Close Enough

A person might ask another person, “How are you?” or “What’s up?” or “Excuse me, does this train go to Woodside?” (I get asked that one a lot). I’m convinced the idle question asked more than any other of Jon Niese always begins, “Jon, how frustrating is it that…?”

Sunday I watched Niese pitch well enough to win for a team that scores runs but poorly enough to lose for the Mets. As usual, Niese strung together a row of zeroes to match his opposite number — in this case Jordan Zimmermann — and as usual there was eventually a partially self-induced problem (hesitant coverage of first base) that led to a booming extra-base hit (Wilson Ramos’s home run) that led to inevitable defeat (three-zip).

And afterward, when reporters gathered around his locker, I heard him asked, same as he ever is, about his level of frustration. I’m sure I’ve heard that query issued every five or so days for the past several years. And Niese always says nothing I can remember, which is fine. He’s entitled to both his private frustrations and his limited articulations. I wish he’d get to bags quicker or throw to fielders better, but he wishes somebody would knock in a few runs on his behalf.

The other expression that caught my ear in the postgame was Terry Collins declaring his club is “very, very close,” not to the offseason or a breathtakingly large jar of industrial-strength hallucinogenics, but to competing with the first-place Washington Nationals. Those are the same Nationals who have beaten the Mets 13 of 16 times in 2014, home and away; the same Nationals who officially eliminated the Mets from division title contention (on the off chance you were holding out hope); the same Nationals who are comprised of irritatingly superb baseball players.

Y’know what? Sure, why not? The Mets are close to the Nationals. The Mets are close to the Orioles and the Angels and any of the handful of powerhouses baseball has produced this year, too. All the Mets need is Matt Harvey to automatically return to the exact form he displayed before his elbow started giving him problems, and that’s a lock. They need Zack Wheeler to economize his pitch count, and that will happen because we want it to. They need Jacob deGrom to have no hiccups; Noah Syndergaard to burst through the Super Two wall fully matured and immune to injury; every reliever (including sore-shouldered Vic Black) to not regress one bit; Niese to suddenly grasp the ancillary fundamentals associated with his position; Wright and Granderson to reverse frightening declines; Flores and maybe Herrera to blossom on the spot; d’Arnaud, Duda and Lagares to spiral only upward; Murphy to fit in their budget; lawsuits to not cost anybody a dime, Giancarlo Stanton to fall in their lap; and the Nationals to decide they prefer soccer.

If all that happens, they’re close. If a little of it happens here and there, well, it might not catapult them past Washington ASAP, but as a member in good standing of The Middle, maybe a modest Metropolitan step up in class won’t be out of the question in 2015. Instead of super-fringy delusions of contention, maybe actual fringy contention. Instead of exceeding 71 wins, maybe surpass 81 wins. I didn’t scoff as much when I heard Collins project the Mets’ closeness as I did in the above paragraph because there have been legitimate flickers of progress these past few months and, besides, the National League doesn’t encompass that many certifiable worldbeaters.

But the Mets as we know them at the moment are not remotely close to the Nationals as we know them at the moment. The good news is “at the moment” won’t matter in two weeks. The bad news is next year is always next year and we haven’t had a next year worth a damn in close to a decade.

How frustrating is that?