Scant Ups, Myriad Downs

Taijuan Walker was magnificent until the seventh inning. That was a monumental up. Michael Conforto cracked a go-ahead homer in the fourth. That was an invigorating up. Aaron Loup, Miguel Castro and Seth Lugo were each mighty effective, and those were unqualified ups, until we learned Lugo being up and pitching in the top of the ninth of a tie game that stayed tied in the bottom of the ninth meant that he’d sat down in between, which I wouldn’t have guessed was necessarily a problem.

But it was. Too many “up-downs” means a pitcher who you’d think can give you a second inning can’t…apparently. It wasn’t so much the up-down of Saturday night that precluded Seth’s pitching the tenth. It was that he’d had two up-downs on Thursday, according to his manager.

Oh.

Lugo sat for good after his one inning. Luis Rojas via Dave Jauss went to Yennsy Diaz to start the tenth of a 1-1 must-win game versus the Los Angeles Dodgers, with a runner automatically on second because that’s how Rob Manfred likes it. This Diaz hasn’t pitched enough in tight situations to make us nervous. This Diaz not having pitched all that much in tight situations is what made us nervous. No offense, Yennsy, but we know Seth Lugo. He’s not infallible, but we carry forth images of Six-Out Seth Lugo having gotten us through second innings with aplomb. We only knew in the tenth that Diaz wasn’t Lugo, and that it wouldn’t take much to score the Manfred on second.

It didn’t. Cody Bellinger lined a ball down the right field line, scoring the unearned runner and pushing the Dodgers ahead, 2-1. That — in which “that” also encompasses Walker Buehler’s own seven sterling innings and Will Smith’s second heartbreak home run in as many nights — was pretty much that. Conforto’s long shot, a solo blast six innings earlier, hadn’t come close to being matched in any way, shape or form by any other Met batter. There had been briefly been something of a scoring threat in the bottom of the seventh (J.D. Davis singled off Buehler’s leg, Jonathan Villar walked) but it imploded (Tomás Nido was encouraged to attempt bunting without an ounce of acumen for the skill in question). The Mets’ only runner in the tenth was their Manfred. He never moved.

So despite Walker taking a no-hit bid into the seventh until Smith ruined it, and despite Conforto’s bat continuing its long-awaited journey back toward the land of the living, the Mets had nothing but another one-run, extra-inning loss to show for their ten innings of work against the Dodgers. Both nights’ postgame pressers included questions regarding how good it must’ve felt for the Mets to go “toe-to-toe” or some such digital equation with the world champs. I do believe a team that has spent many more days in first place in 2021 than its opponent (some of them as recently as barely more than a week ago) doesn’t require a pat on the head for losing by a run. At the moment, the Dodgers have a substantially better record than the Mets, but they’re both in the same league. One is closer to making the playoffs is all. The one that isn’t, you’d infer, might want to pull out additional stops to make strides toward securing a postseason berth. Like sanctioning Seth Lugo’s second up of the evening so he could pitch the tenth. Or, for that matter, using Aaron Loup instead of Jeurys Familia the night before in that toe-to-toe one-run, extra-inning loss.

I don’t question the Mets’ fight. Rojas has enough fight in him to bark about balls and strikes and occasionally get himself ejected. I do question the limited use of best-bet relief pitchers in mustish-win games (and what are all those gambling ads for if not to encourage the making of best bets?). True, there is always another game on the schedule to consider when it comes to bullpen usage, and Fleetwood Mac wasn’t kidding about not stopping thinking about tomorrow, but to make those remaining games count like hell, ya kinda gotta win the games you can in the present. Ya kinda gotta send your best bet our for a second inning if he’s conceivably available. If Lugo told Jauss and Jeremy Hefner, “can’t do it,” well, that’s one thing. If Lugo said, “I’m fine,” take that for what it’s worth and get him up on his feet and back to the mound.

“Up-down” may be a legitimate concern in the way pitching is managed today, but we need all the ups we can get at this juncture of the schedule. Downs we’ve got down pat.