The 2026 Mets are nobody’s genie, but they are on occasion capable of granting relatively small baseball wishes. Sometimes it takes them a while. When July was becoming August, and almost everybody you heard might be traded was getting traded, you might have wished “almost” could be upgraded to “everybody”. Specifically, Luis Robert, Jr. [1], began getting mentioned as someone who could potentially bring back a living, breathing prospect. Robert had just resumed playing after nearly three months on the injured list. I didn’t exactly wish Luis would go away. It just seemed it would be best for all involved if he — like every veteran nursing an expiring contract — was gone.
Luis Robert, Jr., had no takers, so he played for the Mets almost of all August and played pretty well. On the final day of the month, that weeks-old wish for a clean sweep/fresh start was granted when the Orioles noticed our superfluous power-hitting outfielder just sitting on the waiver wire, as players on non-contenders tend to do this time of year. Baltimore snatched him and his salary up. In exchange, the Mets got the chance not to pay him, which isn’t the same as a prospect, but you’ll take what you can get when you’re out of the race. The Polar Birds are bidding for the third American League Wild Card. Several in the AL are. Perhaps the addition of Robert will let them flutter above the pack. We’ll see how it works out for Baltimore when the O’s come into Citi Field in a couple of weeks. I doubt Luis gets the same welcome-back video Pete Alonso can look forward to, but a nice hand wouldn’t be out of line.
We wish our Old Friends™ no ill will, just strikeouts when they bat against us and at least a walk when they pitch against us. I generally wish to see what they’re up to when we get together with their new team. Tonight we’ll see Freddy Peralta from sixty feet, six inches away. Monday night in St. Petersburg, we reacquainted with Cedric Mulllns [2], last season’s solution to center field. Mullin worked out so well for the Mets, that we ran out and traded for Luis Robert, Jr., to take his place pronto. Luis Robert, Jr., worked out so well that giving him away before September rates as an accomplishment. Yet Luis Robert, Jr., as a Met worked out far better than Cedric Mullins did. Mullins’s stats are nowhere near as bright as the rebuilt Tropicana Field roof, but he is the starting center fielder for a first-place team all but assured of October one year after he helped drag the Mets from playoff certainty to spectator. There’s a joke here somewhere and it’s on us.
The Mets also crossed paths with Steven Matz [3] at the Trop. Our erstwhile lefty, an ex-Met for so long now that no current Met is a former Flushing teammate of his (but once an Old Friend™, always an Old Friend™), pitched the ninth. When East Setauket Steve burst upon our scene [4] in 2015, we considered him comparable to the farm-to-table aces who preceded him in our rotation. By the time we gave up on him, he was Jon Niese with a better sense of local direction. It would have been nice had he given up a run Monday night. He did not.
That’s OK. We had other niceness, better wishes fulfilled. Those of us who came home from Sunday’s game [5] explicitly wishing Robert Stock [6] not be saddled with the record for most starts ever by a Met without notching a win for the Mets need wish no more. Stock made three starts for us in 2021 to no avail (I was at one of them). He wound his way back to us five years later, and the avail was still mostly lacking. But not on Monday. In his ninth-ever start as a Met, his sixth in 2026, he pitched into the sixth inning, giving up no runs. Even with Justin Hagenman getting promoted and the specter of Jonah Tong hovering as September dawns, there’s no reason to think Robert won’t continue to be handed the ball. The righty was assisted in cementing his starting role by some unlikely defense, with Christopher Morel [7] — Mr. OF-3B/Kitty Kat Guy — making a Leapin’ Lizards! grab in left with two out and the bases loaded. That snag of Jonathan Aranda’s rising liner represented some world-class exercitation, bringing to mind what Manny Machado had to say earlier this year regarding FIP, or fielding independent pitching:
“Why would you have that stat? It takes a team to win a ballgame, and not just one person. One person could be that guy. One person could carry a team, but this is a team sport. You don’t win a championship by just one player. It takes a whole goddamn village to do it.”
[8]Leapin’ lizards — the Kitty Kat Guy came through!
