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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 15 October 2024 10:54 am Eight pitches.
They were the first sign that Monday afternoon’s Game 2 might go better than Sunday’s steamrolling. Happily, they weren’t the last.
Leading off against Ryan Brasier, the first man in a parade of Dodger relievers, Francisco Lindor worked a 2-1 count, then fouled off four sliders and fastballs. Brasier, possibly a little frustrated to see the debut hitter chomping away at his small allotment of pitches, opted for a cutter and didn’t throw a good one — Lindor walloped it into the right-field bullpen, which I’ll always think of as Daniel Murphy Land, the place where a ball thrown by Clayton Kershaw once returned to earth with Murph’s first name literally burned into it by the contact with his bat.
Mets 1, Dodgers 0, and the sigh of relief was audible all over Mets Land.
That sigh got a little deeper and easier once Sean Manaea reported for duty and looked sharp, erasing Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts, then retiring Freddie Freeman on a first-pitch fly ball after a walk to Teoscar Hernandez.
Before we return to our usual battle with Mets-fan anxieties, consider this series from the Dodgers POV: In April they lost the first two games against us at home before administering a 10-0 corrective; they then curb-stomped the Mets at Citi Field at the end of May, with the finale featuring Jorge Lopez writing his own pink slip with a glove tossed into the stands.
They must be thinking, “Who are these guys?”
All that came before OMG, before Grimace, before the Zesty Mets, before all the other delightful oddities of a cherished summer. To shift from narrative to W-L statistics, it was before the Mets rose from the dead to the top of the MLB ranks the rest of the way. And it was before Manaea saw Chris Sale at work on the mound and thought, “maybe I should try that.”
When Manaea was on, which he was for most of his Monday tenure, he had a terrifying lineup looking frankly befuddled, with Ohtani unbalanced by his cross-fire mix and Betts unable to square anything up. It was odd — odd with a side of delightful if you’re a Mets fan — to see the best hitter on the planet and a fellow perennial MVP candidate groping for answers.
With Emily stuck on a Zoom call for work (she was far more horrified than you are, so cut her some slack), I watched all this from the unfamiliar confines of our downstairs bedroom, but with every cherished talisman either on my body or close to it. 7 Line jersey with the Mookie shirt beneath? So clad. When a Met was in scoring position I called upon the powers of Derpy Flag, a somewhat wan little felt Mets pennant handed to me by Mr. Met himself. And of course I had my usual exhortations aimed at player on the other side of the continent: look for your pitch, don’t help him, eight guys behind you, hit it to anybody, and of course plenty of hang with ’em and c’mon babe and you got this.
All that worked very nicely in the top of the second, with Landon Knack (whom I knew only from a not particularly distinguished tenure on my fantasy-baseball roster) replacing Brasier. After a first-pitch single from Starling Marte, Jesse Winker wrung out a walk. Jose Iglesias popped up, but Tyrone Taylor smacked a double down the left-field line for a 2-0 Mets lead. An overeager Francisco Alvarez popped up his first pitch, leaving a precious gimme run on the table, and Dave Roberts ordered Knack to put Lindor on first and face Mark Vientos.
Vientos then put together one of the best ABs of his burgeoning young career, hunting fastballs while fouling off sliders in the zone and ignoring ones below it. Knack’s ninth pitch was not only a fastball but a middle-middle bullseye, and Vientos whacked it over the fence for a grand slam and a 6-0 Met lead.
(I’ll pause here for a bit of wisdom from Ryne Stanek in the Athletic, offering a pitcher’s perspective on long ABs: “You only have so many tricks. It makes the at-bat substantially harder when you’ve exposed everything you’ve got.”)
Six-zip in the second and then slowing pull away is an excellent recipe for scoreboard success and calm fans, but would that it were so simple.
The Mets kept putting together good ABs — Pete Alonso had a 10-pitch one before being called out on what might or might not have been a strike, and even Alvarez looked more disciplined in his last go-round — but they couldn’t get the big hit against the next two acts taking the stage at Relieverpalooza: former Met Anthony Banda (“Banda MACHO!” I hollered, as I did when he was pitching for us with considerably less success) and Brent Honeywell Jr., whose career is a study in perseverance. (He’s also the cousin of former Met Mike Marshall — the dogma-defying pitching guru, not the former Met first baseman and hulking ex-Dodger. Though genealogy suggests Honeywell is likely a more distant cousin of that Mike Marshall too — not to mention, quite possibly, you and me and Greg and Charlemagne.)
While the Mets slumbered in key spots, the Dodgers started to do what a lineup like theirs will do. (I had moved upstairs post-Zoom call and will accept that I changed the luck and should be castigated, since I Ought to Know Better.) Max Muncy hit a solo shot off Manaea in the fifth and Betts and Teoscar Hernandez opened the sixth with walks. At which point the Mets defense sprung an ill-timed leak: Iglesias started a double play before he had properly secured a Freeman grounder, one that came with an added degree of difficulty after kicking off the back of the mound. Instead of two outs Iglesias had none, the bases were loaded with nobody out, and oh boy.
Exit Manaea, enter the affectless Phil Maton. Maton coaxed an infield pop-up from Will Smith and then got another grounder, this one from Tommy Edman in the hole between first and second — a difficult play to begin with, made harder by Freeman screening Alonso. The ball went under Alonso’s glove and it was 6-3.
Maton walked Muncy and had to face Kiké Hernandez, who’s infamous for being death to baseballs in the playoffs. Maton got a hard grounder to Vientos, who bobbled it for about the 8,000th heart stoppage of the inning before regaining his grip and starting a double play, which the Dodgers challenged for reasons best known to them.
With the Mets still unable to tack on, Stanek took over for Maton in the seventh but looked like he ran out of gas in the eighth, yielding a two-out single to Edman and walking Muncy. Which meant it was time, yet again, for us all to be strapped into the Edwin Diaz Rollercoaster, and with Kiké Hernandez at the plate as the tying run, no less. The same Kiké Hernandez who’d hit into that big double play.
Oh boy.
Diaz’s fourth pitch was a slider that sat middle … and which Kiké got under for a harmless fly ball.
The Mets finally scratched for a badly needed run in the ninth off Edgardo Henriquez, who looks like he’ll be wipeout reliever but is still finding his way a bit. And so it would be Diaz against Andy Pages to lead off the ninth, followed by Ohtani and his attendant Furies.
Diaz’s first three pitches to Pages were distressingly high; the third was hit just hard enough to float over the infield for a leadoff single. Diaz then walked Ohtani, with his pitches elevated and looking a little flabby.
Oh boy yet again, but unlike against the Phillies, Betts wasn’t the tying run. (Thank you and bless you, Starling Marte.) And Diaz found his fastball and punched Betts out. Then he threw all fastballs to Teoscar Hernandez, erasing him on six pitches. That brought up Freeman, who looks more formidable playing on one leg than most guys look on two. Diaz worked the count to 2-2 on fastballs, then uncorked a beauty of a back-foot slider, which Freeman swung over to put the game in our column.
Can 6-0 feel like not enough? Yes. Can 7-3 feel too close? Also yes. Did the Mets win the game and even up the series? Three times yes. Three times yes, a big exhale, and back we come to New York and whatever awaits. Gather your talismans, find your center … and buckle up.
by Greg Prince on 14 October 2024 9:48 am You have to laugh it off. “Ha.” There ya go.
Seriously, though — the Mets just endured their worst-ever postseason loss in terms of run differential, and it wasn’t even close. Dodgers 9 Mets 0. The Mets had never lost in the spotlight portion of October by more than six. Few teams get beat by a lot in October. Teams that get to October tend to be skilled at keeping games close.
