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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 Jason Fry on 19 August 2023 8:57 am From the beginning, I’ve loved watching Jeff McNeil play baseball — somehow never more so than when things don’t go his way.
McNeil responds to any misfortune in an AB — an umpire’s poor judgment, his own excessive haste, a perfectly executed enemy pitch, a great play by a defender, a quirk of fate — with barely concealed fury. Lenny Dykstra, another member of the How Can a Just God Allow Such Atrocities? fraternity, specialized in a post-out “disbelieving, Rumpelstiltskin stamp of rage,” to quote the great Roger Angell; McNeil’s signature is the little whirl after crossing first base and being told he’s not being permitted to stay there, followed by a cold, disbelieving stare, the mouth opening and the guy in the truck hurriedly turning down any on-field mics. (McNeil may single-handedly keep the era of MLB hot-micing everybody and his brother at bay for the duration of his career.)
It’s a bit Dykstra, it’s a bit Al Leiter, and it’s more than a bit hilarious. As with Leiter, you can never be angry with McNeil for failing on the baseball diamond because he’s invariably so much angrier about it than you are; there’s nowhere to escalate, so you just skip ahead to forgiving him. The line in our house is “Why is Jeff McNeil enraged this time?” and there’s never a short list of reasons.
McNeil could have achieved his legend just by being a Daniel Murphy “I hit third” type, but he’s more than that: He’s become an accomplished and versatile fielder almost without anybody noticing, going from “eh, he’ll outhit his mistakes” at second to sure-handed and sound not only there but also in either outfield corner. Unsurprisingly, he’s brought a certain cussedness to those proceedings too: I don’t know the root of the farcical rat/raccoon dispute with Francisco Lindor, but I’d bet it sprang from McNeil taking pride in his own defensive abilities and not appreciating some newcomer from a jumped-up beer league appointing himself as his infield instructor.
2023, though, hasn’t been fun for McNeil. (Or for his fellow Mets, or for us.) The defense has stayed sound, but the power’s been missing and it feels like so many balls that used to drop over the infield or punch through it have wound up in gloves. McNeil’s rage has even cooled to a simmer — not even he can’t maintain a full boil during a season-long bad dream.
Of late, though, McNeil’s looked like he’s woken up and discovered he’s still McNeil. There was the almost homer/almost enemy out double Thursday night, and then Friday night McNeil spanked a two-out single early to drive in Lindor with the Mets’ second run and then iced the game with a three-run homer late, hitting the ball a few critical feet farther than the night before and so keeping Jordan Walker out of the equation.
That was enough to support Joey Lucchesi, who looked superb in his return from the minors and injuries, torturing Paul Goldschmidt with the churve. (We’re only halfway through this series, but so far Goldschmidt is not enjoying himself.) Francisco Alvarez got kudos from Lucchesi for his preparation, which has never waned; he also broke out of his recent funk with an RBI single of his own. Brandon Nimmo cracked a leadoff homer, Tim Locastro and Lindor and Rafael Ortega had two hits each … it was a night where we could be happy for plenty of Mets.
Even Pete Alonso, who fueled a little contretemps when he unthinkingly tossed the first major-league hit from rifle-armed St. Louis shortstop Masyn Winn into the stands, provoking a fusillade of fury from Miles Mikolas (who really needs to calm down) as well as an extended, performative display of dudgeon from the supposed Best Fans in Baseball. All turned out fine: Winn got the ball back following one of those in-stands negotiations, Alonso’s postgame mea culpa was so thoroughly and comically hangdog that it would have convinced Whitey Herzog back in the days of the white-hot Mets-Cards rivalry, and no one cares what Miles Mikolas thinks.
So Cardinals fans got a peek at a promising future during a lost year, the Mets got a victory that can somehow be described as another victory (hey, five out of six) and even Jeff McNeil found no cause for outrage. I’ll call that a good evening.
by Jason Fry on 18 August 2023 10:37 am A grab bag of Mets drawing Adam Wainwright during his farewell tour, with John Smoltz and Fox painting the word picture? Hasn’t 2023 been mean enough already?
That’s what we got Thursday night, with the only reasonable source of hope that baseball’s innate cussedness and delight in confounding storylines would come to the fore.