Machado, battling a massive slump, was mostly taking his frustrations out [9] on all the acronyms glaring at him from the Petco Park scoreboard, but when viewed through an anecdotal prism, he had a point. We’ve seen pitchers pitch and deserve to win, yet not win. We’ve seen it because their hitters didn’t hit for them. We’ve seen it because their fielders didn’t field for them. In 2018, we saw Steven Matz’s pal Jacob deGrom [10] be the best pitcher in the world (ERA: 1.70; FIP: 1.98) and wind up with a won-lost record of 10-9. This year deGrom, who had a whale of a game Monday night versus the Nowheresville Athletics, is still good, if not the great he was eight years ago (ERA: 4.00; FIP: 3.07). His won-lost record is 10-9. Of course 10-9 wasn’t what Cy Young voters looked at when they all but unanimously elected Jake their award winner.
Robert Stock would appear to be the last pitcher to tell your advanced statistics to shut up [11], but the smile on his face when Kodai Senga saved his first big league win since 2019 said more than any abbreviation beyond “W” ever could. Humans seek validation. Pitchers, even the most analytically savvy, embrace wins. “I’m not going to get too hung up on thinking that I’m the world’s worst pitcher last week,” Stock told reporters postgame, “and the world’s best one this week.” For one night in one indoor ballpark, he was as 2018 deGrom as he needed to be.
He had help. Of course he did. Didn’t you hear Machado? It takes a whole goddamn village to do it. It takes Morel, not a defense-first guy (if he was, he probably wouldn’t be directed to so many different positions) making not only that catch with Stock on the mound in the fifth, but a splendid hustle & heave to nail Chandler Simpson at second behind Dedniel Nuñez in the sixth. It takes Cristian Pache [12], one of those reserves whose scant playing time will likely be reduced as Nick Morabito joins the roster for September. Pache pinch-ran for Morel in the seventh. Used his speed to set up an insurance run driven in by the perhaps awakening bat of Francisco Alvarez. Stayed in for defense, never mind he was replacing the guy who’d made the plays of the game. Almost ran into A.J. Ewing while making a catch in the eighth (it was Ewing’s ball), but when you’re not in games much, you probably get a little overanxious. Recorded a base hit in the ninth, giving him as many hits on the year as Stock has wins. No player wishes to remain on any schneid.
For the Mets to build their lead, it took Mark Vientos [13] going deep when he led off the seventh with a laser off Ian Seymour, the Rays starter who had one of those “deserves better” nights (10 Ks, no walks), but instead got tagged with the loss. Vientos deserves something for the slog his last couple of years turned into. He came back to the Mets hot, having slugged three home runs rehabbing with Syracuse on Sunday, and kept it going. He missed most of our August fun while on the IL. When your team is doing well with whoever is on it, you tend to forget about who’s sidelined. The Love the Mets You’re With [14] contingent we swooned for after the deadline seemed just fine as it was. I didn’t miss Mark Vientos. I didn’t miss Juan Soto, for that matter, though I knew Soto was coming back sometime in the next thirteen years. Vientos’s status is less grounded. So was his ball over the wall.
Most every small Met wish came true Monday night, certainly the ones that needed to come true. The only one that went by the wayside was the wish Soto, pinch-hitting with two on and two out, put the game out of reach when he faced Matz in the top of the ninth. Instead, Steven struck him out. Perhaps that was delayed gratification for a wish I made between 2018 and 2020.
A little dear life needed to be hung onto in the bottom of the ninth. Senga the lifetime starter doesn’t really wish to be a closer, but he is. Like all closers clinging to one-run leads, Kodai inspires mainly wishes that nothing go wrong here. The leadoff walk he issued couldn’t help the shine on your nearest genie bottle keep its luster, what with all the rubbing one might have been doing. Or perhaps you squeezed the feeling out of your favorite rabbit’s foot. Whatever your totem of choice, wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’ was in order if you were emotionally invested in Stock’s win portfolio. These were the Rays. They’re the American League’s lone all-around powerhouse. Normally, I wouldn’t wish to disturb their AL East lead, considering who’s in second, but Interleague makes less for strange bedfellows than provisional couch shoves. With not much to play for from the end of August to the end of September, I wished for the Mets to transition between months on as high a note as a last-place team could.
Senga got a groundout to Marcus Semien, a flyout to Carson Benge, and a strikeout of Yandy Diaz caught by Luis Torrens and called by Austin Jones. Stock got a 3-2 win [15]. The whole goddamn Mets village got it done.