Goodness knows the Mets have had plenty of drama in this very strange year. But every so often, they play a baseball game that’s just a baseball game, refreshingly free of sideshows and controversies and agita. And it’s a reminder that, to quote the endlessly quotable Bull Durham [1], “this game’s fun, damn it.”
At our house the game began on the radio, as we were out in the backyard grilling — on a perfect evening, with mosquitos still happily absent. It was 2-2 when we moved inside, saying farewell to Howie Rose and new fill-in John Sadak and hello to old friend Kevin Burkhardt and, well, Joe Girardi [2]. (Who was fine, though I kept thinking that, as with some other baseball lifers, Girardi looks faintly ill at ease if he’s wearing anything that isn’t a uniform.)
The Mets and Rockies kept trading blows (on the scoreboard, not between the pitcher’s mound and home plate), with Carlos Gomez [3]‘s two-run homer matched by singles from Charlie Blackmon [4] and Nolan Arenado [5], then Todd Frazier [6]‘s RBI single followed by some lousy Mets defense that scored Brendan Rodgers [7]. It was 3-3 as Steven Matz [8] topped 80 pitches, then 90, and just kept going.
When the count topped 100, I have to confess I was muttering to myself. This was Matz, the Mets starter most likely to have an arm actually come off mid-pitch, spontaneously combust, or do both at once. Still, a look at the Mets bullpen made me think a one-armed, burning-like-a-torch Matz was better than any of Mickey Callaway [9]‘s options for the sixth inning. (Or Jim Riggleman [10]‘s — Callaway was ejected in the fifth, having had enough of Mike Winters’ surrealist, wobbling parallelogram of a strike zone.) Matz allowed a leadoff single to Ian Desmond [11], fanned Rodgers, and hit Tony Wolters [12]. Jon Gray tried to bunt the runners over, but Wilson Ramos [13] pounced on the ball and threw to third, getting Desmond fairly easily.
That left Matz facing Blackmon, a dangerous confrontation at any pitch count. Matz’s final pitch of the night was a high curveball — but Blackmon swung under it, and Matz was out of the inning and the game at once. He’d wind up the winner [14] thanks to a Ramos double past Blackmon, a Frazier single and a double-play grounder from Amed Rosario [15], with Pete Alonso [16] chipping in an insurance run with a homer just above the left-field wall. Alonso arrived at third along with the ball, then hung around a bit sheepishly in the dugout with his helmet on until the umpires declared that it was, in fact, a home run.
It’s been a weird year, with Jacob deGrom [17], Noah Syndergaard [18] and Zack Wheeler [19] all maddeningly inconsistent. Quietly, Matz has become the guy you worry least about — he’s had two bad starts all year, and the Mets are 8-4 in his outings. I’ll happily sign up for that kind of performance and an Alonso homer, particularly if that also comes with the game as faithful companion on a pleasant spring evening. Sometimes a game’s just a game, and that’s more than enough.