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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Greg Prince on 14 September 2018 3:32 am Perhaps it was Mets Sensory Overload having gotten to me — Jay Horwitz’s expansive valedictory Wednesday afternoon; the practically literally endless rain delay Wednesday night; David Wright finally saying “uncle” to reality and telling us early Thursday afternoon when we could expect to see him play next and last — that when the opener of Thursday’s twi-night doubleheader reached the bottom of the ninth, and the Mets, with nobody on base, had made two outs, I turned off the TV and walked away with my team down by a run. I had things to do, places to be. Time was tight; I’d spent too much of it obsessed on the Mets to wait any more minutes on an inevitable third out.
A few of those theoretically precious minutes had passed before I got in my car and turned on the radio. I expected to hear some boilerplate about the last out and the first pitch of the nightcap. I had already picked out my Game One themes for here later: Steven Matz’s homer was going to be the first Met pitcher circuit clout not slugged in the service of a win since Jason Isringhausen went deep yet down to defeat twice in 1996; and you can’t hold a sleepwalking loss against an obviously tired team that stormed past inclement weather and midnight the night before to resoundingly pound the Marlins, 13-0.
I won’t be using those as themes any longer. They ceased to be operative as soon as I heard Howie Rose tell me, “Don Mattingly outsmarted himself.” Either Howie was referring to the Miami manager putting too much food on his plate while grabbing a between-games snack, or Donnie Bullpen had opted for one too many arms in the ninth.
The latter. Yes, the latter. Brilliantly, the latter. Adam Conley had it going on in relief of Sandy Alcantara (who had it going on even more, home run to Matz notwithstanding). But Mattingly decided to do some do-si-D’OH! managing, bringing in Kyle Barraclough in order to righty-righty announced pinch-hitter Amed Rosario. Mickey Callaway countered by pinch-hitting for the pinch-hitter with lefty Dom Smith. Smith grounded into that second out that sent me out the door, expecting I’d be missing nothing.
Little did I expect Barraclough remaining on the mound would prove not so smart for Mattingly. Righty Kyle kept pitching. Lefty Michael Conforto homered to tie matters at three. Then righty Todd Frazier homered directly thereafter to win it for the Mets, 4-3. Considering that the Mets had never before tied a game on a home run and then immediately won the same game on another home run, it wasn’t what one would expect.
I’d love to tell you I could see Mattingly’s ploy preparing to backfire from twenty or so miles away, but honestly, I wasn’t terribly focused on who was pitching or due up as I locked my apartment door, stepped inside the elevator, dropped some refuse in the dumpster and opened my car door as prelude to attacking errands. I was routinely chalking up a 3-2 loss and lightly contemplating how I’d frame it hours later.
Nevertheless, I got a win. I avoided directly experiencing its dramatic conclusion, yet it was waiting for me in the past tense, Howie helpfully cluing me in through the speakers. It was sort of the inverse of the other first game of a doubleheader played at Citi Field this season, when I sat outside the ballpark for nine innings and didn’t get to my seat until the tenth. Two blinks later, Wilmer Flores delivered a walkoff homer. Perfect timing in July. Different timing in September.
But we won both times, which is the important thing.
Unlike that twi-nighter in July, or that day-nighter in Atlanta in May, or amid that offensive onslaught in Philly in August, the Mets took the “won both times” to its logical conclusion Thursday night, sweeping this doubleheader from the Marlins, taking the second game, 5-2. The Mets rarely play doubleheaders, sweep them even more infrequently. The odds of doing so behind Jason Vargas seemed astronomical, but Vargas hasn’t been Very Vargas lately and the Marlins are plenty Marlins. The Mets, particularly when they are slashing and dashing, appear livelier than they have since April. They had a couple of evening innings when they flashed by the Floridians, banging balls off walls, snatching extra bases, not seeming the least bit weary — three wins within twenty-four hours and wide awake relative to their somnambulant competition.
Busting a particularly impressive move was Tomás Nido, who belted his first big league home run. I’m now growing used to hearing “Nido” mentioned as a matter of course during a Mets game, so it no longer lands on my ears as “neato,” which means I don’t automatically hum along with Young MC every time his name circulates. But since he did turn over a milestone, I believe it is appropriate to state the following:
You say Nido
Check your libido
Hit your first homer
In your new tuxedo
You want it? You got it. Even if you don’t want it.
I’d been wanting to see Matz go yard ever since the Sunday afternoon he bust…er, burst upon the scene with three hits and four RBIs. Turned out East Setauket Steve wasn’t much of a hitter once he settled into the bigs. Three years later, however, he’s finally a man of dingers. Like Seth Lugo and Jacob deGrom in 2017; like Noah Syndergaard four times in three separate starts across 2015 and 2016; like Mets Classic mainstay Bartolo Colon in 2016; like the formerly revered Matt Harvey in 2015…all the way back to Paul Wilson in September of 1996. We are now up to nineteen games in a row during which our starting pitcher homering serves as prelude to our team winning. (Perhaps our starting pitchers should homer more often.) Conforto and Frazier orchestrating their dual dramatics made sure we could fully enjoy Matz’s second-inning woodwork instead of treating it as a vaguely pleasant afterthought to a loss. Really, since the Mets prevailed by one run and Steven’s home run off Alcantara was a two-run job, you could say the pride of Suffolk County won this one for himself…even if Jerry Blevins got the decision.
Never mind that we’ve decided decisions are for suckers. The doubleheader sweep Thursday on top of the extended theatricality of Wednesday night’s soggy blowout gave us three straight wins over the Marlins, effectively clinching no worse than fourth place for us (we lead Miami by eleven with sixteen to play in the race absolutely nobody is tracking). It’s almost enough to make you forget the one game we lost in this series was started by deGrom, the best pitcher in the world. You’d expect different.
Better advice would be to expect nothing. Baseball works better when you maintain no illusions about what will happen next.
***
Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect when David Wright seeped back into the center of our consciousness last month. My fondest hope was he’d rediscover his vitality and turn Frazier into the Mets’ fifth or sixth first baseman because David would be ready to go at third like he always was from 2004 until we were all compelled to learn to spell stenosis in 2015. That hope was as fond as it was unrealistic, so my only legitimate wish was that he’d be up for a few September at-bats and that his employers wouldn’t block his path. Given the obstacle-laden road the Mets laid out for him, matching hope to expectation became difficult. I’ve found “hope for the best, expect the Mets” tends to represent a reasonable rule of thumb.
David was 22 and budding into a star when we began writing regularly in this space. Goodness knows I didn’t expect that someday I’d be reflecting here on the news that the kid everybody reflexively gushed over was about to hang ’em up. I had no idea how long this blog would last, but David was presumably poised to play forever. Somehow, though, forever flowed toward an end point. With a physically diminished Wright and the eternally awkward Mets out of practical options, both parties convened on the same page on Thursday, revealing their mutually agreed upon plan for what’s left of 2018 and, alas, the Captain’s career:
1) David will be activated on September 25, when the club begins its final homestand of the year versus Atlanta.