We know that the true worst postseason losses are the heartbreakers, the choke jobs and the eliminators. This was none of those. This, the now fifth October 13 loss in Met postseason history against no October 13 wins (but who’s superstitious?), was just an old-fashioned blowout, old-fashioned like 2017 when the Mets visited Dodger Stadium for regularly scheduled ass-kickings and none of us who could keep our eyes open blinked when the Mets would lose, 12-0, behind Robert Gsellman, or 8-2 behind Tyler Pill. The 2017 Mets weren’t supposed to be the historical precedent filtering into my head during the first game of the 2024 National League Championship Series, but there they were. Goodness knows the 2024 Mets didn’t show up.
Everything about Game One was off, starting with practically every pitch Kodai Senga threw and didn’t get over in his inning-and-a-third of woebegone work. Whatever Senga found as he ramped up his on-the-fly rehab program in Philadelphia vanished once the Mets went west. His many bullpen buddies varied in their degrees of effectiveness, but, boy, did a lot of them get used. Maybe the Mets didn’t pick the right day to subtract an additional arm from their relief corps.
There was virtually no Met hitting. Jack Flaherty saw to that. There was lousy Met baserunning on those rare occasions when Mets made cameos on the basepaths. Jesse Winker saw to that. The Mets defense also managed to create holes for the Dodgers to burst through, and like the Rams and Chargers on any given Sunday, they repeatedly crossed the plane of the goal line. For ill measure, Brandon Nimmo — the only Met extant from the aforementioned Gsellman and Pill outings — let it be known he’s dealing with a touch of plantar fasciitis, in case you wondered why he was limping. You’re forgiven for not noticing if you didn’t, as the Mets were collectively in limp mode.
Overall, it was as dismal an opener to a vital series as could be imagined, except it wasn’t a heartbreaker or a choke job and certainly not an eliminator. It was the opener. One of seven games, the first of seven games. In the second, Sean Manaea will start. It’s an afternoon game in L.A. Manaea has been dependable for months, awesome under the sun. Remember that flirtation with perfection versus the Orioles in August? Sean shone brighter than anything in the sky amid that sunny matinee. Remember that makeup game in St. Louis? It was also a Monday in daylight, also a beauty. That was the day it occurred to me that Manaea could be a postseason ace for this team. Here’s his chance. Here’s our chance. We still have a big one.
We had a big one on Sunday night and it blew up in our faces, but that’s over. Consider it laughed off.
by Greg Prince on 13 October 2024 3:10 pm The hours before first pitch of a series that determines who goes to the World Series, regardless of time zones or network dictates, drag longer than any other hours on any clock anywhere.
The Mets are going in Game One with a pitcher making his third major league start of 2024. His manager acknowledges three innings is his limit. And we all treat this as normal. Hopefully every Kodai Senga inning will be worth its weight in ghosts.
Fresh from loosening up in the Arizona Fall League — a circuit usually referenced only by fans of teams who don’t have anything else going on in a given autumn — Jeff McNeil has been added to the NLCS roster. I’m pretty sure I worried about what his absence would mean to the Mets’ depth when he went on the IL in early September. I’m also pretty sure that, as was the case with Senga, I’d all but forgotten about him in the going-forward scheme of this team while he was gone. Here’s to injured players working their way back to viability in the shadows of a postseason sprint and then contributing to the remaining legs of its marathon.
To make room for McNeil, Adam Ottavino was elbowed off the active roster. Despite muttering to myself, “may that be the last pitch Adam Ottavino throws as a New York Met,” at the end of one of his particularly non-stellar outings a few weeks ago, let the record show that Otto set down the Braves in order in the seventh inning of the opener of the September 30 doubleheader in Atlanta; you know which game that was. He was in line to be the winning pitcher once the Mets put six on the board in the eighth, a statistical nicety that vanished once the Braves regrabbed the lead (a turn of events that itself became the stuff of trivia once Linsanity reigned in the ninth). Ottavino, 39 next month, was a rock of this bullpen for two seasons before tumbling downhill this year. Carlos Mendoza didn’t invite him throw a pitch in either the NLWCS or NLDS, so his potential utility for the next helping of playoff alphabet soup seemed vague at best. Good outing or bad, the guy has emitted excellent-teammate vibes every step of the way. The Mets seem to inspire those in one another, and they don’t come out of thin air. Veteran leadership sometimes appears in the form of a sweeper/sinker specialist working his way through difficulties as much as it does an obvious MVP type. Whatever happens next, appreciate ya, Adam.
Whatever happens next? Are we any closer to Game One? Presumably yes, but my clock has barely moved since three seconds ago when I last checked it.
by Greg Prince on 12 October 2024 1:52 pm We knew it would be the warm California sun glowing amid local start times of 5:15 PM Sunday and 1:08 PM Monday. We just didn’t know in which part of the Golden State Ol’ Sol would be splashing down on the Mets. Now we do. It’s glamorous L.A., it’s gleaming Dodger Stadium, it’s the hallowed Dodgers.
In the spirit of brushing aside the Braves, where we couldn’t possibly beat them; taking care of the Brewers, who started the season by shoving us into an 0-3 hole; and flipping off the Phillies, for whose fans flipping off is the national bird, I say to the Dodgers, “Bring it.”
Or I’d say it, but it’s already been broughten.
They have the most famous and accomplished baseball player in the world, one who would, if his health allowed him, pitch while he isn’t hitting and running like nobody has ever hit and run (you save a lot of energy not fielding). They have the other most versatile superstar of modern times, a high-caliber outfielder who became a representative infielder and then went back to the field from which he came as needed, his offense never to be sneezed at. They have a slugging first baseman who has haunted Met pitching since Met pitching meant Pat Misch, Dillon Gee and a journeyman righty named Jeremy Hefner. They have all kinds of irritants infesting their lineup, a bullpen hyped as unhittable, and an ace we tried real hard to sign before he passed on us to go to them.
They won 98 games, the most in baseball. They’re the one-seed, five notches higher than us. They have home field advantage. They’ve been in the playoffs a dozen consecutive years, annually arriving in comfort, never having to cross their fingers and toes that they’ll survive through the last day of the schedule and then hold their collective breath regarding the day after the last day.
Bring it on. Bring on the starpower one witnesses while staring down at the lights of L.A. Bring on the New Balance commercials that would make me despise “Hollywood Swinging” if it hadn’t established itself as such a great song in my head in 1974. Bring on Joe Davis, voice of the Dodgers doubling as the voice of Fox. Bring on as many clips as producers care to show of Mike Scioscia going deep and Jorge Lopez losing control.
I would have been glad if it had been the Padres emerging from the other NLDS and taking the West Coast version of the Unity Cup/Sewing Machine/Pen. Not any more or less glad than I am that it turned out to be the Dodgers. To me, it didn’t matter and doesn’t matter. I’m here for the Mets. The Mets are here for this. Maybe the Mets owed the Padres a little payback for October 2022. Maybe the Mets owe the Dodgers a quick thanks for May 2024. They were the opponent when Lopez lost his mind and glove in rapid succession. The Mets spent a month bottoming out. Losing all three games of a series to Los Angeles when L.A. visited Queens in May marked the spot from which the Mets had to begin bouncing back. I know the debacle that left us 22-33 removed my from thinking the notion that we were still living in the aftermath of the remains of 2022, just waiting for one more injury to heal or one more slump to lessen. The slate needed wiping clean, and getting swept by the Dodgers when we did was the wet rag that did it.
