No matter what the standings have to say, a night at the ballpark feels a little like getting away with something. And Wednesday night was nice at Citi Field — a hot day turned into a breezy evening, enjoyed by a boisterous crowd. Even our neighboring Giants fans — of which there were admittedly too many — were good company.
But then why wouldn’t they be genial neighbors? The Giants are having one of those years where everything goes right, where 26 charmed baseball lives intersect no matter how many times you pinch yourself in disbelief.
The Mets, meanwhile, are having whatever the opposite of that year is.
Wednesday’s game was by turns depressing and bizarre. Both teams played cover-your-eyes abysmal defense at critical junctures and made inexplicable decisions on the basepaths, and Javier Baez [1] was an avatar of chaos all by himself, authoring a couple of dazzling infield plays and also short-circuiting an inning by charging for third on a line drive to the center fielder. But Baez had plenty of help at the whole short-circuiting thing: The Mets hit into an amazing five double plays, a spectacle that was only lacking Joe Torre [2] and Felix Millan [3] to wax philosophical about failure.
The postgame kerfuffle was about whether or not Luis Rojas [4] should have taken out Taijuan Walker [5] in the seventh having thrown only 74 pitches — 73 of which were effective. Walker certainly didn’t think so, spreading his arms in angry disbelief as his manager signaled for the bullpen. Yes, there were runners on first and second and the Mets’ one-run lead was very much imperiled; no, those runners hadn’t gotten there through any fault of Walker’s, unless having stone-gloved teammates counts as a fault.
On the other hand, with two lefties on deck Rojas opted for lefty specialist Aaron Loup [6], who’s been pretty much spotless even as his fellow Mets have stumbled in the mire. So of course Loup made his first bad pitch in weeks, giving up a double to Brandon Crawford [7] that sealed the Mets’ fate and ensured a tense press conference for Rojas, who looks about 10 years older than he did in mid-June.
Was taking Walker out a mistake? Sure. Maybe. Or maybe if Rojas leaves Walker in, maybe Crawford hits the ball 10 feet higher and farther. Would you really have been surprised at that turn of events, given everything that’s happened this month?
The real killer? It’s that the Mets had 16 baserunners and only two of them scored. (They only left nine on base, because double plays.) That was on display in the ninth, which was exciting and farcical and ultimately futile, coming down to Pete Alonso [8] against Jake McGee [9] with the bases loaded and two out. In a better world, Pete ended the long at-bat by roping a single over the infield for a walk-off win — or, sure, by walloping one over the fence, but why be greedy? But that better world slipped from the Mets’ grasp a while ago. In this world, Alonso hit a soft little flare that landed harmlessly in Tommy La Stella [10]‘s glove, the Mets were done [11], and another lost night sighed to a close.