Which, in fact, was what happened.
Wainwright is just shy of 42 and in his final season, having authored a track record sufficiently impressive that some years ago he crossed the line between Villain Who Ruined Everything to Respected Adversary, one of those borders that’s unmarked but you somehow always know has been stepped over. Of late Wainwright has looked like he’s stayed too long at the fair, gathering tarnish as he staggers toward 200 wins, but in the early innings against the Mets he looked entirely too much like the Wainwright of old, leaning on that fabled curve to dispatch Buck Showalter‘s lineup without appearing to break much of a sweat.
This is a good place for a reminder that it’s not all about us. Other teams have their own devoted fans who craft narratives out of the season’s ebbs and flows, and the Cardinals are having a year every bit as discouraging as ours — more so, in fact. They’re hopelessly below .500, in last place in a crummy division, and you better believe there are Cardinals fans (a couple of them are even friends of mine) who tuned in last night thinking, “Oh great, now we have to watch the Mets ruin things for Waino and listen to John Smoltz? Hasn’t 2023 been mean enough already?”
Wainwright matched zeroes with a sharp-looking Jose Quintana into the fourth, but Jeff McNeil hit a drive to the fence that looked like it would be a home run and then an out stolen by Jordan Walker and wound up as a double. That brought up Pete Alonso, who did terrible things to a Wainwright sinker, redirecting it 437 feet away to center and giving the Mets a 2-0 lead.
The Mets added another run and backed up Quintana with solid defense — Jonathan Arauz has been quite good at third, not that we aren’t ready to hold our breaths again watching Brett Baty think about things when he shouldn’t — but Quintana ran out of gas to start the seventh, surrendering a homer, a walk and a single to put the tying runs on base with nobody out.
That put the Mets in a familiar, undesirable spot: looking for nine outs’ worth of firefighting from an assortment of arsonists. Drew Smith was first up and limited the Cards to a sacrifice fly, cutting the Mets’ lead to one but leaving us thinking things could have gone a lot worse.
Enter Grant Hartwig, whose initial impression of competence and grit has been replaced by sighs and chronic worrying, which is to say he’s simultaneously a rookie and a middle reliever. Hartwig’s location was best described as theoretical, with the always demonstrative Francisco Alvarez coaxing him through the inning looking like a slightly insane orchestra conductor. Somehow — and this morning I’m still not sure exactly how — Hartwig emerged unscathed.
The Mets got an insurance run from the unlikeliest of sources, as Tim Locastro mashed a 419-foot shot to center for his first Mets hit, which is definitely damning with faint praise but hey, good timing. Closing things out fell to Trevor Gott, whose own location was also abysmal. Gott immediately surrendered a single, but then got a foul flyout courtesy of a nice play by Brandon Nimmo and retired Cardinal newcomer Richie Palacios on a scorcher hit right at DJ Stewart.
Two outs the hard way, and a Tommy Edman single brought up Paul Goldschmidt — not exactly the guy in this lineup you’d pick to face while showing no ability to command your pitches. Gott in Himmel!
Gott got (sorry) a strike on what was actually a ball, tried a pair of bait cutters in that same location without success, and then left a cutter in the center of the plate which Goldschmidt should have turned into a walkoff souvenir, except he missed it. As Gott came set, I braced myself for Gott in Hölle and counseled myself that it would be undignified to throw things after a garbage-time loss.
So of course, Gott threw his best pitch of the inning and possibly his only good one: a sinker that caught the outside corner at the bottom of the strike zone. Goldschmidt looked at it, straightened up in dismay and trundled off to think about the unfairness of the universe.
Because baseball, and because it’s not always about us.
by Greg Prince on 16 August 2023 11:09 pm It was a DJ Stewart, Rafael Ortega kind of day at Citi Field Wednesday afternoon, which wasn’t incompatible with it being a winning kind of day, for Ortega was on base four different times three different ways and Stewart socked a pair of homers and was in on a pair of sparkling defensive plays, and the Mets won, defeating the Pirates, 8-3, in a game that means just as much as you want it to mean at this point of this type of year.
