Some recaps go for analysis, others go for trying to capture what it was like to be in the moment. And we’ll do a little of that. But sometimes you just want to record what happened and be amazed.
So: Combine the top of the first and the top of the second of Monday night’s Mets-Padres game, and you saw the Padres put seven consecutive men on base against Nolan McLean.
Single. Single. Single. Single. Walk. HBP. Walk. Yes, that checks out. Seven!
That sequence somehow yielded zero runs, but ended with the Padres having the bases loaded and nobody out. Yipes! Which was followed by a fielder’s choice, a sac fly and another single. That sequence yielded exactly one run, and another inning over.
You already know the missing elements. The first inning turned — or rather, didn’t turn — on Carson Benge throwing out runners at home on consecutive plays. Jake Cronenworth was the first victim, thrown out by a good 15 feet trying to score on a blooper by Ty France. Cronenworth tried to go up and over Francisco Alvarez‘s tag and ended up on his face beyond home plate. So third-base coach Bob Henley tried it again four pitches later on a Jackson Merrill single — and watched as Benge unleashed a 103 mph one-hop strike to Alvarez to nail Manny Machado. Per the the Athletic, which has a fun deep dive into the nuts and bolts of the Mets’ outfield defense (it’s free, you’re welcome), it was first time an outfielder threw out runners at home on consecutive plays in 22 years. It was also the first time a Met outfielder had ever nabbed two guys at home in the same inning.
Arrr, what be happenin’ in this here Mets game?
The Mets tallied a couple of runs in the bottom of the first on a Bo Bichette single that just trickled between two plus defenders in Cronenworth and France and a sac fly from Luis Robert Jr. that capped a solid grind of an AB. That left San Diego’s Walker Buehler fuming and gesticulating in the dugout. I think Buehler’s objection was to the injustice of the cosmos and not a specific teammate’s sins, but who knows.
McLean, though, was out of sorts in the second, his mechanics awry and his location amiss. Two walks sandwiched around an HBP left the Mets in the soup, but Luis Rengifo tapped back to McLean, who threw high to Alvarez, eliminating any chance for a 1-2-3 double play but allowing the Mets to force Luis Campusano at home. Fernando Tatis Jr. just missed a grand slam, with a Padre finally reaching home safely to cut the lead to 2-1. Cronenworth then singled, wisely not to Benge this time but to A.J. Ewing in left — who threw out Xander Bogaerts at the plate to end the inning.
So at this point the Padres had made six outs, four of them at home. No Met had touched a live ball except McLean, Alvarez, Benge and Ewing. (OK, I think Jared Young had been involved in a pickoff attempt, but don’t be pedantic.) The Padres were 3 for 4 with runners in scoring position and had tallied one run. Got all that?
(We watched these unlikely events unfold in a restaurant in Boothbay, propping up my phone to show SNY silently and in miniature, and kept getting confused about what was a replay and what was a new plate appearance. Can you blame us?)
Baseball being baseball, of course nothing much happened after that. McLean settled down and the make-it-up-as-you-go Mets bullpen held serve, sparing poor Henley further object lessons in not running on Met outfielders.
The lone bit of analysis I’ll add is to give Alvarez credit above and beyond simply being at the center of a cavalcade of unlikeliness. Plays at home aren’t as easy as we think, even when outfielders’ throws are on target: Catchers have to receive those throws cleanly, know where they are in relation to the plate, spin themselves accordingly, anticipate the runner’s lane without blocking the plate too early, and deal with a large opponent sliding or barreling into their vicinity. A lot can go wrong, particularly when you’re trying to do all that in a hurry, but Alvarez handled it all flawlessly.
As for the rest, well, you can’t outguess baseball. Sometimes crazy things happen and all you can do is hang on for the ride.
Even though I wrote off any thought of a postseason for the Mets months ago, I gave in and checked the wild card standings last night. The Mets are ten games out. Too much to make up, and satisfied that I had been right all along about this season, I resolved to continue on with my plan of just enjoying the rest of the season and the sudden appearance of good baseball.
And then…I noticed the date. August 17. Exactly 57 years earlier, August 17, 1969, I attended my very first Mets games – a Sunday doubleheader against the Padres, then a brand new expansion team. The Mets won the first game on a home run by Duffy Dyer. We left Shea between Games 1 and 2 in order to get back to Albany before it got dark* but Lindsay, Ralph and Bob kept us company and the Mets swept the twinbill. They had also swept a doubleheader the previous day, and thus had a four-game winning streak.
* (That weekend also coincided with the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which is why we had to leave early. As you may recall, they closed the Thruway, man, and we had to find an alternate route north. No GPS, so my dad and his friend, who had accompanied us with his son, spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to avoid the traffic mess. As it turned out, it was smooth sailing right to our driveway).
A personal landmark for sure. But there’s more to the story. Those four games in 1969 – against the Padres – are generally considered the turning point in that season. The Mets went on a long winning streak ( check me, but I think it was 11 straight games) and you know the rest. In 1969, they were 9.5 games out before that weekend.
It’s almost 60 years later, and I’m definitely too old, but I got the chills.
PS: We were also at a restaurant last night, following on Game Day for the first few innings, with no sound. But just from Game Day, which can be hard to follow, and checking out the video replays posted by MLB, it was obvious something special was going on. Until we got home, I didn’t realize that Benge had actually thrown out two runners at the plate in the first inning, because the two throws looked almost identical on Game Day. I thought I had just hit the replay button!
Agreed on Alvarez. He’s a keeper — so he hits into a few double plays, so what? Who hasn’t?
This game reminded me of what they say about piloting airplanes: hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
Alvarez did a great job on all 3 tag outs, as he needed to short hop all of them. Just wish he could get a clutch hit once in a while. He bats 9th for that reason. And I suppose he could improve on ABS.
He did get one on Saturday, doubling to tie the game, so it does occasionally happen.
Eric, Alvarez can be frustrating, and I was silently agreeing with you about the lack of clutch hitting, when I remembered that he had an enormously clutch double, scoring the tying run and moving the winning run to third, in the bottom of the 9th on Saturday. He’ll surprise you! The true heir to Ron Swoboda, I think.
So, kinda like I just said.
Indeed!