Once again, it’s sand in the hourglass time — the last few grains, the regret about what could have been, the wanting it to just be over, and the reminding yourself that as soon as it is you’ll want a little more. The Mets have become the old joke about the food being terrible and coming in such small portions, which would be funnier if every meal didn’t last three and a half hours, so that by the two-thirds mark everyone’s talked out and just slumped in their seats waiting to be told they can go.
The Mets lost to the Red Sox [1], who defeated both their opponents and the yellow and blue alt-uniforms that made them look oddly like their own vendors. It was a very 2021 Mets game: an impressive start, a record-scratch moment in which they remembered who they were, and not much of note after that. Marcus Stroman [2] looked good early, with both his joy for the game and his swagger on display as he escaped a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam. The Mets then loaded the bases with nobody out themselves, as Eduardo Rodriguez [3] lost the strike zone. J.D. Davis [4] walked to force in a run and Michael Conforto [5] smacked a single through the infield to bring in Javier Baez [6] and set up a big inning.
Except Gary DiSarcina [7] turned it into the incredible shrinking inning when he inexplicably waved Pete Alonso [8] home. The distance between Alonso and home when Kiké Hernandez’s throw arrived in Christian Vazquez [9]‘s mitt? Let’s just say the Mets are closer to a playoff spot than Pete was to scoring. Alonso was out, the rest of the inning fizzled, and the Red Sox stomped on Stroman, scoring six unanswered runs.
The rest was unimportant: Alonso hit a solo homer, old friend Hansel Robles [10] came in and did not do Roblesian things, and there were a lot of shots of the 7 Line Army looking morose.
So it goes as the grains of sand slip away — a momentary wondering what’s gone wrong for Brad Hand [11], a sigh at Conforto’s continued woes, a brief flush of rage at the idea that Hugh Quattlebaum has anything to smile about. All evanescent stuff, no sooner experienced than gone again. The games are the same, a depressing smear, and we won’t miss them when they’re gone, except for the fact that of course we will.