When the Mets became a DJ Stewart, Rafael Ortega kind of team, winning seemed the furthest thing from the Mets’ objective of simply finishing out the season in 26 pieces, but here are The Leftovers heating up a little and making for a savory enough series. Stewart and Ortega and 186th Mets third baseman ever Jonathan Araúz, and wasn’t that catching caddy Omar Narváez chipping in? Lest we make this completely the second coming of the Bench Mob, Pete Alonso homered, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo drove in runs and relay man Jeff McNeil served as essential conduit between Stewart and Narváez to nail Andrew McCutchen at the plate in the fifth when the Mets weren’t ahead by so many runs that it wasn’t beyond the pale that Pittsburgh could abscond with the whole darn thing. Team effort, you’d have to say.
Tylor Megill lasted five frames, which made him the IronMet of the rotation for this series. No wonder relievers come from and go back to Syracuse like there’s an outlet mall holding the maddest of sales in Onondaga County. Quick! Somebody pitch two-and-a-third! It will end your major league stay, but one day of service time is one day of service time! Today’s special guest in the bullpen was Dennis Santana, who replaced Jose Butto, who replaced Tyson Miller, who replaced Denyi Reyes, who replaced Jimmy Yacabonis, who replaced John Curtiss, and this — no kidding — was all in the span of eleven days. Meanwhile, Edwin Uceta, who went on the IL in April following three innings of work in a single relief outing, was activated on Wednesday only to find himself simultaneously designated for assignment. “What do Santana, Butto, Miller, Reyes, Yacabonis and Curtiss got that I ain’t got?” Uceta might have been heard to think. Hard to build team morale when the team keeps becoming a slightly different team.
Today’s core for four (innings, that is) could count on being aboard the flight to St. Louis when all was said and done: Phil Bickford, Brooks Raley, Trevor Gott and Adam Ottavino. Santana could sit and watch and check if his plane ticket involved another time zone.
Happy flight!
***
The Mets winning a series from the Buccos and preparing to take on the Redbirds seems apropos to the 50th anniversary of a particular playoff push of yore. Thus, if you’d like to take a delightful baseball flight of your own back some fifty years, I suggest the handiwork of Len Ferman, who bills himself as The Sports Time Traveler. Go to Len’s home page and find the 1973 Mets tab, where you can relive, as if it’s all happening for the very first time, the Mets’ pennant-winning season, day in and day out. Len’s got articles, podcasts and a joie de vivre for his subject matter that Rusty Staub would have appreciated.
“I’m essentially trying to relive the experience I had when I was 9 years old in 1973,” Len tells me. As one who was 10 years old in 1973, I can confirm it’s an experience to experience in every form possible in 2023.
by Greg Prince on 16 August 2023 12:25 pm “David Peterson.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s simple, I mention a name or something else, and you tell me the first thing you think of.”
“I understand how word association works. My answer to ‘David Peterson’ is ‘I don’t know.’ I’ve been watching him pitch semi-regularly for four seasons — with Jacob deGrom gone, he’s the active pitcher who’s made more starts as a Met without pitching for any other major league team, 57, than anybody the Mets have ever had — and I still don’t know what to make of him. High pitch count last night, but intestinal fortitude may be getting out of jams. Still young but not as young as he used to be. Sort of successful as a reliever, but that’s not what they need him for. So I don’t know.”
“Most starts as a Met without pitching for any other major league team…is that true?”
“Yeah, it’s a symptom of no Met starter who makes a lot of starts staying only a Met. I wrote about it when deGrom was almost gone. But you’re not asking yes or no questions, I thought.”
“Right, right. OK, let’s get back to that. Jose Butto.”
“Nice for a change. I didn’t even realize they’d recalled him before he started warming up. I read recently that he fell off the Mets Top 30 prospects list, then I realized a list is only a list that reflects where somebody put him. Butto looked pretty good against the Pirates until he ran out of gas.”
“Grant Hartwig.”
