I shouldn’t be surprised, given how baseball is riddled with ironies, and yet I am: A team about to undergo a trade-deadline sea change is playing its best ball of the season.
(The transformation is already underway, as the Mets have traded A.J. Minter to the Twins for a pair of prospects: Bruin Agbayani, the 19-year-old son of fan favorite Benny Agbayani; and Billy Amick, a Double-A third baseman with power but contact issues. My reaction will likely be the same that greets every departure save that of Luke Weaver: OK, fine, ask me my opinion in a couple of years.)
Anyway, the Mets squared off with the Marlins for a rain-delayed Thursday night game that turned out to be pretty fun, principally though not exclusively because they won — beating the loathsome, nihilistic Marlins is always worth an extra fist pump.
This one started as a nifty duel between Nolan McLean and Eury Perez: McLean made a pair of bad pitches that went for solo homers, while Perez had one bad inning, with his defense bearing a lot of the blame. It was fun to watch, but ended in a stalemate, an extended table-setter for what was to come with both starters having departed and the outcome to be determined by the bullpens.
In the eighth the Mets broke through with the kind of heartening inning we’ve seen … checks notes … basically never in 2026. Francisco Lindor had a long, grind-it-out AB against Miami’s Michael Petersen that looked like nothing more than a moral victory, as it ended in a pop-up and left the Mets with two out and nobody on. But it cost Petersen bullets he’d need; Bo Bichette then doubled and Carson Benge — who’d failed earlier in the game to bring home a gimme run from third — dug in for a long AB of his own, this one ending in a single. Benge stole second and Luis Robert Jr. snuck a ground ball through the 5.5 hole for two runs and, it would turn out, a Mets’ win. The win went to possibly soon to be no longer with us Brooks Raley, a W that was well deserved; the save went to we’re probably stuck with him Devin Williams, whom my flickering sense of fairness compels me to admit pitched just fine.
During this recent stretch the Mets have been watchable and even fun, their run keyed by solid starting pitching. That likely ends tonight with Freddy Peralta making what one can only hope is his last start in a Met uniform, a departure I will decidedly not mourn. You know it’s gone badly when fans like me make a mental note to attend a departed Met’s return and risk soft-tissue injuries by booing the shit out of them; I don’t know when that date will be, but rest assured it will be on my calendar.
But I can endure one more evening of Peralta-related dyspepsia so long as it’s the last one, and genuinely will look forward to Zac Thornton and Christian Scott and more McLean and maybe more Sean Manaea and Clay Holmes, or perhaps those last two will be replaced by younger arms deemed deserving of a first chance or a latest one, which would also be fine. The calendar will have turned unofficially but decisively to 2027, and if the Mets look more like the Mets of the last week than the Mets of the preceding 57 or so, I’ll make my peace with that.
Agreed, Jason, the kid pitchers (and relievers) are coming along nicely, and trading Weaver would be insane, as he is under contract for next year.
Nice to see the new manager (or whomever) is allowing them to go at least 6 innings, and getting out of their own jams, when that should have been going on all along.
IMO, very important to win games the rest of the way in order to make the fans and the young players feel like we are on the verge of something special next season.
Exciting remainder of season, let’s hope.
It was an interesting interview with Howie Rose during the rain delay. And a good reminder of his classic calls 2 years ago (seems like 200, but never mind). Sad that his last season is such a clunker, but that’s baseball! His history goes back a little farther than Gary’s, so it’s a shame to lose that 80’s connection.
You are about to be granted your wish. On the wires that Peralta has been scratched tonight. No replacement named for the Mets yet. Apropos of nothing but quite humorous, the Marlins pitcher is named -and I am not making this up – Janson Junk. He must have had a terrible time in grade school.
Young Agbayani had signed to play at Michigan, so I already knew he was Benny’s son. (Of course he should have signed with UCLA with that name.). The reviews are mixed on him, and I hope the Mets didn’t just give in to sentiment. But if he does ever get to New York, I believe that would be a first, although I now can’t remember if Preston Wilson ever actually played for the Mets.
I won’t be sorry to see the back of Peralta, and I hope a trade is announced before tonight’s game.
Preston Wilson played in 8 games for the Mets in 1998 before going to the Marlins as part of the Mike Piazza deal.