Maybe I need to see the therapist of my blog partner’s imaginings [1], because I figure any sane counselor would tell me and the Mets that we’re better off apart. Right now, we’re making each other insane, night after night.
On Friday night the Mets jumped out to an early 2-0 lead over what used to be the Nationals, largely thanks to their opponents’ mistakes, but there was ominous music all over the soundtrack. They missed chance after chance to bury the Nats under an avalanche of runs, somehow didn’t pay for that recklessness, and handed Edwin Diaz [2] a 2-0 lead.
Now look. The nature of being a closer is that a blown save feels like your heart got ripped out of your chest, and every closer arrives on stage balancing on a tightrope. Even the best closers blow saves now and again, and we remember the now and agains even as we forget the streaks of ho-hum conversions.
That said, I don’t think I will ever be able to trust Diaz. The man could convert every save for three seasons in a running (he won’t) and donate a kidney to me and I’d still be like, “You’re going to blow this, aren’t you?” (If for some reason Edwin does give me a kidney, I’ll do my best to just think this and not, say, tweet it. Also, that would be nice of him.)
So. Diaz came in and blew it: leadoff homer to Juan Soto [3] (who’d been bedeviled all night by Rich Hill [4], go figure), strikeout, walk to ageless Met killer Ryan Zimmerman [5], game-tying double to Riley Adams [6]. Yeah, Brandon Nimmo [7] dived for a ball he didn’t really have a chance for and Javier Baez [8] made a less-than-perfect throw home, but still, he blew it. Adams was on third with one out, Diaz couldn’t get out of his own way, and the Mets were dead. They’d lost the game, their season was over, and maybe they’d be contracted on general principles.
Except the thing I cannot get through my head about this year’s seriously weird Mets team is that they will confound each and every certainty. Diaz struck out Carter Kieboom [9], got Luis Garcia [10] to ground out, and the Mets would play on. So of course in the 10th they rose up in indignation and spanked the Nats for four runs.
(Those were the four runs they could have scored two hours earlier by not whiffing on every opportunity, but that’s the bitterness talking.)
Pete Alonso [11] brought in ghost runner Francisco Lindor [12], and then tagged up on a long foul fly from Baez — a critical play, as it turned out. The Nats walked Michael Conforto [13] and Kevin Pillar [14] doubled in two. Jonathan Villar [15] — who had four hits on the night — brought in Pillar. And then Jeurys Familia [16] put the Nats down without breaking a sweat, giving Diaz the win [17].
Yes, Edwin Diaz got the win. Which is obviously absurd, but then the whole game was absurd. As was the postgame news that the Braves lost in Colorado, drawing the Mets within four. It’s absurd to think they could pull that off, given their seemingly endless list of faults. But they specialize in the absurd, don’t they? However it’s defined at a given moment.