Best record in either league after the game when Lopez’s glove landed in the Citi Field stands? The six-seed Mets, at 67-40. Also, we took two out of three at Dodger Stadium from them in April, outlasted them in the 2015 NLDS, swept them in the 2006 version, and mended millions of hearts broken in Brooklyn and beyond when we came along in 1962 to supplant their borough-abandoning asses. (If we’re gonna go for history, let’s go all out.)
Just so there’s no confusion, first pitch Sunday is 8:15 PM New York time. Monday it’s 4:08 PM New York time. That’s right — our time.
by Greg Prince on 11 October 2024 4:36 pm There are off days in the postseason, but there’s never a day off from thinking about the Mets when the Mets are in the postseason. The Mets and we needed the briefest of respites after clinching the National League Division Series — which I swear I knew was as good as won once it became clear Francisco Lindor would bat with the bases loaded in the sixth inning — on Wednesday night. This respite we’re in the midst of, however, needs to end soon, partly from concern than the Mets’ finely honed edge could slightly dull, mostly because any day without the Mets playing scintillating postseason baseball lies somewhere between boring and bizarre. We live in these series and these games now. We can’t be asked for more than a travel day’s worth of Mets idleness.
When the Mets do play their next postseason game, Game One of the 2024 National League Championship Series at a Southern California site still to be determined, on Sunday night October 13, it will be the hundredth postseason game in franchise history. We were stuck on 92 until we landed in Milwaukee on October 1, roughly ten years ago. Correction, it was only ten days ago, which can also be mathematically expressed as seven games and a lifetime ago.
The Mets are 57-42 in postseason competition heading into Game 100, with five of the wins and two of the losses coming this month. For those who put stock in omens, you are advised to look away from this factoid: the Mets have played four postseason games on October 13 (1973, 1999, 2006, 2015). They’ve lost all four. It is one of only two postseason dates — October 19 is the other — on which the Mets have played more than once and never won. If you’d like a better omen regarding lucky October 13, let’s remember a) the Mets are simply due for a win on that date; b) the contemporary Mets have been pretty good about demolishing imposing specters (see everybody we’ve beaten and where we’ve beaten them these past two weeks); and c) this is 2024, not any other Met year.
I love that Keith Hernandez was invited to throw a first pitch to John Franco before NLDS Game Three. I love that Daniel Murphy threw a first pitch to Bartolo Colon before Game Four. I’ll love whoever is lined up to do the honors when the NLCS alights in Flushing Wednesday, Thursday and, if necessary, Friday. I love invoking and evoking all previous Met postseason entrants, because they represent years that were mostly if not fully great, the best of our lives. And yet, the connection I usually feel to Met postseasons past while a Met postseason is in progress is fairly limited this time around. I’m not overcome by the “this is just like…” impulse because this postseason; this season; and this team, with every passing inning, feel absolutely singular to this moment. My head is almost always immersed in Met history. Right now it’s in swimming in the Met present. I like it here.
My head has been buzzing since the latest celebration. The contact high through the television is powerful. But now that my head is clearing a bit, I have a request for whoever makes such decisions — we’ve gotta come up with a handy phrase for what winning the National League Division Series means. The League Championship Series still nets a league champion a pennant, just like coming in first did in the days of Russ Hodges hollering on behalf of Bobby Thomson. The World Series gets you the world championship, an easily understood and coveted prize. The Mets are 5-0 in LDSes, each of them absolutely worthy of the ruckus the Mets raised in their wake. My head might still be buzzing from the home run Todd Pratt hit 25 years before Lindor’s grand slam. On all those occasions — 10/9/1999; 10/8/2000; 10/7/2006; 10/15/2015; 10/9/2024 — somebody should have been able to say, “The Mets have won the” something or other that isn’t as cumbersome or generic as National League Division Series. Maybe the LDS winner should be handed a Unity Cup, to symbolize the solution to division. Maybe Singer Corporation should sponsor the presentation of a sewing machine, because now the winner has a chance to stitch together its own flag in the next round. How about a pen, to signify you’re roughly halfway to a pennant? It’s too bad George Washington didn’t give this matter more thought, or he might have dreamed up a word for it.
An audio celebration of where the Mets are these days is going on at National League Town. Listen in here.
by Jason Fry on 10 October 2024 1:49 am Here’s an unforgivable fan sin: “I don’t want them to clinch tonight because I have tickets for tomorrow and want to see it myself.”
I’ve heard that a time or two, and it’s all I can do to limit myself to pointed disagreement instead of reacting in a way that would get me taken away in a cop car. Because no. No with a side of “Are you fucking insane?”
This is a roundabout way of saying that Emily and I had sprung for tickets to Wednesday’s game, and I would have been immensely happy if it hadn’t been played because the Mets had already beaten the Phillies, drenched each other in alcohol and started making plans to head for California.
But it was going to be played, so we donned our orange 7 Line gear (with the Mookie shirt I’ve decided is lucky beneath mine) and got on the subway at the uncharacteristic hour demanded by a 5:08 pm start. Mets fans started appearing in ones and twos as the 2 headed north through lower Manhattan, and at Times Square we descended to the 7 platform and soon found ourselves tick-tick-ticking above Queens on a subway car jammed with Mets fans and non-baseball-affiliated Queensfolk who looked even more affronted than usual by this surge of orange and blue rooters.
Our 7 train was decorated with Grimaces. (Grimaci?) I decided that was a good omen.
A look at the lines outside the rotuna sent us around to the bullpen gate (which I highly, highly recommend if you’re going to Citi Field this postseason), and from there it was a brisk walk across the Shea Bridge to the 7 Line’s domain, with the Home Run Apple’s housing hulking to our right.
Weirdly, I’d never been to a game with the 7 Line, though I’ve had tickets for a few. Emily has gone multiple times, sometimes with our kid and/or her dad, but my outings have all fallen victim to illness or scotched plans or some other mischance. Honestly, this was the perfect time for my debut: I was nervous as a cat, and given my anxiety there was no better place to be than surrounded by other anxious, all-in Mets fans. I could look right and see a guy hoisting a YA GOTTA BELIEVE sign, look left and see a woman pumping a Francisco Lindor fathead in the air, and look down toward the field and see an OMG sign, one big enough to need handles to get it from place to place. And unlike my typical Citi Field experience, 99% of our neighbors were laser-focused on the game, radiating bravado or dismay or bouncing madly between them.
Oh, and the guy in the aisle when we arrived? It was Cow-Bell Man, who’s been part of my Mets fan experience since Shea. I fist-bumped him extra-happily, convinced that was a good omen too.
None of this camaraderie settled my nerves — the world can’t make an OMG sign that big — but being surrounded by others’ jangled nerves made the fractured state of my own easier to bear. We were in this together, ticketed for jubilation or despair, and there was a comfort in it.
As for the game, though … it was a long way away, and watched through the mildly cracked prism of a friendly Met-fan soccer riot. Balls and strikes? No real idea. Anything down the right-field line was a mystery, solved only by watching whether the batter ended up standing on a base, returned to the plate, or trudged back to the dugout. (Alec Bohm‘s foul ball that should have been a double was particularly confounding.) You knew what had happened primarily because 40,000-other fans reacted one way or another.
Which made the Mets’ Sisyphean struggles to score even one lousy run feel even more out of kilter. They’d load the bases against Ranger Suarez, or put two runners on, or do something worthy of praise, and then batters we could kind of see would hack at balls we couldn’t see and a strike would go up and I’d turn to look at the big video board and it would always say the same fucking thing: CURVEBALL.
(Analysis exclusively by inference: Suarez had a really good curveball.)
