Baseball is a funny game.
That’s one word for it. But what a word — because in English, “funny” has a wide range of meanings. Amusing, yes. But also odd, peculiar, maddening, ironic, unpredictable. You might say it’s a funny word.
For most of Sunday, the Mets played the kind of game they’ve played too often this year, one that makes you think that this time you mean it and you’re really going to find something better to do with your time. The top of the sixth inning felt like the season in a microcosm: With the score knotted at one, Freddy Peralta [1] walked Clay Bellinger [2] and Jazz Chisholm Jr. [3], then was replaced by Sean Manaea [4]. Manaea’s season has been a nightmare: He’s clearly hurt or at least much diminished from having been hurt, with “loose bodies” in his elbow the most likely culprit — the same loose bodies Manaea has twice insisted don’t need surgical intervention. After a sac bunt moved up Bellinger and Chisholm, Manaea battled Paul Goldschmidt [5], only to hit him in the foot, loading the bases. Manaea’s first pitch to Anthony Volpe [6] was lined into left to put the Yankees up 3-1, with Tyrone Taylor [7] airmailing the cutoff man and so allowing Max Schuemann [8], who’d run for Goldschmidt, to take third. Amed Rosario [9] hit a sac fly to make it 4-1; Trent Grisham [10] then popped a ball up beyond shortstop, one Taylor should have taken charge of but left to Bo Bichette [11], who had it clank off his glove for yet another run.
There were the 2026 Mets in miniature: pitching failures, bad luck, mental errors and physical ones. The Mets fought back in the bottom of the sixth, drawing within 5-3, but Manaea walked in a run in the top of the seventh, the Yanks were up three, and there was very little joy in Metville.
And so it was still in the bottom of the ninth, with the Mets facing David Bednar [12] — the same Mets who now rather famously hadn’t come back from trailing after eight since Pete Alonso [13] took Devin Williams [14] deep to break Bob Uecker [15]‘s heart. Williams is now the Mets’ closer; Alonso plays for Baltimore; once again, baseball’s a funny game.
Carson Benge [16] led off with a single against Bednar, followed by an honest-to-goodness hit from Bichette, a little ray of hope considering Bichette looks as lost as I’ve ever seen a player at the plate, trapped in a nightmare that seems impossible to escape. Juan Soto [17] came to the plate and Citi Field began to buzz, but Soto tapped to first, with the lone saving grace that he beat the back end of the double play to keep the tying run at the plate with one out.
That brought up Mark Vientos [18], who got frankly obliterated by Bednar, swinging over two curves and then under a high fastball. Not exactly promising, and it left Taylor as the last hope — Taylor who’d already botched two plays in the outfield and had zero to show for two hard-hit balls.
But Taylor had been watching what had happened to Vientos, and all but knew Bednar would start him off with the curve. He did, and it wasn’t a good one — it hung in the middle of the plate and Taylor clocked it, a high drive down the left-field line that I was sure would go foul but did not. It was fair, it was a three-run homer, and the game went to the 10th tied.
At such baseball junctures one confronts a philosophical question: If my team loses anyway, am I happy that they fought back, or unhappy that they put me through further emotional torment?
With Ryan McMahon [19] as the Manfred Man, Williams got off to a good start by striking out Schuemann, but then quit paying McMahon any heed, allowing him to swipe third. Grumbling, followed by more grumbling when Williams walked Volpe. Austin Wells [20] hit a ball hard to Vientos — who started his third nimble double play this week. “Mark Vientos, pickin’ machine!” I exulted from my couch, a cry that feels a little less ironic given recent events.
Which left us at another philosophical baseball juncture. As the co-proprietor of this establishment, I’ll quote myself [21]: “Survive the top of the 10th unscored upon and you’re left licking your chops, well aware that a modest amount of competent execution will deliver the Manfred Man from second and ensure a win. It’s also made the sacrifice bunt an actual wise stratagem again instead of a wasted out.”
And so it was: Taking the mound for the Yankees was Tim Hill [22], who as a well-traveled middle reliever goes about his business with the veteran gunslinger’s mien you remember from watching Adam Ottavino [23]. With Marcus Semien [24] as the Manfred Man, A.J. Ewing [25] executed a perfect sacrifice bunt, keeping “Is there anything that kid can’t do?” an open question. The Yankees then brought Schuemann in as a fifth infielder, crowding in to cut down Semien at home and leaving left field completely unprotected — a desperate defense that always tickles me for its combination of riskiness and invention.
Luis Torrens [26] went to first when one of Hill’s pitches nicked his arm, which was good for the Yankees in that it set up the double play but bad in that the next hitter was Benge, who’s a lot faster than Torrens. The Yankees kept their five-man infield in tight, this time leaving right field unprotected.
Benge swung for the downs on Hill’s first sinker, looking overamped, then connected with the second one — well, sort of. It was a Baltimore chop — fatal or at least nonproductive if it wound up in Hill’s glove, trouble for the Yankees if it bounced over Hill’s head. It was the latter: Hill turned helplessly with the ball beyond his reach and could only watch as the Yankees’ crowded infield ensured their demise. (Funny game, this baseball.) Schuemann and Volpe came together, losing the play as Semien dashed home and Benge shot past first with his arms raised, to be hugged by Soto and showered with liquids by Taylor.
The Mets, somehow, had won [27] — won in a Sarah Langs wheeeee! worth putting in the Louvre [28]. And if it seems unlikely that this is the start of something, what with this team’s many problems still mostly unsolved, it was nonetheless the kind of win to remember fondly, a little bit of light to hold close on a winter’s night when all you want is the promise that one day there will be warmth and light and hope and baseball again.