“Disappointing last night, though maybe that’s another guy who’s pitching more than was expected. He won the John J. Murphy Award in Spring Training this year for most promising rookie. When Ronny Mauricio is eventually brought up — assuming he’s eventually brought up — that will leave only two John J. Murphy Award winners who didn’t eventually make the majors. One was David Thompson, who topped out in Triple-A, presumably not the same guy who played for the Denver Nuggets in the ’70s and was mentioned on Winning Time this week. He won the award in 2018, and, according to Baseball-Reference, last played professional baseball last year for the Kansas City Monarchs of the American Association, an independent league club with a majestic name. The other was Garth Brooks in 2000. Brooks was no relation to Hubie, who finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 1981, but never won the Murphy.”
“Colin Holderman.”
“He was the Murphy Award winner in 2022. He also pitched a spotless inning for the Pirates against the Mets last night because a) we traded him to Pittsburgh for Daniel Vogelbach last year; and b) he was a pretty good relief pitcher to begin with, but that’s the kind of trade a contender makes. Notice neither the Pirates nor Mets are a contender now and it’s easy to lose track of which relievers are in the bullpen for the Mets on any given night.”
“Jonathan Araúz.”
“No longer in the One Met Homer Only Club after last night, and he’d only joined it the night before. He’s got two! Funny thing about this guy. Last week he was my avatar of ah, crap, look at who we have to fill lineups out with griping, and this week, even before he homered, I found myself getting used to him, which either speaks well for how he’s been playing, or that I’m deep into acceptance mode with who the 2023 Mets are now. Anyway, he homered. Oh, and braids. Or are they dreads he wears his hair in? I wouldn’t want to be culturally insensitive.”
“DJ Stewart.”
“Another escapee from the One Met Homer Only Club, having pinch-hit and gone deep just before Araúz. I saw him in the on-deck circle, focused on his number and thought, ‘Ike Davis,” which I don’t think I’ve done before. I mean I regularly see uniform numbers and get transported back. I see 20 on Alonso and I think Agee, that sort of thing. So maybe Davis has made it to some new level in my subconscious. “Start Me Up,” am I right? Anyway, that was quite a poke for Stewart. I’m used to him, too. Hey, both these Two Homer Guys got us close last night, right?”
“One Met Homer Only Club.”
“Two current Mets are still members: Omar Narváez and Danny Mendick. Wasn’t Narvaez an All-Star once? And he hit more than 20 home runs in another year. Maybe his second homer is coming soon. The charter member of the One Met Homer Only Club is Gus Bell, and he was an All-Star four times, with more than 200 homers in his career. He just wasn’t a Met every long. Opening Day right fielder in 1962, with Frank Thomas in left, then traded as the player to be named later for Thomas in May. Go figure, as they must’ve said a lot in 1962. Mendick…I don’t know what to tell you there.”
“I didn’t ask. But since we’re in the alphabetical neighborhood of Danny Mendick, Daniel Murphy.”
“He retired yesterday. He’d retired before but came back to give it another go with the Ducks, and when he quacked a few base hits — sorry, I couldn’t help myself — the Angels signed him and sent him to Triple-A. I thought he might be up with them when they came to Citi Field later this month. I guess not. Good for Murph getting it out of his system. Funny how we immerse ourselves in certain guys’ careers, then get steamed at them for one reason or another, in Murph’s case for going to Washington and beating our brains in mostly, and then he’s good old Murph forever more. A year ago he was in our Old Timers Game. Maybe he’ll be in another one. Oh, and Daniel Murphy never won the John J. Murphy.”
“Pete Alonso.”
“One of Murph’s successors at first base. Soon enough he’ll pass Gus Bell on the all-time home run list, but since Bell hit only one of his 200+ as a Met, we probably won’t notice. Currently, Pete has 181, just eleven behind Hojo for fourth place Metwise. I see 20 on a uniform, sometimes I think of Hojo like I think of Agee. Mostly I think of Pete. I close my eyes and imagine him hitting his 253rd to pass Straw for most as a Met, then his 300th, all as a Met, maybe his 400th as a Met. Then I open my eyes, realize free agency beckons after next year and do we shop him around this winter for young pitching, considering we started David Peterson last night and are starting Tylor Megill today? Nah, ya don’t do that. Do ya?”
“Francisco Lindor.”