2) He will start one more game at third base, September 29, against the ever-present Marlins.
3) Kimberly-Clark will put on extra shifts to accommodate the ensuing demand for Kleenex across the New York Metropolitan Area.
Nobody mentioned the tissue manufacturer by name, but c’mon. If you watched the press conference in which David tearfully began to say goodbye, surely you must have groped about for your pocket pack. The phrase that got my eyes going most was what he uttered when he described the strain of his rehabilitation process and the eventual recalibration of his goals:
“I just wanna put this uniform on again.”
This uniform. Not a uniform generically. A Mets uniform specifically. The Mets uniform that has been synonymous with him since July 21, 2004. Nobody’s ever worn this uniform more honorably or purposefully as David Wright has. Technically, he’s put a Mets uniform on plenty since May 27, 2016, the date of his most recent major league game, but David said it hasn’t felt right to wear it if he’s not playing. He’s a ballplayer. Ballplayers play. You listen to Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling on a regular basis, you hear them still slip into the present tense. Keith refers to himself as a first baseman, Ronnie as a pitcher. Not a former or an ex. They and their ilk instinctively expect at any moment they will be told to grab a bat or a ball and start getting loose. It’s as chronic a condition as spinal stenosis. Thus, on some level, David will always be a third baseman, always be a hitter, always be a player, always be a Met.
But there’s a difference between self-identifying and actively being. David craved one more chance to actively be. To actually play, as trained and contracted. To play before his daughters, neither of them born when he was previously active. To play before the rest of his extended family, a clan in which he seems inclined to include us, the Mets fans. He thanked us, among others, on Thursday in remarks that he read through tears. Typically classy, if not necessarily necessary. Letting us be a part of his singular Mets career for fifteen seasons should be thanks enough.
David Wright will put this uniform on again. No. 5, at third base, batting somewhere in the Mets lineup. The gratitude is all ours.
by Jason Fry on 13 September 2018 10:40 am The Mets and Marlins were supposed to play two baseball games starting at 4:10 pm, but at 4:10 pm it was raining.
Not particularly hard — you could almost call it Corey Oswalt weather — but hard enough. It stayed that way through 5:10 pm, through 6:10 pm, through the time the Mets would have played their usual baseball game, and on into the night. Mets Yearbooks came and went on SNY, with 1984 becoming 1987 becoming 1983. (We’re really going places with Wes Gardner, people!) Every 10 minutes or so Gary Apple, forced into the role played by Kevin Bacon in “Animal House,” would appear to note the continuing reality of the deployed tarp, smile doggedly and say that no one was telling anyone anything but he’d be back with updates as soon as he had them.
I eventually gave up and started watching “Edge of Tomorrow,” the Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt movie about an ill-prepared soldier who has to live the same fight over and over, with fatal results, until he figures out a way to escape. I mention the details of this plot for no particular reason. At about the midpoint of the movie, I glanced at At Bat and saw, to my shock, that it was the bottom of the first. After five and a half hours of nothing, there was baseball being played!
And then I watched the rest of “Edge of Tomorrow.” Honestly, it had treated me better than the Mets had.
When I switched over to the game it was already 6-0 Mets, the last three runs collected on an Amed Rosario home run that nearly hit the restaurant, and let’s just say the Marlins didn’t look super-enthused to play baseball. You can’t blame them for that — by that point I wasn’t super-enthused to consume it while dry and on my couch — but the 13-0 final score made you wonder if the two teams had chosen different regimens for passing those five and a half hours. Judging by the evidence, perhaps the Mets were having a Chug a Red Bull contest while the Marlins were taking care of a bake shop’s entire stock of Whip-Its.
(Thirteen runs. Scored by the Mets. Man, it’s good not being Jacob deGrom.)
(Also: this game has no recap. Which somehow seems appropriate.)
Anyway the teams played, or at least the Mets did, while 200-odd unbelievably stubborn fans peered at the proceedings through a veil of fog. The game wasn’t without its pleasures — if you win by nearly two touchdowns you’ve got to exit at least content, right? The biggest pleasure was Zack Wheeler, continuing his gangbusters season. Wheeler throttled the Marlins and outscored them by his lonesome before departing after eight innings and just 88 pitches. (Hold the pitchforks for once: he told the braintrust he was tired.) Rosario’s homer was something, though also the kind of something you hope a young hitter doesn’t get into his head as the preferred outcome — remember how Rey Ordonez‘s annual home run would be followed by around six weeks of windmill swings and clouts that were prodigious if measured vertically? Dom Smith connected for a homer of his own. Jeff McNeil did what we’ve come to regard as Jeff McNeil things. Other than the 335-minute wait and the absence of a pennant race, it was all good.
And there was the ball Jay Bruce hit with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth. It arced out to left, hard but a bit low, and out there in the fog Rafael Ortega felt for the wall, reached up with his glove and came down with the ball. Darn, a solid catch for an inning-ending out. But wait, the umpires looked skeptical and various Mets were running around the bases. And, indeed, replays showed that the ball had banged off the railing and its M&Ms banner, a good two feet above the orange line, and then thunked into the mitt of a startled Ortega, who after a beat showed off his prize, probably with the suspicion that this ruse would not go undetected.
Players instinctively selling traps as catches in the replay era is adorable, but also futile. It was a grand slam for Bruce — and, if you think about it, a not bad summation of the quietly bonkers night the Mets and Marlins eventually decided, “let’s play one.”
by Greg Prince on 12 September 2018 12:21 am Betcha didn’t realize that twenty years after Seinfeld went off the air, George Costanza really did get that executive job with the Mets. You can tell by the way the Mets decided to institute the same “opposite” policy George put to such good use where changing his luck was concerned.
“Instead of starting Jacob deGrom against the Phillies in the daytime on roughly his regular rest, we’ll start him against the Marlins, at night, with more than a week between starts!”
Never mind that deGrom owns the Phillies, is the king of daylight and was scheduled to deal per usual on Sunday. The Costantzan Mets took a look at the forecast and judged it ready to rain all that afternoon.
But it didn’t rain on Sunday, Jerry. It didn’t rain. Or it didn’t rain enough to delay the game once it commenced. And it didn’t rain enough to play havoc with the starting pitcher. The Mets scored a half-dozen and won, supporting not Jacob deGrom, but Drew Gagnon. Gagnon’s Cy Young chances remained unaffected.
That was OK, George or whoever is in charge of such decisions said. We’ll pitch Jake on Monday. Monday it will be just fine.
But it rained on Monday, Jerry. It rained enough so that you would have needed a marine biologist to find the mound at Citi Field. It rained so much that the Mets actually postponed a game hours before anybody would have shown up (though not that many would have shown up).
