On Sunday, a day after being eliminated from a chance at a playoff berth [1], the Mets were eliminated from a chance of being mathematically average. They have lost 82 games, meaning the best possible outcome for their season is a record of 80-82, and anyone who thinks they can manage that should please report to the nearest asylum for immediate intake.
The Mets also got to watch the Milwaukee Brewers — an actually good baseball team — clinch a division title. I assume they watched that celebration and it hurt to witness what not so long ago could have been theirs — however disappointed I am in the 2021 season, I don’t think they quit or lacked the will to win or were missing a certain fire in the belly or whatever Just So Story is trotted out to explain a team’s failure to be what its members and fans wanted it to be. The Mets are world-class athletes and ferocious competitors, and if desire were all that determined playoff races, there’d be four- and five-way ties all over baseball. They just weren’t good enough, and we’ll have all winter to debate whether the not good enough was a product of conception, execution, fortune or some mixture of those things.
I, however, didn’t see any of that. I watched the first inning, with Francisco Lindor [2] homering for a 1-0 lead. I watched Carlos Carrasco [3] immediately give that lead back by serving up a two-run shot to Willy Adames [4]. I watched the Mets fall three more runs in arrears the next inning.
And then I stopped watching.
It was a beautiful day in Brooklyn. My wife and I walked around, explored a neighborhood we’d never visited, found an Italian place that made a pretty good spritz, went grocery-shopping, talked family logistics and potential vacations, and just enjoyed the sunshine and each other’s company. I didn’t think about the Mets, and that made me a lot happier than I’d been when they were front and center.
And when I finally did check, 5-1 had become 8-4. Which elicited two reactions:
Wow, they somehow scored three more runs?
Mathematically speaking, 8-4 is exactly the same [5] as 5-1.
As I admitted on Friday [6], I’m done with this incarnation of the Mets. We have broken up, and they need to go away and return chastened and sufficiently changed so that I’ll feel like my affections might not be wasted this time and give them a clean slate.
Thankfully, baseball has a mechanism that accomplishes exactly that — it’s called the offseason. It’s just arrived a little earlier than usual on my personal calendar.