“Someday, we’ll look back on Francisco Lindor’s time with the Mets and say he’s the reason we won it all or he’s the reason we almost won it all, which might be interpreted as the reason we didn’t win it all. Barring injury, he’s the constant. The other night when he had to sit out, he snapped his consecutive games played streak at 223, which was a Met record. I heard that and thought, ‘I didn’t realize that was the record or that he had the record,’ and I kind of realize everything like that. Then again, as franchise records go, à la Darryl Strawberry’s 252 home runs, it’s not exactly a towering record. But Francisco’s got it.”
“Jeff McNeil.”
“I keep waiting for him to bust out. So hard not to root for. Can border on frustrating. Same person year after year, never the same player. Versatile, thank goodness. I don’t suppose Lindor ever gave him the car he promised him for the batting title. Hopefully there are no hard feelings.”
“Justin Verlander.”
“Ex-Met who was in the news the other day for apparently having criticized the Mets for not having an analytics department on the level of Houston’s, then he came out and tweeted or X’d it was constructive criticism. I’m thinking if Verlander says something, maybe listen, even if he wasn’t a Met a whole lot longer than Gus Bell. Besides, Verlander was the winning pitcher the last time I got to write up a win, and that was more than two weeks ago. I give that man the benefit of the doubt in any uniform.”
“Kodai Senga.”
“When I went to the game Sunday night — so I’ve seen a win in person more recently than I’ve written one up on the blog — the Braves scored three in the first, and a sense of doom began to set in, of course, yet I was almost relaxed. Even if doom had stayed, what’s to get nervous about these days? But I had the feeling Senga would settle down, and he did. Besides, my memory zoomed back to the Mets having fallen behind a couple of times to the Braves on Sunday nights, in 1997 at brand spanking new Turner Field and in 1999 at Shea, and rallied to win, just like they would this Sunday. Those were better years, though, even if the Braves proved the better team.”
“Atlanta Braves.”
“I’d like them to stop proving they’re the better team. At least they’re taking they’re taking their anti-New York bias out on the American League entry this week. That was men against boys for three games over the weekend, and watching it was a harsher indictment of whatever the Mets have done than anything Verlander might have said about our analytics department. That Saturday game, the 21-3 debacle, was as close to flat-out embarrassed as I’ve ever felt as a Mets fan. I didn’t realize until somebody asked me and I looked it up: it was the worst home loss by margin in Mets history. I wasn’t there, but I was watching on TV. With one eye open, as Metallica would say when Billy Wagner would enter games.”
“Brandon Nimmo.”
“Leadoff homer last night, when we could dream David Peterson getting out of the first would lead to something other than a 7-4 loss to the Pirates. Nimmo used to seem so young and innocent. Now he seems like he’s seen some shit, you know what I mean? He and Lindor are the anchors of this team. Even though they’ve both slumped, I appreciate them going out there every day, playing through whatever they’re dealing with. Yeah, I know, they’re paid plenty to do it, but I’m for any Met who stays when he could have left.”
“Daniel Vogelbach.”
“Could have he left? Damn. Listen, he sometimes does what Daniel Vogelbach was brought in to do. Then you see Holderman. Let’s not make Holderman out to be the second coming of Dave Giusti, but not a splendid trade.”
“Pittsburgh Pirates.”
“I didn’t think I’d seen a more fundamentally flawed ballclub than the Pirates who came into Citi Field last September, when Jacob deGrom toyed with them most of the day, yet here we are and they are with the same record. I know they had a couple of big streaks early this year and were ahead of us in the standings, holding the third Wild Card, right around the time it became abundantly clear we could forget about the division because we’d just been swept by the Braves. If the Pirates tell me anything, it’s that it’s a long season — and it’s not good to have the same record as them. It’s been a long time since 1973 and 1990. I miss the National League East constructed as God or Chub Feeney intended it.”
“Jacob deGrom.”
“I miss him a little less every day. Earlier this season, when he went on the IL for Texas, I thought, ‘no, that’s wrong, it should be us who’s waiting for periodic updates on his health only to be told it will be a little longer.’ I’m kind of over that now. Still, I can’t believe that when I saw him last September toying with the Pirates that that was the last time I saw him pitch for us. I wonder if he’s bumped into Scherzer when he stops by the ballpark down there to pick up his mail or anything.”
“Edwin Diaz.”