Thus, we got Jake on seven days’ rest versus a team that seems to find a way to beat him more than anybody else does. DeGrom aficionados (deGromcionados?) will always remember that time Jake struck out the first eight Marlins he faced…and was no-decisioned as the Mets lost.
That happened at night. Not that Jake pitching at night is night & day versus Jake pitching during the day, but when you’re seeking every possible edge, every little bit helps. And that’s what the Mets gave Jake on Tuesday night: every little bit.
Correction: a very little bit.
Jake pitched seven innings against the Marlins. Six of them were typically brilliant. One, the fourth, was perfectly Marlinian. Two outs, then two soft hits, then an oh-two pitch that Lewis Brinson, whom I now detest, hit far enough that even a defensive specialist center fielder like Austin Jackson couldn’t reach before it banged off the wall. Two runs scored on the double, which is to say the Mets trailed by two. As previously reported, the Mets did a very little bit to help Jake, and none of it involved generating offense versus Jose Ureña to that point.
I had the feeling Brinson would get to deGrom, I swear I did. Never mind that it was oh-and-two. Never mind that nobody had doubled, tripled or homered all year when Jake had a batter oh-and-two (batters were 10-for-103 in those situations entering Tuesday, according to Sports Info Solutions’ resident maven Mark Simon). The freaking fourth had that sense of doom hanging over it. Two were out, nobody was on, McNeil can’t corral a grounder, Conforto can’t get to a bloop, the booth is telling us what a disappointment Lewis Brinson has been…the feeling was palpable. For the record, I also had a feeling on Sunday that the whole “let’s hold Jake back for Monday because maybe it won’t rain then” was gonna not yield paydirt come Tuesday.
The Mets are being operated by George Costanza and I’m channeling Morris Albert. Feelings. Nothing more than feelings.
The Mets — Michael Conforto, specifically — eventually produced an entire run for deGrom. Many nights or days that would be generous. Tuesday it represented a half-hearted gesture. Jacob was removed from the game trailing, 2-1. When the Mets took great care not to score for him in the bottom of the seventh, he couldn’t get a win. When Anthony Swarzak rematerialized from purgatory to surrender a home run and Robert Gsellman tossed a couple more on the fire, a no-decision landed out of his reach. Kevin Plawecki prettied up the final (5-3) with a two-run jack in the ninth, but it was too late for Jake’s Cy Young case to look any better.
DeGrom has a 1.71 ERA; it was 1.68. He’s thrown 26 consecutive starts without allowing more than three runs, a record nobody knew existed until he set it. The only opponent to whom he’s surrendered a fourth run in a game this year? Why, the Marlins, of course (on April 10, when no Mets fan’s wardrobe was complete without a crisp new Salt & Pepper tee). He’s Quigley Quality when it comes to executing nothing but that kind of start since early in the season. He’s an absolute clinic in pitching every five or six, seven or even eight days. And, um, he’s 8-9. We forthright citizens of Metsopotamia don’t recognize that as valid or legitimate or relevant, but they do keep track of that noise.
At least he didn’t get rained on on Sunday, huh?
Hindsight’s quite the smug bastard. Had the Mets not adhered to their inner Costanza, Jacob would have pitched when he was supposed to, taking on the opponent he regularly dominates, in the daypart during which he’s untouchable…and cats and dogs would have come down in buckets, and we’d wonder why the Mets hadn’t had the sense to hold out Jake as gray skies clearly threatened.
Clouds follow this team and its ace around. No matter how you try to strategize this stuff, it backfires. Now there are only three deGrom starts remaining instead of four (unless Jake is permitted to go on three days’ rest in the last game of the season, after which he’ll have all winter to recover). It’s hard to imagine one start will make the difference between our man accepting a prestigious trophy or a sincere pat on the back. The earned run average seems pretty secure in its sub-two subdivision. Baseball is simply better when Jacob deGrom is pitching. However many fewer innings of that there is, we are that much more diminished.
No wonder it rained so hard on Monday in New York. Surely the heavens did the math, realized Jake was about to be shortchanged a start, and started to weep. That’s my feeling.
by Greg Prince on 10 September 2018 2:55 pm The Mets spoiled their own chances of contending sometime during the spring. Now, on the cusp of fall, they have finally put a meaningful crimp in somebody else’s plans.
I have no more against the Phillies these days than I do the Braves or the Nationals or the Marlins. Ample froth at the mouth is reserved for all division rivals at all times, but we’re a little short of honest blood feuds at the moment. Of course if it were up to me, none of our co-tenants would win a damn thing, let alone a damn game. If it were further up to me, I’d call for a brokered convention, the kind the political junkie in me has yearned for every four summers in another realm.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (FAF) — In a stunning move, delegates to the National League East have nominated the New York Mets as their nominee for the fall campaign after none of the presumed contenders for the division title could gather requisite support on the first 162 ballots. The Mets emerged as a compromise candidate once it was concluded nobody among the Braves, Phillies or Nationals offered any sort of compelling appeal to the undecided baseball fan. The Met boomlet gathered momentum based on market size, experience (they are the most recent NL East team to go to a World Series, the only NL East team to do so in this decade) and what one observer called “inherent lovability”. Party bosses also couldn’t ignore the Mets’ improved play in the second half. “The Mets have a real chance to bring us victory in October,” opined one observer. “Besides, having deGrom on the ticket has got to be worth 1.68 earned runs on the electoral map.”
Alas, I don’t think it works that way, thus on Sunday we had to settle for making the most of our also-ran status, and the only way a team ensconced in fourth place can do that is to confer also-ran status on a team in a higher place. That’s what the Mets did to the Phillies, at least for now. Anybody who lived through the Year of Our Collapse Two Thousand Seven (a.k.a. the Year of the Stewed Goat) knows it ain’t over, et al, but the Mets injecting some distance into the margin between the second-place Phillies and the first-place Braves is the most satisfying task the fourth-place Mets could have accomplished over the weekend.
There was satisfaction when we were done, to be sure, especially in light of how we did it. We did it deGromless, which wasn’t the idea, but weather inevitably thinks on its own. The Mets looked at the Queens skies and the afternoon forecast, and decided leaving the Jake out in the rain — all that Cy Young icing flowing down — was a bad idea. And it was. Natch, after a twenty-minute delay, it didn’t rain hard enough to stop the game once. Or it did but they didn’t bother. Nobody worries much about leaving Corey Oswalt out in the rain.
So the Mets did. Corey and Drew Gagnon, then a few more relievers. It worked beautifully. Oswalt gave up an early home run to Rhys Hoskins (apropos when you realize “Rhys Hoskins” is the Dutch translation of “Rosh Hashanah”), but for a guy who had essentially five minutes’ notice, three innings of two-run ball is admirable. Gagnon, last seen coming and going from Citi Field in July, stood his ground a little firmer this time, shutting out the Phillies in the fourth and fifth. Meanwhile, the young Mets surged as they sometimes have in the second half of this season. In the fifth, a succession of potentially youthful future saviors — Dom Smith, Amed Rosario, Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto — batted and produced four runs. Throw in Brandon Nimmo and you can rightly conjure visions of satisfaction of what’s to come.