Suarez Houdini’ed his way out of threat after threat before departing in the fifth, with our section believing, moaning and griping, and then putting aside our pique and believing again, lather rinse repeat. (CURVEBALL.) Fortunately, Jose Quintana was doing some Houdini work of his own: The Phillies pushed a run across in the fourth when Mark Vientos bobbled a throw home (which probably wouldn’t have gotten Bryce Harper anyway), a carbon copy of his misplay in Philadelphia. But Quintana kept Nick Castellanos pinned at third to limit the damage. Then, in the top of the sixth, Quintana allowed a leadoff double to Harper before departing, but Reed Garrett sandwiched two strikeouts around a walk and David Peterson got the final out.
One-nothing, but it was only the sixth. Things hadn’t gone our way yet, but surely a lousy skinny run wasn’t going to be enough to send the series back to Philadelphia.
Still, enough doubt had crept in that when the Mets started the sixth with a single, HBP and a walk off Jeff Hoffman, we were less ready to exult than we were braced for impact. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Francisco Alvarez tapped a ball to Trea Turner at short, Turner came home for the force, and it was like the same stale air was farting and whistling out of the same sad slackening balloon: not this, not again.
Hoffman departed in favor of Carlos Estevez, who’d face Lindor. Their confrontation unfolded far away. All fastballs, I could see that much. Lindor ignored the first one, swung over the second one, and jerked back from the third one.
The fourth one, though, was belted, struck on a line to our left. Brandon Marsh turned and ran after it, not the lope of an outfielder who has time but the gallop of one who fears he doesn’t. I could tell the ball wasn’t going to be caught but could judge nothing else. Then I lost track of the ball and our section becoming a cauldron of screaming and leaping told me the rest: It was a grand slam, and the Mets’ one-run deficit had turned into a three-run lead.
 There we are, just to the left of Francisco’s head. (Thanks to my pal Tom Weber!) (By the way, before we got home two different friends had sent along screenshots of me and Emily losing our minds in the crowd. I’m only starting to realize how cool it is that I have years in which I’ll be able to look up during a classic Mets clip and say, “there we are right there — oh my was that something to see.”)
The Mets led, but it was time for my new parlor games. The first was to beseech the Mets for nine or 10 more runs, which they stubbornly refused to supply despite being handed more opportunities. The second was to ask where we were going to get X more outs and request that the reliever of the moment not fuck it up.
So. Where were we going to get nine outs? Peterson didn’t fuck up and so reduced the tally to six. The Mets refused to convert first and second and nobody out into so much as a tack-on run, let alone the desired nine or 10. But Peterson again didn’t fuck up and the outs to be sought shrank to three.
If you’d polled our section before the top of the ninth, at least 90% of us would have opted to send Peterson back out having thrown just 23 pitches. But one of this season’s most eventful storylines — which you can sense has twists and turns left — has been Carlos Mendoza and his faith in Edwin Diaz. However we felt about it out by the Home Run Apple, the stadium lights dimmed, “Narco” started up, and on came Diaz.
On came Diaz, and it was obvious even from 450 feet away that he was a mess. A five-pitch walk to J.T. Realmuto started the muttering; a five-pitch walk to Bryson Stott inspired full-on mutiny. Two on, nobody out and at best Diaz was going to have to face three hitters representing the tying run. And at worst? My mind shrank from that one like I’d almost put my hand on a cherry-red burner atop the stove.
Jeremy Hefner came out and then it was time for Diaz to deal with Knapsack Clemens. I’ll tell you this: If Kneecap had hit a game-tying home run off Diaz you wouldn’t be reading this recap, because I would have torn off my gear, walked out of Citi Field and become a monk. Baseball can’t be that cruel, I tried to tell myself, knowing perfectly that in fact it is that cruel all the time.
Diaz, still not looking anywhere near sharp, fell behind Clemens 2-1, then struck him out on a pair of fastballs. I’d say whew, but it felt like the thumb screws getting twisted a little tighter. Up came Marsh, who got under a four-seamer and hit a can of corn to Harrison Bader. But there was still one out to get, and Diaz was going to have to wring it out of Kyle Schwarber, who on the one hand had literally never done anything against Diaz but on the other hand was Kyle Schwarber.
Remember, we were far away. What happened was a distant pantomime, mostly of things not happening. Strike, ball, drive to right that was long but clearly foul, and then … a little flurry of motion at home plate, a jet-engine roar from the crowd, and pandemonium.
The Mets had won, clinching something for the first time at Citi Field. In section 141 we had our own little V-J Day: Don’t know you but here’s a high-five and a hug for good measure. The weather report: jubilant, with scattered beer showers. And then back onto the 7 (no express, because I guess the MTA wasn’t given a playoff schedule) and into Donovan’s at Woodside to be greeted like conquering heroes in the bar and then home at last, equal parts exhausted and exhilarated.
Exhausted and exhilarated, and wanting more. But there will be time for that. For now, here we are. And what an amazing place it is.
by Greg Prince on 9 October 2024 10:36 am As I was getting out of my uniform, Jerry Koosman, whose locker stood next to mine, was slipping into his street clothes. “Wrap it up tomorrow, Koos,” I said. “I don’t want to go back to Baltimore. That place makes Fresno look like Paris.”
“I’ll get ’em,” Jerry said. “I don’t want to go there either.”
—Tom Seaver, The Perfect Game
The whole of the 2024 Mets experience as it stands right now is equal to the sum of its parts, because the parts are so wholly terrific.
I liked the part where the pit of my stomach was added to the postseason roster. This was around 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, as SNY’s extensive pregame coverage kicked off with live shots of Citi Field, and at last, it seemed real that the Mets were going to play home playoff baseball. With that realization that Game Three of the National League Division Series had landed in Queens, it got real real deep inside of me, where I usually feel it this time of year when we have this time of year. It was already very real, and I’d been alternately excited and anxious for more than a month, but this represented tangible emotional escalation. I not only had proverbial skin in the game as a Met fan. I had actual acids churning there, too.
I liked the part where Griamce boarded his specially branded 7 train car and was immediately immersed in a Mets fan group hug. The Grimace thing has gone from eluding me to tickling me. Think of all the purple trick-or-treaters you’re gong to see in a few weeks and how much candy they’ll earn for their costumes.
I liked the part where, on the Mets’ YouTube page, I was able to watch pregame introductions. We saw so many Mets who weren’t eligible to play in the postseason (unlike me and my stomach acids), but they were sanctified as a part of this, too. Jeff McNeil. Drew Smith. Brooks Raley. Brett Baty. Christian Scott in a cast. Alex Young. Pablo Reyes, who pinch-ran once; was designated for assignment; passed through waivers untouched; and now rides with the taxi squad. Hayden Senger, that catcher we called up to keep handy in case Francisco Alvarez didn’t recover from a bat to the facemask or whatever it was that left him a little more than stunned in Milwaukee or wherever it was. So much has happened so fast. So many people have come and gone. Getting this far has a team effort that can be hard to keep track of without notes. Let’s hear everybody’s name called at least once in October.
I liked the part where we forgot Pete Alonso was ever enduring a power drought, let alone the part where every next Pete Alonso at-bat at Citi Field was potentially Pete Alonso’s last at-bat as a Met at home. The Mets had been on the road when Pete the pending free agent regained his power stroke (and how). Now he was where he belonged, putting a baseball where it belonged, way the hell outta here off Aaron Nola for a second-inning 1-0 Mets lead.
