the Angels might as well be the Mets but with better weather, but you play who you play, and the Mets had played the Angels dead even through nine. The top of the seventh probably should have been more productive for New York, what with two runs in, the bases loaded, and massively reputationed Bo Bichette and Juan Soto coming up. Alas, Bichette (who had singled in the stealthily productive Slater for the first Met run in the third) grounded out, and Soto couldn’t fully check a two-strike swing.

The top of the tenth continued the theme of coulda/didn’t. MJ Melendez, who is practically a stalwart in the current Met universe, materialized as if out of thin air on second to begin the inning (funny how that keeps happening in every extra inning). Brett Baty reached via catcher’s interference, which would seem to be something as likely as to happen to the Mets as for them. Two on, nobody out, beautifully set up for Bichette, as if a big hit were meant to be. But the situation wasn’t Bo beshert, as the shortstop turned third baseman for this year turned shortstop for the duration of Saturday grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. With first base open, nobody was pitching to Juan Soto next, so it was all up to Francisco Alvarez. Alvarez flied out.

The bottom of the tenth ended with Austin Warren not quite getting the job done, and the Angels bringing home the winning run on Oswald Peraza’s two-out bases-loaded single. The dour conclusion was followed by more wonderful news: Friday night slugger Ronny Mauricio, who had exited this game after sliding safely into first base to avoid a tag during the frenetic top of the seventh inning, had fractured his left thumb on the play and was therefore IL-bound. That’s why Bichette had moved from third to short. That’s why infielder Brujàn, the lifetime .199 batter who has bounced among five clubs the past five seasons, is en route to join Ibañez, Slater, Melendez, and the rest of the anonymati comprising a significant portion of the 2026 Mets (one-day callup Eric Wagaman has somehow rated a DFA or we maybe we could get to know another veritable unknown). The briefly esteemed Bench Mob of 2021 would have a hard time recognizing these guys.

Not that the guys we know by sight are accomplishing a whole lot, either.