Conforto had the biggest of hits, a three-run homer that required the usual M&M’s Sweet Seats facade review. McNeil had the most, three, which seems like standard output from the eldest neophyte. Jeff is 26, which is young in real life, borderline ancient for a major league rookie. Where has he been all our lives? More importantly, where will he be for the rest of it? Jeff McNeil has ascended into Mike Vail territory in the minds of the fifty-and-over set among us. You invoke “Mike Vail” usually and it’s with a bit of a sigh for a blazing hot bat from August and September 1975 that failed to light up the rest of that decade. The nutshell is Vail, 23, came up unheralded from Tidewater and took over New York for a spell. He hit in 23 straight games which tied both the team and NL rookie record. À la “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the next thing you know, young Mike’s the starting right fielder for 1976, with Rusty Staub traded to Detroit to clear space for him (also, M. Donald Grant was a venal crumb).
Where’s Mike Vail’s plaque in the Mets Hall of Fame? You could ask the same of many worthy candidates, actually, but Vail’s case never made it past his first big league winter, when a game of basketball led to a broken foot, which led to a longer delay to starting his next season than the Mets faced on Sunday. Mike never again got untracked as a Met and wouldn’t be one anymore by 1978. Though he put together a respectable bench career that extended well into the 1980s, Mike Vail’s role as Met star had had it already by the summer of ’75. No later than its autumn, anyway.
Ah, but at this moment in time in that year, there was no greater praise to heap upon a player than to refer to him as the next Mike Vail. So let’s go with that definition when we begin to think of Jeff McNeil, currently batting .340, in those terms. He is enshrouded in the Vail of Hope for now and we can always hope that what we’ve been seeing in late summer and early fall is a sign of Jeff to come, not what Mike encountered ages ago.
In the end Sunday, the Mets held on to beat the Phillies, 6-4, Drew Smith and Seth Lugo doing most of the rest of the satisfying stifling of visitor hopes. My cheering on a Mets win is chronic, my seeking any sign of forward progress a symptom. On September 9, the Mets rose to twelve games under .500, a plateau they haven’t settled upon since June 23. I’ll have to look up what kind of trophy they give you for that. My having it in for the Phillies was a temporary condition. I’ll happily have it in for the Braves when they visit during the season’s final week, particularly if they have not yet clinched the division. I’m guessing they will have (though I would have guessed the same of us at this juncture of 2007). I watched them beat the Diamondbacks after I watched the Mets beat the Phillies. Atlanta looks a lot stronger, especially with Lucas Duda coming off the bench. The Phillies remind me of us from those years where were the fates just kept us hanging on until September unconditionally released us from any semblance of a pennant race. A year like 1975, when we peaked as the final month began. A year like 1989, when we used up our limited cache of mojo by late August. A year like 2005, when a reality check crashed our Wild Card dreams into the boards. Maybe a year like 1984, when summer’s rise was oh so sweet, but it was the fall that killed us.
The Mets have been in the Phillies’ position before: attempting to fend off the unfendable, feasibility fading by the day. And the Phillies have been in the Mets’ position before, trying to make the most of a miserable season by acting as a carrier, pulling a rival with a better record down to its dyspeptic level. We’ve been the satisfyingly feisty fourth-place spoiler. We’ve been the frustratingly desperate second-place dreamer.
All things considered, I’d rather be in 1986.
by Jason Fry on 9 September 2018 11:07 am Bravo to all the stalwarts who came out to Citi Field on a night water droplets were falling from the sky, accompanied by hits sprinkling a perplexed Noah Syndergaard. Winter-hat night seemed perfectly well timed. Imagine the attendance if a certain third baseman who most definitely is not experiencing a rift with his employeers, no absolutely not thank you nothing to see here, had been activated, but oh well.
Noah looked pretty good early, a start after throttling the Giants for a complete game, but the middle innings saw the Phillies racking up both walks and hits. Noah’s 109th pitch was a 98 MPH fastball that Cesar Hernandez turned around into a 110 MPH fastball to Syndergaard’s ribs, dropping him on the mound to crawl after the ball and then leave the game.
It was an awful moment, but X-rays were negative, Noah was full of jokes after the game and all seems well, so … exhale.
Fortunately — to use the word in the lesser, between-the-lines sense — the Mets were raining hits of their own down on Zach Eflin and his successors (his many successors), who collectively hung an absurd number of breaking pitches. The Mets certainly showed their gratitude. Tomas Nido picked up strikeout victim Dom Smith by whacking a one-out, bases-clearing double in the second, Todd Frazier launched a three-run homer an inning later, Michael Conforto chipped in a solo shot, and the Mets had enough firepower to keep the Phils at bay. (Tip of the cap to Jerry Blevins, who fanned old friend Jose Bautista after Syndergaard’s exit, preventing a laugher from threatening to become a groaner.)
Mets 10, Phillies 5. Somewhere Jacob deGrom is being stoic.
The box score has a couple of interesting stories in it — and here, I’m using definitely “interesting” in a “September of a lost season” way. Nido’s career began in a rather surreal fashion, as he collected his first hit at Wrigley Field and three minutes later ended a game by being tagged out approximately 25 feet from home. (Narrator: “That’s so 2017 Mets!”) Nido’s not being billed as the Mets’ catcher of the future, perhaps because the previous owners of that tag can be found on the disabled list or hitting in the .230s, but his defense has drawn plaudits and he does have a Florida State League batting title on his resume. That guarantees success about as much as a three-run double on a misty night, but it ain’t nothing.
Blevins’s year began miserably. Regarded as one of the trustworthy components of the Mets’ pen, he walked two guys in his first appearance and stumbled through horrific stretches in mid-April and late May, with his struggles perhaps not helped by Mickey Callaway‘s decision-making. (Remember Blevins getting caught shaking his head in disgust when not called upon at Citizens Bank?) His ERA sat at an unsightly 5.84 on Memorial Day, but since then Blevins has whittled it down to a more palatable 3.65. It’s still not a year Blevins will want to discuss when he’s on a porch in his rocking chair — hey, maybe the problem was that he finally got a Topps card as a Met — but it and he look a lot better than they once did.