“I only miss him when I remember he’s not here. They gave away his bobblehead last night, which is not an advertisement for planning your bobblehead giveaways way in advance. Social media was full of Edwin autographing bobbleheads and greeting fans, and I was thinking I wish he were in the bullpen too busy to sign and greet. When I start to remember what it was like with him coming into the game, then I really miss him. I can’t hear ‘Narco’ without welling up a little. Of course, it’s not like I hear ‘Narco’ unless I go to YouTube and seek out Edwin Diaz coming into a game highlights. I did the same with ‘Enter Sandman’ last night, just to see if I could get nostalgic for Billy Wagner’s entrances. They weren’t filmed as well — they were all by fans with 2006-era cell phones — but, yup, I can. And between you and me, I wasn’t even that crazy about Billy Wagner.”
“All right. Very interesting. Our time is up…”
“Up: where the Mets need to go in 2024, but maybe not in 2023, what with all the draft pick implications of finishing in the bottom six. I don’t want to root for a last-place team, but we’re practically already there, and does it really matter if we lose to Pittsburgh today and dip below the likes of them and Washington and St. Louis, and there are only a few teams absolutely, prohibitively worse than us. Wouldn’t a Top Six pick, maybe No. 1 if the lottery cooperates, be the cherry on top of the Steve Cohen Supplemental Draft? Then again, whenever there’s some bulletin about how one of these prospects we got did ‘tonight in Binghamton’ or wherever, I kind of cringe, because part of me doesn’t want to hear it. It all feels so far away.”
“No. I mean our time is up for this session. You can stop now.”
“Oh, OK. Shoot, it’s almost game time anyway.”
by Jason Fry on 15 August 2023 8:10 am Imagine being Sam Coonrod.
You go to spring training with a loaded team being talked up as bound for the World Series. You’re being talked up as a prospective member of said team’s bullpen. It’s got to be exciting.
But you don’t get out of March before being felled by a strained lat. The team goes north without you. All you can do is work on your rehab, hoping to heal up. Maybe, you think, you can be ready to go by the time summer’s ending. If so, all is not lost — that’ll be just as the postseason is coming into view.
Coonrod finally arrived Monday night, but these days when people around the Mets talk about the postseason, the logical next question is to ask which year is being discussed. He found a lineup featuring Rafael Ortega and Jonathan Arauz. He came into the game following a two-inning stint by Tyson Miller, who was making his own Mets debut. He handed the ball over to Phil Bickford, who passed the baton to Trevor Gott.
Miller to Coonrod to Bickford to Gott. Ortega and Arauz. Yep, just like we planned it.
And yet here’s the Because Baseball part. Those four relievers covered five innings as a bridge between a shaky Carlos Carrasco and Adam Ottavino, walking a less than ideal four Pirates but allowing a very serviceable lone hit and an as-desired zero runs. Miller got the win in his maiden Met voyage. Arauz clubbed a homer and chipped in some flashy defense at second. Ortega, key to Sunday’s salvage win against the Braves, stole a base.
It was enough to down the Pirates and give the Mets a second straight win, one in which they scored runs in the first six innings, something they hadn’t done in a home game since 1987, when Citi Field was just the vaguest of what-ifs.
It’s a reminder that ballplayers we disdain as waiver-wire chum and Quad-A Plan Es/Fs are still world-class athletes, whose only failing is being among the 1,000 best baseball players on the planet instead of the best 800. And it’s a reminder that even baseball played in garbage time because it has to be can yield little pleasures and little victories.
I bet Sam Coonrod’s happy — as well as Miller and Arauz. Whatever the standings say, they’re allowed to be. And you know what? So are we.
by Jason Fry on 14 August 2023 8:37 am The Mets — yes, those Mets, the ones you root for even though the reason is no longer faintly discernable — won a baseball game.
A baseball game played against the Atlanta Braves, no less.
They won it slowly and then in a hurry and then slowly again: Kodai Senga fell behind 3-0 in the first when he surrendered a bases-clearing double to Marcell Ozuna, but harnessed his ghost fork after that, which gave the Mets time to ambush Yonny Chirinos in the 5th.