I liked the part where Jesse Winker stood to make absolutely certain that his fly ball soaring somewhere toward the vicinity of College Point Blvd. stayed fair. He was just being careful not to expend extra energy taking several steps down the line before ascertaining it wasn’t foul. No, he wasn’t ostentatiously admiring his ostentatious surefire home run to make it Mets 2 Phillies 0 in the fourth inning. Not our Jesse, who can play it any way he wants as far as I’m concerned.
I liked the part where Winker didn’t wasn’t flummoxed by any frustration he might have carried from his previous at-bat, when he was robbed at the alcove wall by Nick Castellanos and rightfully confused by the umpire who called it a non-catch because Castellanos juggled and dropped the ball on the transfer. Jose Iglesias had been on first and had to hold up before dashing to second. Winker stood on first with the longest single in Citi Field history, until replay got it a) right and b) sensible. Winker was ruled out, but Iglesias was allowed to retreat to first despite not tagging up and all that implied once the ball returned to the infield, as right field ump Edwin Moscoso, who didn’t have the best angle on the play, had waved his arms in the “safe” motion. It didn’t lead to any runs, but it also didn’t cast a we can’t get a break pall on what was left of a sunny afternoon in Flushing.
I liked the part where defense came to play. Mark Vientos nailing Alec Bohm at first on a bounding ball that required a mighty fling from foul territory. Tyrone Taylor expertly playing a ball off the right-center field fence and firing a pea to Francisco Lindor to tag Bohm before he could slide into second. I guess I like Bohm being out repeatedly, but I could say the same for any phamiliar Phillie. We know all of them all too well at this point.
I liked the part where Sean Manaea faced little to no trouble most innings and emerged unscathed the inning he encountered just enough turbulence to make the stomach turn. He walks Kyle Schwarber to lead off the sixth after having him down oh-and-two. He walks Trea Turner to make it first and second with nobody out in a 2-0 game with Bryce Harper coming up, hoo boy. Harper, to be followed by Castellanos. This movie didn’t turn out well on Sunday in Philly. But this was a new release in a different park. Our park. Sean struck out Harper and induced from Castellanos a double play liner to Iglesias. Another clean inning where it counted.
I liked the part where the tension of a tight ballgame began to dissipate once Starling Marte lined a bases-loaded single into center to score two with two out in the bottom of the sixth. It was an opportunity cashed in, the kind of thing a team determined to win makes happen. (For the record, I imagine all teams are determined to win, but some show themselves more skilled about manifesting their determination.)
I liked the part where Manaea threw seven pitches to retire three Phillies in the seventh, suggesting he might not be done before the eighth.
I liked the part with the other enormous bases-loaded two-run single, in the bottom of the seventh, this one from Iglesias, who, like Marte, didn’t waste the chance to add on. His big hit made it 6-0, and I noticed the pit of my stomach had been taken out for a pinch of relaxation.
I liked the part where although Manaea allowed a single to lead off the eighth, and Phil Maton and Ryne Stanek each gave up hits that led to runs, I didn’t have to scramble and get some worry up in the bullpen. It was gonna be fine, I told myself without needing to convince myself. Francisco Lindor doubled in the Mets’ seventh run in the bottom of the inning, Stanek settled in for the ninth, and the Mets won, 7-2, pushing themselves to within one victory of taking this series…at home.
I loved — LOVED — the part where Carlos Mendoza and his players calmly answered queries in the postgame presser with postseasoned veteran aplomb. I had the sense the reporters were in the same headspace their predecessors were that May night in 1969 when they rushed into the Mets clubhouse in Atlanta after New York reached .500. The Mets had never reached .500 after a season was three games old before, so of course they’d be celebrating. Instead, the players were changing clothes and looking forward to the next game. “You know when we’ll have champagne?” Tom Seaver asked. “When we win the pennant.”
The Mets are so much fun and have so much fun on the field. Yet they are the opposite of the old saw about colorful teams that are all business once they cross the white lines. It’s back in the clubhouse that they emerge out of a phone booth as 26 Clark Kents, mind-bogglingly mild-mannered about their exploits. Very appreciative of the attention they have stoked (they’re the ones who gave us OMG, to say nothing of Pete’s Playoff Pumpkin), very happy to be here, but not at all impressed that they are here. The clichés about just doing what they can, having another game to play, passing the baton, et al, sound so gosh dang genuine coming from them. It’s the “they got this” ethos incarnate. I’ve come to believe it all stems from Mendoza, who has said on more than one occasion — including after Game Three — “we haven’t done anything,” as if he were taking cues from Stevie Wonder. When they lose and he’s asked if it has to do with the stress of the schedule or the impact of injuries, the response usually includes “nobody feels sorry for us.” When they win, and the yearning among the media is for a quote that might pump up the narrative volume, it’s “we haven’t done anything.” Of course they’ve done plenty, but they plan on doing so much more. No (ahem) wonder every question they were thrown about how great it would be to clinch the NLDS at Citi Field in Game Four was purposefully fouled off in service to the grind. As Stevie also intoned, gotta keep on trying, ’til you reach your highest ground. A one-game lead after three games of a best-of-five is, for this team, a mere plateau.
I will confess to having had a few sips of champagne on the off night between the Wild Card Series clincher and the Division Series opener. A nice pizza as well, as is Prince family wont when the Mets make the postseason. Circumstances weren’t optimal for our traditional as-merited autumnal celebration when the Mets assured themselves of a playoff presence after they beat the Braves two Mondays ago, so the sliver of respite bracketed by finishing off the Brewers and taking on the Phillies had to do — and it did just fine. Loved the champagne. Loved the pizza. Loved the feeling. I’m for celebrating everything the Mets accomplish. Leave that to the fans. Today, albeit sans bubby, I celebrate that the Mets are respectfully declining the presentation of any participation trophies.
by Greg Prince on 8 October 2024 8:37 am Shortly after Shea Stadium completed its sixteenth season of operation as home of the New York Mets, it was busy being the home of the New York Jets. The Mets were done for the year by October. This was 1979. Competitively, the Mets were done for the year by April.
Citi Field is currently in the Shea equivalent of 1979 chronologically and in no other way. Citi’s sixteenth season, 2024, turned into the sweetest sixteenth imaginable. Beyond the Mets fan imagination, really. Opened in 2009 to high anticipation, the facility became known among frequent visitors as home of the meh. The aesthetics sparkled. The baseball wasn’t much to look at. Gleaming doesn’t cut it for very long if the team in residence doesn’t extend its seasons very often.
It took until Citi’s seventh season, 2015, to get Shea up in here. By the time Shea had been around seven seasons, Shea had established itself as the home of miracle and wonder. Season Six was 1969. The World Series came to Shea. The world championship, too. Three clinching celebrations in a span of just over three weeks trampled the grass. Maybe the groundskeepers minded. Surely the Jets — contractually dispatched to a lengthy away schedule — weren’t thrilled. But Shea, from 1964 forward, was where we had fun even before we won. Then we won, and there was no place on Earth like it. Could you blame us for digging up some earth?
Citi needed a modicum of success to tap its potential. That’s where 2015 came in. That’s where postseason baseball came in. That’s where fun came in. The Mets have never clinched anything at the ballpark that succeeded Shea, but starting in 2015, they began to get the hang of keeping it open in October. Seven postseason games that fall; one the next fall; three two falls ago, when there was a very hard fall. Victory at Citi has been intermittent in autumn (statistically speaking, 5-6 might belie the concept of home field advantage), but save for the San Diego finale in 2022, the vibes have been immaculate.
Nobody was shocked when Shea rocked. I think we were all taken aback that Citi could shimmy and shake. We who were there nine Octobers back changed the reputation of Citi Field. It wasn’t the building that was blah. It was the baseball and our response to it. Shea invited you to be giddy for the sake of giddiness when it opened. Citi wished to show you a menu. Once settled in Queens, Mets fans were ready for 1969 long before 1969. Come the next century, the Met mood had to find its place in its new place.