Finally, how will the Phillies view 2018? They vaulted back into contention a year or two ahead of schedule and are battling for the division title with the equally precocious Braves, but neither team is exactly coming to the wire like a thoroughbred. Odds are that won’t mean anything come October, when the Mets and their own implosion of a season will be a memory. But the Mets are at least getting a chance to play spoiler, battling two teams that had fun summers but look like they’ve suddenly become all too aware of what’s possible.
by Greg Prince on 8 September 2018 12:50 pm The independent Atlantic League, best known in Metsopotamian circles as base of operations for Buddy Harreslon’s Long Island Ducks, includes a team called the Road Warriors. You can’t go to one of their home games because they don’t have any. They are literally a travel team, existing to even out the circuit in years when the numbers get overly odd. This season, for example, with the Bluefish having abandoned Bridgeport and not yet having resettled into their future identity as the High Point (N.C.) Rockers, the Road Warriors were reincarnated out of logistical necessity. Their mission seems to be go out there and be the best Washington Generals you can be, for as you might expect, playing nothing but away games will wear down any roster. After dropping a 4-1 decision in Central Islip to the Ducks Friday night, the Road Warriors’ second-half record fell to 10-46 on the heels of a first-half record of 17-46.
Forty miles to the west, a team that plays 81 home games presumably looked on in envy.
The New York Mets, who bunk regularly in Flushing, are a dismal home team, which is a shame since if they weren’t stuck playing half of their contests in the same place might be reasonably competitive. The Queensless part of their itinerary they’ve got fairly well under control. Following feisty road trips of 7-4 and 5-4, the Mets stand at 35-36 when wearing gray pants. That is the essence of not bad. The accepted formula for success in baseball is play .500 or so on the road and clean up at home.
Unfortunately, the Mets are a mess at home. After a typical Citi Field performance Friday — a 4-3 loss to the visiting Phillies — the Mets’ home record ticked down to 28-41. That is the essence of atrocious. On the road, the Mets are formidable foes. At home, they’re more Atlantic League than National League.
Perhaps I’m extra sensitive to this situation because the homestanding Mets are particularly putrid when I’m on hand to root them toward victory. They and I fail together. In 2018, their record with me at Citi Field is 5-11, same as Steven Matz’s in general. Matz took a no-decision on Friday, having plowed his way through 103 pitches over five innings. Matz was just good enough not to be terrible, not good enough to be wholly effective. He probably would have been great had this game been played anywhere else.
The Mets’ offense was tepid for any league or locale. Jay Bruce homered. Dom Smith homered (to the opposite field, no less). Brandon Nimmo, accelerating from first after a walk, scored on a beautifully placed Jeff McNeil double into the right field corner, the essence of hit-and-run. That was the non-tepid portion. Everything else didn’t rise remotely to the level of lukewarm. There was nothing else. Aaron Nola, whom I have to stop meeting like this (I’ve seen him beat the Mets three times in two cities this year), gave up no other hits. Phillie relievers Seranthony Dominguez — who I continually think was knighted on his way to the ballpark — and Tommy Hunter retired their six batters on a total of thirteen pitches. The Mets’ approach in the eighth and ninth seemed to consist of beating the traffic, which, having gotten a rare ride home, I could have told them was a waste of time. Citi Field personnel was about as skilled at regulating exiting autos out of the parking lot formerly known as Shea Stadium as Mets hitters were at getting on base.
Come to think of it, I didn’t see anybody regulating traffic. Or any Mets getting on base.
Matz gave up two runs and Nola allowed three, which means somewhere in between, the Mets bullpen couldn’t preserve requisite amounts of bacon. The kiddie corps of Eric Hanhold, Tyler Bashlor, Daniel Zamora and Drew Smith was tasked with holding a contender at bay. The contender prevailed, thanks to Hanhold encountering a bit of bad bloop luck and Bashlor being taken practically to the World’s Fair Marina by Rhys Hoskins. Oh well. Good to see the youthful arms getting a chance nonetheless. Good to see Dominic at first base, too. The highlight of the evening, beyond the sportsmanlike “thank you” pregame video for Asdrubal Cabrera, was an incredible pick of a desperation heave by McNeil to retire the no longer so beloved Cabrera on a grounder to deeply shifted second in the eighth. Dom’s mitt was practically in right field as he securely plucked Jeff’s one-bounce fling to end that inning.
Dom Smith (announced by Marysol Castro and illustrated on the scoreboards as Dominic; who can keep up?) is mysteriously still only 23 despite being drafted five years ago and possessing a very old soul. Smith at first meant Bruce in right, which is at odds with whatever the most recently stated gameplan of getting Bruce reps at first. Like the weather in Chicago, wait five minutes and you’ll get a new gameplan stated in Flushing. The fact that Bruce didn’t play first was utterly lost on a repeat Bud Light customer a couple of rows in front of Joe and me. During one of the at-bats when Jay didn’t homer, the guy cursed Bruce out because he was keeping Peter Alonso from receiving a September looksee. Thus, Jay Bruce, by adhering to what’s written on Mickey Callaway’s almost always accurate lineup card, reveals himself a diabolical genius.
Also prevented from playing by mysterious forces otherwise known as the New York Mets’ overwhelming desire to be reimbursed by their insurer was David Wright. Wright worked out before the game. He will play in a simulated game before the next game. The Mets will continue to send a mouthpiece to face reporters and create a dubious rationale for not activating him. Friday it was something about you can’t bring back your 35-year-old captain who’s been working his hind quarters off just to pinch-hit a little because, uh…hey, look over there! That’s the way to draw enthusiastic crowds to your 28-41 home team.
But still we come. Some of us. Me, anyway. The MTA tried to warn me away. At 103rd Street Friday evening, an announcement was blared that our train would terminate at 111th Street, one stop shy of Mets-Willets Point. Apparently the train traffic up ahead was more daunting than the parking lot traffic was going to be later, so our 7 local was directed to simply give up. (No wonder it’s so identified with the Mets.) Despite being instructed to wait on the platform for a train that promised to roll a little further east, I opted for the station stairs and hoofed it the rest of the way. I found the improvised stroll quite pleasant. It made Citi Field seem like it was in the middle of somewhere — Corona, to be specific. Thirty years ago, in my driving days, I was directed to unofficial parking somewhere down 111th Street, the last time I remember taking roughly the same pedestrian route. The walk was probably shorter on July 2, 1988, because Shea was closer than Citi. Also, the Mets won that night; Darryl went deep, Doc went nine. The walk back to 111th Street included a detour to a Mr. Softee truck (this was also in my ice cream days). I’d call July 2, 1988, a good night.
I’d call September 7, 2018, a good night, too, honestly. I grumble and grimace, but deep down I relish every opportunity to go 1-0 in my last one, no matter how often it winds up as 0-1 en route to 5-11 or whatever. That explains the recurring trips to Citi Field. Nine innings with Joe perfectly situated behind home plate in Promenade. The extended departure from the parking lot and subsequent ride home with Rob, who had alerted me he’d be viewing the action from the sponsored soft drink terrace. Shouting out trivia answers in case the contestant needed help (he didn’t; good for him for getting the questions right). Encouraging the kid who tried to break the base-stealing record (she didn’t; good for her for running hard all the way). Imploring those who stood oblivious to the action to sit DOWN IN FRONT (to which the Bud Light dude interjected we should relax because the Met batting was just gonna ground out on the next pitch anyway…which he did). Clapping along with “Lazy Mary”. Realizing how of few of the Italian lyrics to “Lazy Mary” I’ve managed to learn despite continual exposure to all of them. Trying to figure out why so many people value a Mets game in progress as a backdrop for photos of themselves while completely ignoring the very same Mets game in progress.
