The Mets beat the Angels (!) Sunday afternoon to take the series (!!), looking impressive in all aspects of the game in doing so. And, as is usually the case when a team that’s been struggling unstruggles, the reaction was, “Gee, was that so hard?”
(Well, my other reaction was “Fuck you, Kurt Suzuki,” but I don’t say that after every Mets win. Though perhaps I’ll start.)
The answer, of course, is that everything is hard when you’re lost in the baseball woods, followed by a reminder to a fan base sighing with relief that not every little run of competence is the start of a renaissance. After all, the Mets’ last series win, against another Why Are We Playing These Guys Again? AL team in the Twins, was followed by the horrors of having to face the big, bad Colorado Rockies. And well look at that, hostilities recommence against the Rockies this afternoon in the vaguely existent air of Denver. (PSA that game time has been moved up to 5:40 pm on account of, yes, snow.)
So that’s a lot of caveats. But still: The Mets pitched, with Clay Holmes as solid as we’ve come to expect and Luke Weaver and Brooks Raley capable behind him. The Mets hit, with two home runs from Mark Vientos, an RBI double from Carson Benge and some solid ABs from Bo Bichette and Brett Baty. And the Mets played defense, with outfield sparklers from Benge and MJ Melendez alongside solid infield work from Baty and Bichette.
(OK, Vientos still plays first like he’s fighting off a swarm of bees, and it would take a committed optimist to imagine there’s an achievable ceiling one wouldn’t have to knee-walk beneath, but in situations like that the formula is for a guy to outhit his mistakes, and on Sunday Vientos did.)
It all worked out. For one day. But enough caveats. Because what’s a season — or a life, for that matter — but a succession of days?