 Open for postseason business…and fun. Since 2015, we know Citi Field has a pulse and a heartbeat. Each throbs extra loud when it hosts extra games. Through their respective sixteen seasons of operation, Citi actually leads Shea, 11 to 10, in serving as a site for Upper Case October Baseball. Today and tomorrow will make it 12 and 13 for Citi. Shea sizzled in October 1969 and October 1973 (teeth chattered in the latter month’s World Series, but we’re talking Met-aphorically). Then it went on a long autumnal hiatus…except for the Jets, and even they took off after a while.
Shea came back strong in October 1986. Later, there’d be a handful of Octobers when mojo rose, if not as high as desired. Still, it was always a handful for opponents, thanks to the building and its occupants — players and fans — working their respective magic. I’ve never much associated Citi Field with magical properties. Some magical moments, absolutely, but it was too stately in its construction to include pixie dust. Yet these 2024 Mets are nothing if not magical, and we know damn well they’re not nothing. To us, the way they’ve gotten to October and fought into October, they’re everything. Until today, they’ve been everything but the home team.
The world’s longest road trip of Atlanta to Milwaukee to Atlanta to Milwaukee to Philadelphia, with an impending hurricane and two champagne showers thrown in, is over. The Mets went everywhere and all they brought us was this wonderful opportunity. Citi Field’s gates open at 2:30 this afternoon, 43,000-some sets of vocal cords shortly to follow, no doubt reaching an apex pitch before first pitch at 5:08. The din will erupt from deep within. We’ve waited long enough to express our in-person postseason’s greetings.
by Jason Fry on 7 October 2024 10:39 am There was a wonderful moment back in Atlanta, one that’s nearly been forgotten in all the joyful, exhausting tumult of what’s followed.
Steve Gelbs was interviewing Francisco Lindor, only Gelbs was drenched in alcohol and having trouble getting past the fact that his eyes were burning.
“You’re suffering!” said an even more drenched Lindor. “You’re not embracing! Let it happen — make it part of you.”
Lindor was mostly teasing Gelbs — mostly, but not completely. He wasn’t wearing goggles either. But his expression was serene.
What he’d told Gelbs, I found myself thinking later, was pretty good advice — and not just for baseball.
Sunday’s game was another barn burner, just the latest Mets game to shove its way into the ranks of the classics. Luis Severino looked sharp from the beginning, mowing down the Phillies, and the Mets grabbed a lead behind home runs from Mark Vientos and Pete Alonso, both of whom hit homers that just cleared the fence in right-center: Vientos off a Cristopher Sanchez changeup left in the middle of the plate, Alonso off a high curve from Jose Ruiz.
3-0 Mets heading into the bottom of the sixth, and the Phillies fans were restless, booing their own. For shame, Philadelphia. In a playoff game? After the season they gave you? Seriously, I thought the role played by the fans in the redemption arcs of Alec Bohm and Trea Turner had put this Philadelphia narrative to bed, but there they were giving it a new lease on life.
I wasn’t booing the Phillies, but I also wasn’t sanguine about how things might turn out: Sure, Severino looked better than he had in weeks. But there were 12 outs to get and this is Citizens Bank Park, where any lead feels like the decimal should be moved one place to the left.
Severino got the first two of those 12 outs but then looked like he started overthrowing, maybe because he knew his day was ending. In the course of eight pitches it all came unraveled: single to Turner, Bryce Harper home run that came down somewhere in central Jersey, sweeper annihilated by Nick Castellanos. Just like that it was 3-3,
Punch them back, I urged the Mets, having seen my share of Citizens Bank donnybrooks over the years. And they did: Brandon Nimmo homered off Orion Kerkering to give the Mets back the lead, albeit one now reduced to a skinny run.
My new superstition? When relievers come in with a lead, I matter-of-factly ask, “Where are we going to find [X] outs?” Then I greet the new reliever and solemnly suggest he not fuck it up.
Jose Butto, last seen fucking it up in Milwaukee, hit J.T. Realmuto (not ideal) to start the seventh, got a pair of outs, then lost Knockwurst Clemens on an unplayable infield single, with Knockwurst’s disgusting father watching from a luxury box instead of being frog-marched off to the Hague. That brought the Phillies’ lineup clicking back over to its deadly top three, as it seemed to do about every five minutes in this game, and brought in Edwin Diaz, who got Kyle Schwarber to swing over a backfoot slider to avert further harm.
The thing that struck me at this juncture? It was that both teams looked exhausted, less standing up on the dugout rail than clinging to it. Games like this one will do that to you — as well as to the hundreds of thousands of fans living and dying with every pitch they can’t affect.
I urged the Mets to score, oh, 10 or 11 more runs, but they eschewed that advice and sent Diaz back out for the eighth. (“Where are we going to find six outs? Don’t fuck it up, Edwin.”)
There’s nothing easier or cheaper than a second guess, so I’ll say right here that I like the way Carlos Mendoza has handled the bullpen over this insane last week. He’s been aggressive and he’s been innovative, not blindly plugging guys into roles they played in July or August. And most importantly, no one has reported for duty looking like they were caught unawares. It made sense for Diaz to face Schwarber instead of Butto, and it made sense for Diaz to stay in to face Turner and Harper.
Unfortunately, there are at least two other factors at work right now. One is that the bullpen has been sorely worked, particularly Diaz. The other is that regardless of workload, Diaz’s entire season has been a nightly psychodrama: You never know if the fastball is going to be high 90s or mid 90s, if the slider is going to be low and sharp or high and flabby, and you never know how much conviction Diaz is going to bring to his pitches.
Diaz vs. Schwarber has historically been a good matchup for Diaz, but as he navigated it I’d winced at too many sliders sitting above the knees. There were more of them as Diaz went to work in the eighth, fanning Turner but then walking Harper (also historically a good matchup for Diaz) on four pitches. Castellanos singled on a high fastball, and against Bryson Stott (and his oddly soothing sing-a-long walkup music) all of Diaz’s pitches were up in that flashing red danger zone; his sixth pitch was a slider that sat middle and didn’t slide, and Stott spanked it down the right-field line for a triple and a one-run Phillies lead. A batter later, with Tylor Megill now pitching, Vientos tried to throw home before he secured the ball and Philadelphia was up by two.
Not good, but these Mets have shown me over and over again of late that nothing is impossible and improbable is just another way of saying “hasn’t happened yet.” Harrison Bader flied out to start the inning against Matt Strahm and up came Lindor.
Baseball is a game of failure (perhaps you’ve heard), with a hitter contending against not only the best pitchers in the world but also ample opportunities for misfortune through no fault of his own. But Lindor’s play since returning from back issues has been simply remarkable, silencing the critics who, for whatever reason, have spent his entire Mets tenure eager to find anything to pounce on. Baseball doesn’t make anything a certainty or even more likely than not, but right now if something needs to be done Lindor will do everything in his power to maximize the chances that it gets done.
He singled off Strahm and up came Vientos. Vientos is in an interesting place right now: He’s made tremendous strides as a player during a transformative season. But he’s still a young player, there’s a difference between sleepy summer matinees and October cauldrons, and it’s asking a lot of the baseball gods to expect a young player who’s already delivered to deliver again.