This was a problem that first arose at Shea in 2008. Phones weren’t uniformly smart then, but digital cameras were commonly carried. Never mind that Delgado is batting. Never mind a pennant race is in progress. Ooh, get this picture of me right now! I was a little more understanding of the impulse then, as the stadium where we gathered was about to vanish from view. Last night, it occurred to me after the fact, was the tenth anniversary of the final day-night doubleheader Shea hosted. That was also against the Phillies. I was there for both ends, September 7, 2008. Joe was with me for the night half as Johan Santana quieted the crimson interlopers and kept the Mets in first place a wee bit longer. That nightcap was a quietly emotional experience for me because I’d been going to games at Shea with Joe basically forever and now that was ending. Shea was ending. I was determined to go to every home game that month, and I did. It didn’t keep the Mets in first place, nor did it keep Shea standing.
But I’ve kept going to Flushing, no matter that the train lets me off in Corona. I’ve been going to games with friends like Joe and Rob at Citi Field since 2009, just as I’d been going to Mets games at Shea since 1973. The organization may not merit much in the way of our patronage (StubHub-discounted as it may be), but where else are we going to see the Mets play? Even lose aggravatingly in seasons that stop far short of 111th Street? Where else are we going to be Mets fans to our fullest? I can do most of my rooting from afar, but not all of it. Ten years into this ballpark, I still readily embrace compiling a record of 5-11 over that which would be 0-0 without me.
Actually, the Mets’ home record would be 28-41 either way.
by Jason Fry on 6 September 2018 12:46 pm Wednesday evening found me driving back to New York after dropping my kid off at school north of Boston. The rental-car place closed at 9; if things broke my way and I drove more speedily than I’m now accustomed, I could make it. Maybe. Perhaps. If I pushed it.
I decided to go for it; traffic was light and I was driving a Denali, which is the approximate size and weight of a battleship and thus useful for encouraging dawdlers to vacate the left lane.
Plus I had the Mets, playing ball in L.A. at the weirdo time of 7:35 pm. Zack Wheeler would be on the mound continuing to show us the marvels of Zack Wheeler 2.0. The other Mets would be doing whatever they did or didn’t do. It was a baseball game and usually that’s enough good company to get me through anything.
Except as I listened to Josh and Howie recounting the action, I found my mind drifting in a way you definitely don’t want your growling, ZIP Code-sized SUV drifting.
We have seen our 55th Met. We have an oh-so-Metsian controversy about health and money that makes us angry/weary. We have a potential Cy Young winner at the top of our rotation.
Those are the storylines just completed or left to be checked off this season, and my mind drifted because it’s not much. Jacob deGrom is a story every fifth day. David Wright‘s situation is fluid and I only have so much anger in me pending new information. The Eric Hanhold Era has begun.
The rest? Eh. We have no meaningful games to play until winter has come and gone, and the other Mets stories are incremental. Can Wheeler keep pitching at the high level he’s shown this summer? Do Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto look healthy? Can Amed Rosario keep building on recent successes? Can Jeff McNeil keep improving defensively and slashing base hits? Is some coach remembering to clean the cobwebs off Dom Smith so he doesn’t suffocate?
Those aren’t meaningless storylines by any means — most of them will be pretty important in determining whether we’re optimistic or nah about the 2019 Mets. But that will be a discussion in the springtime. Right now, it’s not exactly the stuff that gets the blood pumping — there’s no unknown rookie to scrutinize after an exciting minor-league season (ahem) or triumphant return on tap (double ahem).
And so I found myself more concerned with my ETA in Brooklyn and where I was going to top up the gas tank than I was with whatever was going on in L.A.
What was going on L.A. was entertaining enough, provided you were a Mets fan. The Mets bled the Dodgers dry with a hilarious (Met fan) or infuriating (Dodger fan) rain of bloops, dunkers, worm-killers and parachutes over the infield. Those that found Dodger gloves tended to clank off of them. The Dodgers looked more like one of their short-season affiliates than a club fighting for a postseason spot, which is going to happen but is still the kind of thing that provokes long, sustained booing. Meanwhile, Wheeler pitched well, even staying in after a scary line drive off the chest, and the Mets won the game, the series and the road trip.
I felt bad not feeling more about all that. But that’s what the season has come down to — low stakes and incrementals. What does it all mean? That’s a question for March, and March is very far away.
by Greg Prince on 5 September 2018 11:23 am The bane of the East Coast baseball fan, the midweek late night West Coast start time, had avoided our drowsy chaperoning for more than five months, but every season will eventually find a reason to literally keep you awake when you should probably go to sleep. Maybe not a good reason, depending on how you view prying your eyelids open as a Tuesday becomes a Wednesday and the Mets revert to being the Mets, but the completists among us remain determined to stay awake.
Determination isn’t always good enough. Around midnight, with the Mets trailing the Dodgers, 5-4, I drifted off. Admittedly, like the Mets versus the Dodgers, I didn’t fight off my foe very effectively. I gave into a nap. The Mets apparently gave into whatever usually gets the best of them in Los Angeles because when I awoke around one o’clock, the Mets were trailing the Dodgers, 11-4.
What was wrong with Corey Oswalt and Jacob Rhame, perpetrators of the six-run seventh through which I sawed wood? Damned if I know. I’ll just take it on faith that it wasn’t their or our night. Oswalt could use some more consistent work, probably, but he had to be ousted from the rotation to the far reaches of the bullpen to provide stability for Jason Vargas, Tuesday night’s starting pitcher who never saw Wednesday morning Eastern Time. VARGY from the adorable Little League uniforms was one of the best kids you could ask to pitch. Vargas in plain ol’ road grays was again the guy whose ERA is too high to pass for a section number at Citi Field.
Rhame may just have residual vertigo from all the times he’s been down and up in 2018. Standard-issue option action aside, Jacob has three times out of five been the Mets’ choice for 26th man on those occasions when the roster temporarily expanded because of makeup doubleheaders and the like. In other words, when it’s Rhame, it’s poured.
Predictably, Rhame was the designated extra fellow for the resumption of the suspended game in Chicago last week and then got to stick around as Kevin Plawecki tore himself away from the Mets for a few days, having made some ridiculous excuse (oh right, his first child was being born). By September 1, it apparently wasn’t worth the trouble to option Rhame again, so he continued to be available to expand five-run deficits into the seven-run variety while New York nods off.