That inning featured what might be the least impressive batting around I can recall: a flurry of soft singles, fielders’ choices, three straight walks and a catcher’s interference call. But it was enough to change the score from 3-1 Braves to 5-3 Mets, and then a sharp single from Rafael Ortega gave the Mets a 7-3 lead. Ortega was the first man to bat in the inning and the 10th, collecting bookend singles and reminding all of us that he was pretty effective in an everyday role for the Cubs not all that long ago, and so perhaps shouldn’t be chucked on the mental pile with the rest of the misfit toys filling out the current lineup.
If you detect a certain weariness and cynicism to that perhaps, well, welcome to the 2023 Mets.
The Braves didn’t play with particular urgency once they fell behind, leaving old friend Collin McHugh out there to absorb some innings, which is the right of a first-place team more interested in testing guys and tuning up their roster with the postseason in sight. But being the Braves they still almost caught the Mets, whittling away at the lead with Sean Murphy and Matt Olson homers. 7-6 Mets looked like a recipe for disaster entering the 9th, but Adam Ottavino had one of his better outings of a confounding year, needing just eight pitches to send the Braves away empty-handed for once — and, I imagine, sending Greg and pal Kevin home happy after the baseball equivalent of a MAN BITES DOG story.
There was nothing remarkable about the Braves losing this one — they were auditioning pitchers for roles, one of them ran out of gas and the other one is still looking to fix what’s broke — beyond the fact that we didn’t think the Braves could lose, at least not to us.
But they did, so you’re allowed a little pep in your step pending the Mets reporting for duty against the Pirates. There’s a lot of season left and not a lot of hope attending it, so gather ye rosebuds while ye may and all that.
by Greg Prince on 13 August 2023 1:47 pm On Saturday afternoon, the Mets lost to the Braves by 18 runs. On Saturday night, the Mets lost to the Braves by 6 runs, looking darn near professional if not particularly effectual for most if not all of nine innings. They still lost by 6 runs, which is not the goal of a major league baseball team contesting a major league baseball game, but it does represent a net improvement of 12 runs.
Climbing the ladder from utterly shameful to merely dreadful in a matter of hours. Got your hat hung on that yet?
Me, I’ll be grabbing my hat if not my coat and heading out to Citi Field tonight for Sunday Night Baseball to a) avoid watching Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN; and b) enjoy the sublime company of my friend Kevin, who makes sure he and I see the Mets play the Braves at least once every year, even though Kevin is acutely aware of trends and standings as concerns the Mets and the Braves. Trust me, it’s fun.
Maybe that should be the advertising slogan for the rest of the season. Picture Steve Cohen or Buck Showalter or Outfielder Du Jour with “TRUST ME, IT’S FUN” in a comic balloon. They might also think about discounting the hot dogs a few bucks. They’ve already discounted the baseball several levels.
Well, not the Braves. They’re still playing splendid baseball. They score 21 runs in the afternoon, yet don’t look the least bit blasé about scoring 6 more come evening. I doubt Brave verve and panache are what Kevin and I are seeking out, but trends and standings indicate it might be the featured attraction, Kodai Senga’s ghost fork pending.
by Greg Prince on 12 August 2023 5:36 pm The Mets lost by the typographically correct if competitively averse score of 21-3 in Saturday afternoon’s makeup game versus the Braves, the day portion of a split-admission doubleheader necessitated by an April rainout and cruelty. The Mets were losing only 13-3 when they were using pitchers; utilityman Danny Mendick allowed eight runs in the ninth, indicating his utility has its limits. I couldn’t say what the score was when the Mets were using actual major league pitchers, because callup starter Denyi Reyes, 27th Man Reed Garrett and balkmeister general Josh Walker do not much answer to that description. The Braves used a starter who had little experience, but Allan Winans, a former Mets farmhand, didn’t seem to have a problem with his assignment. Winans threw seven shutout innings. Then again, he was throwing to the Mets of August of 2023.
The Met lineup, compromised by dings to Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Lindor, included Rafael Ortega, Abraham Almonte, DJ Stewart and Jonathan Araúz. I mention this because, along with the pitchers, that’s a whole lot of “I don’t remember that guy” you’re likely to respond with should their names come up in Metsian conversation a little down the road. Thus, if you’re so inclined, you can clip and save these two paragraphs to remind yourself that these were indeed the Mets of August of 2023, and therefore move the conversation along with something like “right, those guys, yikes — thank goodness that’s over with.” This is assuming that “that” is over with at some point. This is also assuming you’re still a Mets fan a little down the road. With 21-3 losses on Saturday afternoons not seeming completely shocking, I can’t blame you if you choose to pursue other interests.