Strahm, meanwhile, is one of those guys who makes his money by throwing gas high and wrinkles low (and why not, it’s the way you’d pitch God Himself if you were handed that unenviable assignment), and at 1-2 he had Vientos set up for the slider below the strike zone. Vientos ignored two of them and Strahm went back to the fastball. The one he threw was at the top of the zone, if not somewhere around Vientos’s chin, and verging to the outside. Vientos somehow didn’t just hit it out but pulled it out to left-center — ah, bat speed and being strong as an ox — and the ballgame was tied once again.
OMG, you might say.
It would be nice to put a bow on this recap right here, but duty compels me to march on, into the vale of shadow: Megill got the first two outs in the bottom of the ninth but then walked Turner and Harper. He got the first two strikes against Castellanos, yanked a slider into the dirt and then hung one. Castellanos spanked it into left, where I presume someone eventually picked it up after Nimmo headed briskly for the visitors’ dugout.
If the Mets had been allowed to keep going, I wouldn’t have been shocked to see them score one run — or two, or however many would have been needed. But nope, the rules dictated that was it — the Phillies had won, 7-6, sending Castellanos to a joyful Howaboutthat? with his son in the front row (c’mon it was sweet) and sending the series to Citi Field tied at one.
Here’s one of my favorite baseball parlor games: Down a run or two late, would you rather your team come back only to lose via some even more cruel twist of the screw, or just see them come up short now?
On Sunday the Mets opted for “even more cruel,” but I don’t regret that extra turn of the screw at all. They lost, but they went down spitting and hissing, scratching and clawing, on the short end of a riveting game that delivered everything except the conclusion we wanted.
We’re all along for what’s become a crazy ride. So far it’s brought unbelievable helium wheees at apexes along the track, as well as stomach-imperiling lurches after unsafe drops. But we’re strapped in and we’re not going anywhere until we’re told that’s it, that’s the end, everybody off. Until that moment comes, opt for embracing, not suffering. Make it part of you.
by Greg Prince on 6 October 2024 12:25 pm The New York Mets broke it to me gently early Saturday evening. They appreciate my help, but they got this. They have a plan, they know what they’re doing, they’re going to do it, I can just relax. I nodded my understanding. I’m not going to relax, but I think I get what they’re telling me.
They do got this. They know something the rest of us don’t. We are free to clutch our talismans and hail our Grimaces and hashtag our OMGs and, now that it’s a thing, pick our pumpkins. We also have their blessing to fuss and fret and stress and sweat over each individual pitch and swing. We can think that we shouldn’t be thinking this or that, lest we affect the action far from where we sit or stand. We can go about contorting ourselves into lucky shapes or avoid leaning in the wrong direction. We’re not going to make a difference, but if we want to believe we have that power, more power to us.
It’s the Mets, however, who have the power, even when they limit themselves to eight singles and five walks. It’s the Mets who have the gleam in their eyes, the assurance in their manner, the knowledge that this is their October. We are invited to come along. Nothing we do or say is going to stop them.
That last part is a lesson already learned by the Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers, and now the Philadelphia Phillies are boning up on this vibe becoming fact. On Saturday, in Game One of the National League Division Series at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies threw Zack Wheeler at the Mets. The Mets didn’t duck, didn’t scatter, didn’t warn each other “GET OUT OF THE WAY, THERE’S A ZACK WHEELER BEING THROWN AT US!” They stood in calmly against Zack Wheeler (and his ally Andy Fletcher) and withstood as best they could whatever Zack Wheeler threw (and Andy Fletcher called) at them.
And then, like 2024 Mets Magic, Zack Wheeler was gone. This is not to be confused with the offseason after 2019 sorcery that made Wheeler disappear from New York and land a hundred miles south. This was 111 pitches of all Wheeler had in his arsenal, and, boy, did he fire everything he had. There was one Met hit in those seven innings when Zack strode the mound. There were a few bases on balls that didn’t lead anywhere, except to an elevated pitch count. There was nothing on the top line of the CBP scoreboard except for zeroes.
As Saturday stayed Phillies 1 Mets 0 for an uncomfortably long period, my instinct was to recall the two other postseason series in Mets history when the Mets lost, 1-0, in Game One — the 1986 NLCS and 1986 World Series — and comfort myself and anybody with whom I’d be communicating later that those series had dramatic and happy endings. Granted, those were best-of-sevens that are by nature more forgiving of stumbles out of the gate, and, however formidable and/or shady Mike Scott and Bruce Hurst might have been in their day, they’re retired. Wheeler, leading 1-0, was very much in the now.
Until he wasn’t. That’s where the elevated pitch count was no small factor. On the very same date eight years earlier, the Mets were shut for eight innings by Madison Bumgarner, who had expended 106 pitches in keeping the National League Wild Card Game deadlocked at 0-0. Even when it was tied, it felt like we were behind. In the top of the ninth, we learned to spell Conor Gillaspie, and in the bottom of the inning, Bruce Bochy forgot the phone number for the Citi Field visitors’ bullpen. Hell, he let Bumgarner bat for himself once the Giants went up, 3-0, the score it remained once MadBum threw thirteen more pitches the Mets didn’t hit. The San Francisco southpaw had given up four hits and two walks in the course of allowing no runs, but they seemed incidental. Maybe he was the last of what is now an extinct breed. One-game series weren’t very forgiving. You knew if the Mets weren’t getting to Bumgarner, the Mets were done. You also knew the Mets weren’t getting to Bumgarner or getting him off the mound.
You know how some games you’re losing by only one yet it feels like a lot more? This, in Philadelphia, wasn’t one of those games. Wheeler’s sensational, but Bumgarner’s breed has gone the way of the four-pitch intentional walk. You knew Wheeler would make his exit eventually, and you had a hunch the Mets offense might show up once he did. As was the case the the last time the Mets saw Flushing, the sooner, the better, you figured. Zack wasn’t out there to start the eighth. Salvation came into sight once the gate to the Phillie bullpen swung open. They may have some capable relievers out there, but none of them is Zack Wheeler.
But before we get to them, let’s hear it for a couple of capable relievers of our own. Let’s hear it for our starter, too. At first when you heard the name Kodai Senga, as in “Kodai Senga will be starting Game One on Saturday after last pitching in July, his only appearance of 2024,” what you most likely heard yourself say was “HUH?” You’re charging with setting the tone for the series that will determine the Mets’ fate for the rest of the fall a guy who’s been hurt one way or another basically all of this year? Then again, the Mets had been breaking it to you gently that they got this, and that included deciding who’d get the ball where and when, so OK, it’s Senga. Super! He was great last year, he swore he was ready, and the brass believed him.
The next thing you heard was Citizens Bank Park erupting following the third pitch Senga threw. Phillie leadoff savant Kyle Schwarber blasted it 425 feet from home plate. In a band box like The Bank — or, to be fair, any modern stadium — that’s a deposit of a run. Schwarber’s unique talent for leading off games with home runs is a problem for opposing pitchers, but it also means nobody is on base when he hits them. How’s that for a defensive strategy working to a tee?
It turned out Senga was very much ready to face other Phillie hitters. His first innings are usually a little dicey; this one he escaped post-Schwarber. The second was Kodai as usual, getting the Phils in order. And that was it for the ghost forker we hadn’t seen in what felt like an eternity. He wasn’t ghosting us, just adhering to a tight pitch count. Unless Senga feels a twitch, he’ll be part of the Mets’ postseason plans as long as we have them to make. Talk about a timely acquisition.