Earlier — not long after Rich Hill straightened himself out from feeding a couple of gopher balls to Mets batters, which he seems to do every start against us — history came trotting in from the visitors bullpen, succeeding Tyler Bashlor, who initially succeeded Vargas. History technically wore No. 70, but its true numerical significance could be found in the sighting of the 55th Met of the season, the first time there’s ever been one. Eric Hanhold’s maiden entry into a 2018 Mets game (not to mention Major League Baseball) meant we’ve officially had more personnel traffic this year than in any other year, most notably 1967, when there were 54 Mets losing 101 times. Nobody stopped the game to authenticate the 24-year-old righthander we received last season from Milwaukee in exchange for turncoat Neil Walker, but Hanhold did OK for himself, regardless, throwing a scoreless inning-and-a-third, setting the stage for brief adequate outings from Daniel Zamora and Paul Sewald, leading to the wholly inadequate activity rendered by Oswalt and Rhame.
Exceptions certainly exist, but when you fall asleep with the Mets having used five pitchers and you stir to find them on their seventh, it’s probably a sign that the game was not worth waking up for.
by Greg Prince on 4 September 2018 3:18 pm Jacob deGrom’s pitching is transcendent. Wins, losses and no-decisions have all but ceased to matter. Prospective Cy Young voting feels irrelevant. Track all the statistics you like, but they’re just numbers. Measurements capture only so much of what makes deGrom an avatar of practically unprecedented excellence.
I’ve been on a bit of a journey as I’ve watched Jake over the course of the past month, traveling from bitter when the Mets don’t score on his behalf; to euphoric when they do; to disgusted when others haven’t fully recognized his brilliance; to angry when forces conspire against his fortunes; to nearly paralyzed with fear that he won’t succeed in full; until I arrived Monday night in a state of what I imagine bliss is like.
I didn’t know if the Mets would win (they did). I didn’t know if Jake would win (he didn’t). I just knew it was going to be all right, because Jake was going to be Jake and he would pitch as he has throughout this sublime season and, ultimately, nothing could hurt him or, by extension, us. The Dodgers might score an additional run after scoring one, yet they couldn’t alter his being. His teammates might not support him optimally through their offense and defense, yet it would not impede his progress. Jake would be out there on that mound for as long he was permitted to stay, seeking to get batters out because it is what he does, as if that alone is why he pitches in our midst.
The Mets winning is clearly of import to him. He is a professional competitor. He smiles broadly at postgame questioning when his team has won. He effects a sterner visage when they don’t. The answers are mostly the same regardless because the pitching is mostly the same. The pitching is of a caliber nobody else can match. DeGrom can put a different spin on a given pitch depending on occasion and urgency, but he can only say the same things so many times so many different ways.
Monday night at Dodger Stadium, the particularly impressive wrinkle to his outing was the bottom of the sixth inning, game tied at one. Given the Mets’ recent history versus Los Angeles, it was reasonable to expect walls to come crashing in via some combination of slugger, error or other creeping terror. The Mets hadn’t lost twelve in a row to L.A. by accident.
Yet there Jake was, taking on four hitters of varying pedigrees, each of them capable of ruining the end of anybody’s holiday weekend. Every one of them — Joc Pederson, Justin Turner, Manny Machado, Max Muncy — challenged his abilities, demanding no fewer than seven pitches and as many as twelve pitches per his respective plate appearance. Nearly one-third of the pitches deGrom would throw Monday were thrown in one-sixth of the innings he would work. The noise level rose. Dodger fans may have a reputation for arriving late, leaving early and waving incessantly, but they do create a sound of doom when they are properly moved. Many a Mets pitcher has been swallowed up by Chavez Ravine’s momentum.
But not Jake. There’d be loud fouls. There’d be steps off the rubber There’d be moments for contemplation. But after 34 pitches, there was a strikeout of Pederson, a grounder by Turner that was mishandled by Amed Rosario, a strikeout of Machado and a perfectly positioned Jeff McNeil picking up a ground ball and firing it to Wilmer Flores to retire Muncy.
Four batters, three outs, no damage. Jacob’s pitch count had soared from 75 to 109, so that was gonna be that in terms of his active participation in the evening’s affair. The score was still 1-1. Turner had gotten him in the first for a solo home run (maybe we shouldn’t have let him go). DeGrom got the run back of his own RBI accord in the fifth (Jacob’s batting average of .167 is eerily similar to his earned run average of 1.68). Unless the Mets pushed across a run in the seventh and the bullpen protected the hypothetical lead without pause thereafter, it meant deGrom wouldn’t get a win.
I shrugged at the thought. And when the Mets proceeded to load the bases only to leave them that way in the seventh, I shrugged again. I’m past wins and losses where Jake is concerned. Jake’s season is past wins and losses. The Mets winning would be nice, I decided — and it surely was, when Brandon Nimmo arranged exactly that outcome via his ninth-inning, three-run pinch-hit homer — but what was a lack of a W going to say about deGrom that hasn’t already been said?
DeGrom’s pitching exists in another realm. The most conventional of statistics were left in the dust long ago. In some other season, when set against the portfolios being compiled by Max Scherzer and Aaron Nola, we’d be compelled to make a case for deGrom because 8-8 in no way reflects his year’s inherent sparkle. C’mon, look at the ERA! Look at this peripheral this or that! Instead, early in September, it’s the opposite. Isn’t 16-6 worth something? What about 15-4? Too bad for Max and Aaron. Conventionality belongs to yesterday.
DeGrom is the word.
Mind you, the performances of those other pitchers are of concern only if we are concerning ourselves with the National League Cy Young Award. I’d welcome Jake’s being voted it, as would Mets fans everywhere, but to obsess on a slab of hardware determined by the judgment of others comes off somehow as almost gauche. Somebody’s gonna vote for Scherzer or Nola instead of deGrom when the category is best pitcher? There was a time, approximately two weeks ago, when that would incite me. I heard various expert types — Tim Kurkjian, Tom McCarthy, Michael Wilbon — weigh in, in one way or another, that Jacob deGrom didn’t seem likely to win the Cy Young or wasn’t quite worthy of it. I was infuriated. Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Inane dronery!
Now, having been privileged to tag along on deGrom’s march into history, my main thought regarding the views of those who would choose another over Jake is I will wish them enlightenment. May they see what the rest of us see. I realize it can be hard to decipher if you’re not properly positioned. Trying to make out Jake’s 1.68 ERA from the vantage point of Nola’s 2.23 or Scherzer’s 2.28 kindles visions of Laffit Pincay, Jr., the jockey on top of Sham, the fastest horse in the 1973 Belmont Stakes…except for Secretariat, who galloped home 31 lengths ahead of him.
