The 2025 Mets were lousy, basically without interruption, from June until they expired in Miami, with the date on the carton confirming that sour-milk taste you’d been trying to convince yourself wasn’t there really had been. It’s hard to single out games that stuck in the craw when pretty much all of them did, but I do remember the last two home games at Citi Field, and I bet you do too. Daylen Lile [1], Jacob Young [2], Cedric Mullins [3] … my God it was dispiriting [4].
So sweeping the Nats at Citi Field nearly a year later felt … well, hmm. To quote True Grit, I’d have to weigh that. When you’re this far under .500, inspiring is a word you’ve pretty much put on the shelf until next season. Is there an opposite of dispiriting? Spiriting, perhaps? Did that form once exist only to be wind up unpaired, a la kempt and ept?
Whatever it is, I’d like more of it as the 2026 season cools — and this time, the Mets didn’t even have to wait [5] for the Nationals’ bullpen to self-combust.
With Christian Scott [6] on the mound, the Mets fell behind by 1-0 and 2-0, but neither enemy tally elicited more than a shrug from me. The first came on a little Keibert Ruiz [7] parachute over the infield after Scott had nearly found his way through first and second and none out, which was nice work; the second was a solo shot by the wonderfully named, annoyingly powerful Abimelec Ortiz [8]. (To opposite field, no less — an oppo taco, to quote an MLB Audio spot now so threadbare that it elicits groans and amazed laughter when the Bernstein-Frys hear it yet again.)
Scott kept the roof caving in, pitching into the seventh, and the Mets ambushed Jake Irvin [9] in the fourth — Jared Young [10] single, Brett Baty [11] double, Jorge Polanco [12] RBI groundout, Luis Torrens [13] three-run homer — before tacking on another run in the fifth. I was listening on MLB Audio as we doofed around in Portland (ahead of the first soccer game I’ve watched live that didn’t involve inept children), and besides enjoying the Mets being spiriting, I also found myself enjoying Howie Rose.
Over the years Howie’s baseline has drifted to settle on “mildly cranky,” and I roll my eyes when some aspect of modernity makes him crankier than usual. But he remains a master of play by play, not just with big moments (like his justifiably immortal Pete Alonso [14] call) but with little ones too, and I don’t think listeners appreciate how hard it is to maintain that standard. Next time you listen to Howie, take note how he subtly steps up the pace as a game situation evolves from “mildly interesting” to “action immiment” to “break point.” The play by play becomes sharper and more distinct and the bits of color more surgical and staccato, carrying listeners along for the ride without noticing they’re atop Howie’s shoulders.
I can always tell from Howie’s cadences if I’ve arrived during an interesting juncture or a languid stretch, and I love that. I also love that while he stays on the proper side of homerism, he narrates with his heart on his sleeve. Howie’s always been one of us and unapologetically so: joyful when the Mets are good and tortured when they are not. I genuinely like Keith Raad and Pat McCarthy, whose interplay gets better and better and comes with just the right amount of goofiness, but Howie’s shoes are essentially unfillable. Keith and Pat will be his successors, and I think they’ll be able ones, but they’ll never be his replacements — just as it was with Howie and Bob Murphy.
While I listened in Portland, Howie kept stepping back to dissect the 2026 season, and I found myself nodding along with his point that even in a lost year, developing two dependable outfielders (A.J. Ewing [15] and Carson Benge [16]) and three young starting pitchers (Scott, Nolan McLean [17] and Zac Thornton [18]) is something you can build around.
Scott definitely deserves those plaudits — I was particularly impressed with his fifth inning, when he defended the lead that had been handed to him by blitzing through the heart of the Nats’ order — and it shouldn’t be forgotten that he’s put together a fine season while learning his way around elbow 2.0. I also like how Andy Green [19] has handled him, challenging him both privately and publicly to be better.
On that same subject, I didn’t miss that Luis Robert Jr. [20] was playing left, signaling without making a big deal out of it that center field now belongs to Ewing. (Though Ewing looks like he could use a day to clear his head.) Or that your Mets closer is now … Kodai Senga [21]. Regarding Senga as closer, I’ve gone in probably too rapid succession from “well nothing else has fuckin’ worked” to “this may not actually be so crazy” to “HELL YES KODAI SENGA!!!”
On Sunday Senga flat out bullied the Nats while defending a one-run lead: easy groundout, two erasures via ghost fork. He didn’t muck around with any of the secondary stuff that kept betraying him as a starter, sticking to the fastball and the forkball, with short outings giving the fastball an additional tick or two and thus making the ghost fork even tougher to combat. And he looked (OK, he sounded) like he’d embraced the assignment, working quickly and unfussily.
So: Hell yes Kodai Senga.
That change of roles — shear away less reliable pitches, pound the strike zone, it’s one inning so don’t think too much — has worked for plenty of pitchers on plenty of teams, so I don’t know why I’m so surprised that the early returns have been this good for Senga and the Mets. I suppose it’s that little black cloud of Mets fandom, the one we get accustomed to seeing, to the point that we look askance at a patch of blue sky. Howie knows what I’m talking about — and he could tell you that sometimes it really is sunny.