Still, that left the Mets in need of another pitcher to begin the third, which if you’re a connoisseur of Met bullpens, you were conditioned to apply palm to forehead over. Except with Senga suddenly back, the Mets have no ordinary bullpen. For Game One, it featured David Peterson, last seen closing out Game Three against the Brewers, and four days before that, shutting out the Brewers for seven very necessary innings. Starting pitcher dealing like an ace. Recast fireman nailing down a series clincher. Reborn bulk guy in a newly hatched scheme so sensible it just might work. You might say David Peterson was about to complete the most versatile week in Met pitching history.
Complete it he did: three innings, no runs. That’s eleven innings of shutout ball from Sunday to Saturday, compiled in three distinct roles. Any week in which Tom Seaver or Dwight Gooden pitched twice might have been more spectacular, but I can’t think of any Met pitcher who’s been more effective in such a critical multifaceted manner inside a seven-day span. In this game, lefty Peterson ventured into El Sid territory and did it a touch longer than Fernandez’s legendary two-and-a-third versus the Red Sox in Game Seven.
Peterson was succeeded by a more traditional bullpen choice in the sixth, Reed Garrett. The presumed love child of Rick Reed and Wayne Garrett also maintained the tradition of less-noticed Met postseason heroism, facing six Phillies and blanking every one of them. Through seven, the three Met pitchers had combined to give up nothing since Schwarber did what he was bound to do. What a shame to potentially waste such a fine pitching performance.
Which is what they were about to be saying in the Phillies dugout. Wheeler’s 111th pitch was his last, and in came Jeff Hoffman, the latest in a line of distinguished relievers the Mets have had to surmount if they wanted to get anywhere. Remember Raisel Iglesias? Devin Williams? Hoffman’s not the Phillies’ primary closer, but he did make the All-Star team this summer, the same squad that included Wheeler. Yet not all well-regarded Philadelphia pitchers are created equal. On Saturday, there was Cy Young candidate Wheeler for seven, then there was a collective sigh of relief from the lineup that no longer had to attempt to hit him. Compared to Zack, Jeff Hoffman had to look like a day down the shore.
Hi, Jeff. This batter is Francisco Alvarez. He’s so happy to not have to look at Wheeler anymore that he’s gonna single to left to lead off. You can say bye to Alvy after he reaches first. Harrison Bader is gonna pinch-run for him.
Jeff, this batter is Francisco Lindor. You’ve probably heard of him. The Mets fans who infiltrated The Bank have been chanting M-V-P at him for a reason. You can make him swing and miss at the first two pitches you throw him, but you can’t strike him out. I mean you probably can — you were an All-Star — but not this plate appearance. Our M-V-P is going to foul off your third pitch and then lay off the next four, all out of the zone. Lindor shall take first. Bader shall head to second.
Hey, Jeff, this batter is Mark Vientos. He’s on an upward trajectory this season and postseason. Backtracks in his development a little for a game or two but then discerns what he’s doing wrong and returns to progression. He’s about to progress a liner to left that will score Bader to tie the game. Pity, Zack Wheeler won’t get a win out of his 111 pitches of shutout ball. Don’t feel too bad for him. Zack used to hang out with this guy Jake who told him what it’s like when that sort of thing happens. Anyway, it’s 1-1, Lindor is on third and Vientos took second on the throw that didn’t get Lindor.
That’s three batters, Jeff. Your manager says you can go.
Matt Strahm was next. Another All-Star. The Phillies are loaded with them. They have a couple of stars on their jersey’s wordmark. Good for them on all that. Lindor, East Coast National League MVP, wasn’t an All-Star this year. Nor was Brandon Nimmo, despite having a helluva first half. Seems few outside the Mets sphere fully appreciate Brandon, no matter what he does. Maybe more will now that Nimmo has singled home Lindor to give the Mets a 2-1 lead, pushing Vientos to third.
I’m sorry, I forgot to make a formal introduction. Matt the All-Star, that was Brandon the everyman. Yeah, over on first. That’s him.
Pete Alonso requires no introduction. He’s been all over the highlights since Thursday night. He doesn’t need a most memorable home run here. A fly ball will do nicely. It does. Pete’s sacrifice to center scores Vientos, and it’s 3-1.
Not that this hasn’t been fun, but it’s about to get real fun here, because Jose Iglesias is up next. They won’t play his music (it’s every Mets fan’s music) in Philadelphia, but Jose’s got a new remix coming out. He previewed it against Strahm. “From OMG to Oh and Two to Oh, Just Settle In, Matt.” It starts with a called strike, then a swinging strike, and then the beats per minute kick in. Iglesias fouls off a slider. Then he fouls off a fastball. Then he fouls off a cutter. Then another fastball, another slider, and two more fastballs. When the Grammy nominations for Best Time Up by a Met In a Late Inning Late in the Season or in the Postseason are announced, don’t be surprised to find this one competing with Tyrone Taylor’s dozen-pitch walk from Monday versus the Braves. The Grammy voters love epic PAs and ABs.
So do Mets fans when they end with a single up the middle, as Iglesias’s did. Ten pitches. Nine of them with Strahm ahead in the count. No balls thrown. Real balls shown. Iglesias’s hit didn’t drive anybody in. It merely placed Nimmo on second and Jose on first. But its effect was that of a dagger through the heart of the Phillies’ desire to keep the game from getting out of hand.
Strahm was done after his three-batter minimum; Rob Thomson’s cover charges were creating a lengthy tab. Next to settle in for a trio or more of Met hitters was fireballing Orion Kerkering, announced into the game once Carlos Mendoza opted to pinch-hit J.D. Martinez for Jesse Winker. Kerkering is 23. Martinez is 37. Youth versus experience. Shades of Bob Welch taking on Reggie Jackson. It’s the kind of showdown meant to be savored under the lights of the postseason…except Martinez the veteran isn’t in the mood to linger. He strokes rookie Kerkering’s third pitch into center to score Nimmo and send Iglesias to third. Then Marte, another player who’s Been Around, delivers the fly ball that brings home Brandon.
The Mets, who trailed, 1-0, now led, 5-1. A nailbiter had morphed into not exactly a laugher, but a game that could breathe, and you with it. As long as we’re referencing postseasons past (Octobers tend to get into your head and remain there forever), I found myself recalling Game Two of the 1973 NLCS. That one went 1-0 for eight tense innings, until the Mets exploded for four runs in the top of the ninth. Of course they had the “1” in 1-0 that day, and the pitcher in command, Jon Matlack, wasn’t coming out, no way, no how. He stayed in to finish a 5-0 two-hitter for the ages. Give Yogi Berra credit for occasionally handling his pitching perfectly that month.
This one still needed a little shepherding to the final outs. In the bottom of the eighth, Mendoza called on Phil Maton, and Maton rather than the imposter wearing No. 88 in Milwaukee materialized. Phil struck out Schwarber, struck out Trea Turner, allowed a double to Bryce Harper (into each life a little Bryce must fall), but then grounded out Alec Bohm. The Mets’ ninth saw Bader the erstwhile pinch-runner do some hitting, some stealing and some coming home when Nimmo took the concept of insurance seriously. Like a good neighbor, Brandon is there. The Mets were now up, 6-1, more than enough to keep Mendy from waking Edwin Diaz from his well-deserved nap. True, Diaz did have to stir a bit once Ryne Stanek made the ninth a little longer than it had to be, but Ryne finished the job at 6-2. The Mets beat the Phillies, took the series opener and clarified for all us loyalists who love them no end but doubt them practically constantly that they indeed got this.
If they say so.
Still, I’m gonna be careful to not sit the wrong way or think the wrong thing. It’s the postseason. You can’t be too careful. What was it Yogi advised? “You don’t got this ’til you got this.” But, between you and me and the doubts that probably won’t dissipate until there’s no longer reason to harbor a single one of them in 2024, they got this.
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