If a Cy Young awaits deGrom, that’s delightful. If it doesn’t, I can’t promise I’ll be at peace with the verdict, but right now it really and truly strikes me as beside the point. If it can’t be earned on the field, it’s out of our hands (even Jake’s). A pennant race is about wins and losses, and its essential nature as a competition overshadows everything, especially down the stretch. The batting average derby of 2011 was about our guy outpointing his rivals; it felt natural to pull for Jose Reyes to get hits and cross our fingers that Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp didn’t. If there was a legitimate contest for the ERA crown, I might feel the same way rooting for Scherzer’s and Nola’s to tick up as I regularly thrill to deGrom’s when it dips, but lately I don’t relish their shortcomings quite so much. They’re terrific pitchers. It shouldn’t take their bugs to cast deGrom’s features in the most positive light possible.
Similarly, wins assigned to pitchers don’t tell much of this story anymore, except perhaps as curious sidebar. Drew Smith got the win Monday night because he had been the most recent Mets pitcher when Nimmo belted his untying home run. Smith pitched well for one inning. His connection to the victory was more than incidental, less than wholly determinant. I’m no longer caught up in worrying that Jake won’t get proper credit for his pitching. His pitching is credit enough. The start before the one against the Dodgers, versus the Cubs last week, was his showcase. He went eight innings that wore on me emotionally like seven games of a World Series. Not the seventh game, but seven games, evocative of those October nights when you can’t stand the idea of a single thing going against your team.
That night at Wrigley Field might have represented the Rubicon for how I’ve come to view Jacob deGrom’s 2018. I was so anxious every inning, every pitch. The Cubs must not be allowed to score more than one earned run; none would be preferable, but perfection is difficult to achieve, even for the deGroms among us. Chicago could cobble together eight hits, could work out one walk, they could leave seven men on between the first and the eighth — but there was to be no surfeit of scoring that would reflect poorly on Jacob.
And there wasn’t, which was plenty for me. Eventually there’d be bullpen and rain and suspension and resumption and, in the end, Paul Sewald (who, at 0-11 lifetime, may also have some thoughts on the efficacy of wins and losses) giving way to Daniel Zamora giving up a game-losing double to Ben Zobrist, but that was all agate compared to having watched Jacob deGrom pitch like Jacob deGrom yet again, over and over, almost untouched, something like impenetrable, perhaps even inscrutable. Wrigley last Wednesday was when I stopped stressing over what Scherzer and Nola were doing, ceased concentrating on Cy Young chances, quit resenting the impressions of others, even vaulted over the notion that “Jake deserves better” than getting dinged with no-decisions never mind defeats.
Witnessing Jacob deGrom pitching like Jacob deGrom is its own reward and award. He transcends the circumstances that surround him. Every start of his may be less an entire World Series than a ticker-tape parade for the soul.
I’ve experienced Seaver and Gooden and Dickey at their finest, to namedrop the Mets’ three Cys to date. They were extraordinarily dominant at their peak. So is Jake, I suppose, but he seems something different if not exactly something more. What distinguishes him, I think, is he seems morally opposed to giving up runs, like it’s his guiding principle. He strikes out loads of batters, but only because sometimes that’s how outs are recorded. He’s not a latter-day Dr. K in that sense. He’s phenomenal without being a phenomenon, an attraction without attracting undue attention to himself. Jacob set two records in the process of holding off the Dodgers: most quality starts in a row by a Met in one season; most consecutive starts by any major league starter giving up no more than three runs in the modern era. Jake was asked what it meant to him to have accomplished both of those feats. He admitted he wasn’t aware he had done either, but was quite polite about their significance, as if he wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of the records to which he was just at that moment introduced.
That’s so deGrom.
by Jason Fry on 2 September 2018 11:46 pm Somewhere around the midpoint of today’s Mets-Giants game, I was asked what’s been wrong with Noah Syndergaard this year.
I wasn’t sure what to say. After all, there Noah was, throwing 99 MPH fastballs and 92 MPH sliders. There he was pushing for his 10th win pitching for a terrible team, and mowing down Giant after Giant.
And yet it wasn’t a crazy question. We saw him labor against the Cubs, and we’ve all had the sense that somehow, Noah is less than he’s been. Not so long ago he looked destined to redefine what a classic power pitcher looked like, taking the classic arsenal and amping up its numbers, then combining it with tactical brilliance and that certain meanness that every ace needs.What happened instead was that he got hurt, first seriously and then naggingly. And the Syndergaard who returned seemed to be missing that tantalizing something.
My answer, arrived at fumblingly, was that Syndergaard was mostly dealing with messy mechanics because he’d been denied the long strings of regular, uninterrupted starts a pitcher needs for consistency and confidence. But I added that I also thought Syndergaard had come down with a touch of Ron Darling Syndrome, complicating his approach in a way that was a credit to his intellect but might work against his raw talent. To oversimplify a bit, in learning more about pitching, Syndergaard might have neglected throwing.
I was neither satisfied with that answer nor particularly confident in it. Maybe that’s right. Maybe that’s sort of right. Or maybe it’s dead wrong, and Syndergaard’s only real problem is our outsized expectations bumping into the ebb and flow of a career.
Whatever the case, there was nothing lacking on Sunday against the Giants. Syndergaard allowed just two hits, walked one and was scratched for a lone run in posting his first career complete game, which he ended with an exclamation point by fanning Evan Longoria on a 99 MPH sinker.
The series against the Giants was an example of how I can be horrified by the way the Mets are run and yet agree with the refusal to tear down the team. Jacob deGrom would be a deserving Cy Young winner, Zack Wheeler has taken a big leap forward as a pitcher, Steven Matz has had an up-and-down season but one with some superb stretches, and we’ve covered Syndergaard. Four starters of that quality is a superb hand, and what other teams are desperate to develop; if you have them, you’re thinking about how to finish the deal, regardless of what other misfortunes you’ve endured or inflicted upon yourself.
The Mets might have had more runs on Sunday if not for the heroics of Giants shortstop Alen Hanson; they might have sweated the outcome a lot more if not for the heroics of Jeff McNeil, whose two-run single gave Syndergaard a three-run lead in the eighth.
McNeil can hit — that’s obvious. But what I particularly appreciate about him is his growth as a fielder. When he arrived in New York (about a month after he deserved a call-up), he looked barely adequate at second base, with the pivot making you want to cover your eyes. But McNeil has worked his butt off, and looks much improved. Hopefully the Mets are noticing that, and deciding it deserves to be rewarded, instead of setting up yet another promising young player for the horrors of the Full Conforto.
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DeGrom and Alex Wood face off Monday night, but don’t forget the Brooklyn Cyclones’ regular-season finale. The Cyclones are half a game out of the New York-Penn League’s wild card, trailing the Auburn Doubledays, with the Staten Island Yankees right behind them. To go to the playoffs, Brooklyn needs to beat the Yankees and have Auburn lose — which is what happened today. If you’re so inclined, listen here.
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