Desert Duel

NOTE: This post was written by Jason, who was experiencing some technical difficulties this morning.

On Friday night, the Mets and Diamondbacks played one of those games that settles into a stalemate and then grinds along, waiting to decide what kind of ballgame it’s to become.

With the roof open – a rare occurrence that makes Chase Field a far more pleasant place to see baseball – Nolan McLean held Arizona to just a Nolan Arenado home run over six. McLean’s night could be described as impressively unimpressive: He couldn’t get his pitches to behave, with his sweeper particularly disobedient, but mixed and matched and called audibles and figured out a way to get through the enemy lineup. That’s a hallmark of a frontline starter who’ll beat you with his mind as much as with his arm, accolades McLean has earned despite still having rookie status.

Which isn’t to say it wasn’t also nerve-wracking to witness: McLean had a somewhat similar game his last time out against the Angels, an outing in which he made it work until the one inning when he couldn’t. And this time around, after a second-inning Mark Vientos homer the Mets had forgotten how to hit again, doing absolutely nothing against the unprepossessing Ryne Nelson. (Alternate narrative: Nelson figured it out as well. Always worth remembering the other guys are trying to win, too.)

And so the game came down to bullpen roulette: Some reliever was going to screw up, and the question was whose uniform he’d wear.

Would it be the Mets’ road grays, as happened on Thursday’s non-off day when Craig Kimbrel once again looked like his reasons for being on a roster have dwindled to the nebulous Veteran PresenceTM? Or would it be Arizona’s home … gradients?

(I could spend two paragraphs deriding the Serpientes City Connects, but why bother? This is a franchise that’s never had a non-ridiculous uniform in the first place.)

Juan Morillo? Mets couldn’t do anything with him, click, empty chamber.

Luke Weaver? Click. Got in trouble but no, not him.

Brooks Raley? Click. Gave up a single to Arizona prospect Ryan Waldschmidt in his first big-league AB (congrats kid, those are always fun to see) but otherwise unscathed.

Brandyn Garcia? Click. Though points off for that ridiculous spelling. Parents of the 2000s, sheesh.

Devin Williams? Click. The airbender was particularly good, even – Jose Fernandez probably woke up in a cold sweat remembering the three that erased him.

Kevin Ginkel? BANG.

Brett Baty started the tenth on second as the Manfred Man, thereby becoming the first Met wearing a batting helmet to stand on second without touching it in transit, as Vientos had done approximately a year earlier when the world felt like it might not be wholly bereft of hope. Vientos, at the plate again, hooked Ginkel’s first pitch down the left-field line to give the Mets the lead; five pitches later, Carson Benge thumped another Ginkel offering over the fence on a bounce to chase home Vientos replacement Vidal Bruján. Marcus Semien then executed a perfect bunt with Arenado playing back, giving the Mets first and third with nobody out.

This relative offensive explosion seemed to frighten the Mets back into nonviolence: Ginkel and replacement Jonathan Loaisigia coaxed MJ Melendez into fanning and Francisco Alvarez into tapping back to the pitcher, forgoing a gimme run, and then Luis Torrens – possibly concussed after a scary-looking foul ball to the jaw while catching – grounded out.

Hey, why not one last round of reliever roulette?

Tobias Myers? Click. In fact, Myers yawned at the peril of the Manfred Man.

Myers – whose last outing was marred, you may recall, by Denver vacuum robbing his pitches of the ability to do much of anything – started by striking out Jorge Barrosa, who then volunteered for further humiliation, challenging strike three and standing there in chumpy dejection as ABS revealed that the ball had been about 95% in the strike zone, which I think ought to mean Barrosa begins his next AB with an 0-1 count. Myers then got Geraldo Perdomo to pop up and erased Ildemaro Vargas on another strikeout. Fernandez never so much as moved from his Manfred-awarded occupancy of second, Myers accepted his well-earned handshakes, and the Mets had won.

It’s been a not-so-bad road trip, though there’s no way I trust this misfit bunch not to pratfall their way to a less happy reckoning before returning to New York. Maybe they should just stay away, appearing in random cities on random networks at random times of day and night to hit minimally and play reliever roulette with a side of commissioner-ordered extra-innings shenanigans.

Whatever works, right?