Enjoy the nightcap!
by Jason Fry on 11 August 2023 10:48 pm Like everybody else, I’m mortal. I have an expiration date, a timer that will ring, a final quarter that will yield GAME OVER. One day I’ll have a final moment and once it’s past, I’ll be dead.
I have no idea when that final moment will be — it could come a few minutes from now, or lie decades ahead of me. (I sure hope it’s the latter.) I have no idea what I’ll be doing ahead of that final moment, though if I get to choose it would be sleeping and dreaming about something gentle. (I won’t get to choose.)
What I do know is that every year, every month, every day, every hour and eventually every second will be precious — sips of time that will in the end be revealed as finite and insufficient.
I also know that I just wasted a whole bunch of those moments — two hours and change, which may not seem like much when expressed as hours but is a helluva lot of precious seconds — watching a team of pretend Mets play noncompetitive baseball against the Braves.
The Mets played the role of Generic Opponent to a T. They put pressure on Charlie Morton that felt convincing in the moment but amounted to nothing, as they didn’t hit when it mattered. Tylor Megill was good early but bad late — i.e., when it mattered. The Mets’ defense was crummy when it mattered, with the normally reliable Brandon Nimmo front and center in terms of crumminess.
I say “when it mattered,” but none of it mattered. The Mets were alternately frustrating and lifeless, infuriating and boring. I wasted a night on them, bringing my last moments closer with nothing to show for them.
I’ll want those moments back on my deathbed, of course. But hell, why wait that long? I want them back now.
by Jason Fry on 9 August 2023 10:57 pm Oh, how quickly things can change.
Who’d even heard of Phil Bickford 10 days ago? And yet tonight there I was cheering energetically for Bickford to get out of a straitjacket against the Cubs and give the Mets a win — in a rubber game, no less.
I could say I was on the edge of my seat, but honestly I wasn’t — these games are too low-stakes for that level of emotional commitment. Still, I certainly wanted the Mets to win, and there was a pleasure in watching the various machinations aimed at ensuring they would.
Like Adam Ottavino getting excused on a night he clearly didn’t have it, which surprised Ottavino more than anyone else keeping track of events. Though shame on the Citi Field faithful for booing. I’ve never been against booing, but what’s the point of it now? The next game that matters will be in fucking April, so why do that? Ottavino’s struggled for some time when asked to appear in back-to-back games, and he actually wants to be part of the solution, so give the man a pass.
With Ottavino gone and Brooks Raley apparently unavailable, the game was in the hands of Bickford, a shaggy ex-Dodger about whom I confess I know very little. It was quickly apparent that Bickford didn’t have a reliable breaking pitch or the ability to work low in the strike zone, which was a bit worrisome: Changing eye levels only goes so far when you’re throwing nothing but high fastballs.
But Bickford got Christopher Morel on a pitch right in the middle of the plate, one I guarantee Morel will still be thinking about long after you’ve closed your browser window. He then went to work on Ian Happ, with a key assist from Francisco Alvarez, who kept the pitch clock from running down by throwing up his hands and racing out to the mound before time expired. That kept the count a pitcher’s 1-2 instead of a neutral 2-2.
Alvarez reminds me of Rene Rivera, which is an enormous compliment. I loved Rivera for his skill as a pitcher whisperer, coaxing and sometimes bullying balky hurlers across the finish line. Alvarez has a lot of that in him, except Rivera was a veteran nearing his mid-30s, and Alvarez is barely old enough for a legal drink. I’ll be happy when this season has ended, but in the meantime getting to watch Alvarez continue to grow will be a nice fringe benefit.
David Peterson, Abraham Almonte, Grant Hartwig, Josh Walker, Phil Bickford. Maybe it’s not the cast we imagined cheering for when Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer stood atop the rotation, but it’s the cast we have. And for one night, the outcome was worthy of applause.
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