Another Day to Try and Change Our Minds

In the bottom of the fourth, the Cubs tacked on a run when Pete Alonso couldn’t get properly set to take a Jeff McNeil throw from second. The error properly belonged to Pete but went on McNeil’s ledger, becoming his second miscue in as many plays.

More importantly, it made the score 6-1 Cubs, with what looked like a lot of bad road ahead. The Mets hadn’t exactly covered themselves in glory so far Tuesday night: David Peterson was terrible, looking again like a pitcher whose tank is on E, and didn’t make it out of the second; Juan Soto misplayed a flyball into a two-run double; and Francisco Alvarez allowed two steals while concentrating on framing and/or looking for rulings on checked swings.

It was not a crisp game, to say the very least — in fact, it looked a lot like too many games the Mets have played of late, lackadaisical and dispiriting. If you turned it off then and found something better to do with your night, hey, no judgments — that certainly looked like the right call.

I stayed with it, for a few not necessarily related reasons.

• The Mets had hit some balls hard, only to be victimized by buzzard’s luck and solid Cub defense, and I stubbornly thought that might prove important somehow.
• I was keenly aware that just six games remained on the regular-season schedule, and that getting to watch a bad game is marginally better than having no game to watch.
• I was mad at the Mets — my default state since mid-June — and figured I’d glower and mutter at them as long as they were around to absorb my wrath.
• I’m a Mets fan, which one could argue is a terrible life choice, but it’s too late for me. Watching the Mets is what I do.

Seiya Suzuki hit a grounder to Francisco Lindor, who flipped it to McNeil, who didn’t do anything requiring glowering and muttering this time. The Mets came out for the fifth and didn’t look all that different than they had so far — McNeil popped up with Starling Marte on first and then Alvarez hit a grounder to Dansby Swanson at short. A tricky hop, but one Swanson had corralled innumerable times before. It was going to be a double play, ending the inning and leaving the Mets with more misfires behind them than chances left ahead of them.

Except the ball went under Swanson’s glove.

With the Mets given new life, Lindor grounded out to cut the Cubs’ lead from five to an “eh that’s a little better” four; Soto walked; and Pete Alonso hit a sizzling drive to right that struck just below the basket for a very long RBI single that shrunk the deficit to a “hey maybe” three. Craig Counsell summoned Taylor Rogers, twin brother of the Mets’ confounding Tyler Rogers, to face Brandon Nimmo.

Nimmo has become something of a funny hitter since he made the decision to trade OBP for power. He can look hopelessly out of sync for a string of ABs, seemingly constantly on the back foot, but then one swing reminds you of how dangerous he can be — witness his bolt against the Braves in the Day After Game last year, or the one he hit off Wandy Peralta last week. Rogers’ second pitch to Nimmo was a sweeper that sat middle-middle; Nimmo connected for one of those line drives that’s immediately and obviously gone, with its trajectory suggesting it was struck by someone standing on a high-dive platform.

Just like that the Mets had tied it; an inning later they untied it on a Lindor single off Drew Pomeranz that capped a two-out rally. The Mets somehow had wrested a 7-6 lead away from the Cubs; the question now was whether they could keep it.

The answer, alas, was no: In the bottom of the inning Tyler Rogers relieved Gregory Soto with two out and a runner on first; Rogers then allowed a walk and an RBI single to Suzuki for a 7-7 tie. You may recall that the Rogers twins were traded on the same day ahead of the deadline, with Tyler going from the Giants to the Mets and Taylor going from the Reds to the Pirates, who then flipped him to the Cubs. “Mom was having a day,” Tyler said, which was amusing; one assumes Mrs. Rogers had a less amusing day Tuesday, as she had to watch both twins spit the bit in key spots.

It was 7-7, and given the Mets’ serial failings on defense and in relief, I was just holding on for dear life. The seventh passed without events of note and in the eighth Alvarez came up against Caleb Thielbar with Luisangel Acuna as the go-ahead run at first.

Alvarez has looked far more patient of late, largely resisting the urge to expand the strike zone. He ignored two Thielbar pitches just off the strike zone, took a called strike as Acuna stole second, then watched a four-seamer just outside, or at least that’s how it was called. Thielbar’s next four-seamer was in the middle of the plate and Alvarez didn’t miss it, sending it screaming into the bleachers and doing a little screaming of his own before show-ponying his way around the bases.

The Mets led 9-7, and the question was how they were going to get six outs. I hoped they’d go back to Brooks Raley, who’d thrown only five pitches in escaping the seventh, but the top of the Cubs’ lineup was nigh, and Carlos Mendoza opted to ask Edwin Diaz for a six-out save. It was the right call: Diaz looked borderline unhittable, riding a sharp slider to strike out two in the eighth and all three in the ninth.

The Mets won and the Reds finally lost, which puts the Mets back in the wild card, one up on Cincinnati and Arizona. A wonderful win, goodness knows — the team fought back instead of folding their tent, showing a defiance too little in evidence in this strange season. Even a win like that can’t erase everything that we’ve endured: The Mets remain fundamentally untrustworthy, both unpredictable and unreliable. But at least they’ve earned another day to try and change our minds.