The Mets, undermanned and improvised though they are, beat the big bad San Diego Padres [1] yet again Saturday afternoon, taking the season series from a fellow playoff team and getting their 33 games in 31 days stretch off to a positive start.
It was what baseball should be — fun! It was fun watching Marcus Stroman [2] coax ground ball after ground ball from enemy hitters and exit the mound with a gait one could describe as a skip or a strut or something very much akin to both at once. Stroman has been a godsend to these Mets, particularly with Carlos Carrasco [3] and Noah Syndergaard [4]‘s returns retreating from the observer like the end of the hallway in Poltergeist, and I heartily wish Steven Cohen would give himself a belated birthday present and sign Stroman to an extension posthaste.
It was also fun watching Francisco Lindor [5] and Luis Guillorme [6] vacuum up said ground balls, moving with an instinctive grace that was thrilling to witness. I’ve been a Guillorme fan since before his oh-so-casual grab of a flying bat made him a cult hero a few years back in spring training, admiring not only his soft hands afield but also the fact that he invariably does the right thing when the ball comes his way, never succumbing to the panic that can waylay even capable young players after the game speeds up on them. As for Lindor, he’s a wonderful quarterback of the infield on every play and always where you hope he’ll be, with his hands a blur on transfers at second. Even when he was hearing boos from the Citi Field faithful (an era that thankfully seems to have ended), Lindor’s defense never went into a slump — he was a $34 million a year glove even when the bat was considerably south of that valuation.
(Truth be told, I’m having trouble adapting to the idea of the Mets as a team that might be not just capable on defense but actually good. That’s foreign to me — for years they’ve been a team whose best-case scenario was, “Well, they have a chance to outhit their mistakes.” Now, more often than not, they’re a team that maximizes its own chances by being stingy with misplays and by minimizing enemy balls that drop in, and I’m having a bit of a problem adjusting. To be perfectly clear, it’s a problem that I’m willing to give further attention, as it’s a wonderful one to have.)
The combination of Stroman’s stalwart pitching and the Mets’ excellent defense somewhat masked the fact that this was yet another 2021 three-true-outcomes game, without much offense except that supplied by the home run: Lindor homered in the first, Fernando Tatis Jr. [7] hit a majestic second-deck shot to hurry along Stroman’s exit, and Jonathan Villar [8] outdid Tatis in terms of physical prowess and post-homer demonstrations by annihilating a ball into the upper reaches of Soda Corner. That leaves just one run unaccounted for — a sixth-inning fielder’s choice in which Dom Smith [9] reached base on the back end of an attempted double play.
So no, it wasn’t the most action-packed matinee ever. But between Stroman’s cocksure walkabouts, the defensive excellence and the showcase home runs, it was a memorable game nonetheless. The Mets have played those a lot of late. One of these days maybe I’ll even get used to it.