I May Not Be Tall Enough to Ride This Ride

The first week of baseball is nearly always the same: a season’s emotional journey in miniature form, with the only difference what order the necessary components get assembled in this time.

So, for the 2022 Mets it’s been:

1. Convinced the stars have aligned and your team will go 162-0.
2. The first galling loss of the season that leaves you fuming and then making excuses because hey, it was close.
3. The first gut-punch loss of the season that leaves you wondering why you subject yourself to chronic pain.

So what would come Tuesday night against the Phillies? A range of possibilities presented themselves, from Illusory Return to Invulnerability to Suspicion That All Will Not Go Swimmingly to Fuck Me It’s Too Early to Get My Heart Stomped On Again. The Mets tried all of those on for size before settling on Well I Was Wrong the Whole Goddamn Time and You Know What That’s OK With Me.

An early 3-2 record is also a fraught moment, because what’s actually just one game in a very long parade is granted a thoroughly manufactured fork-in-the-road significance. If the result is a 4-2 record, you’ll talk yourself into believing that they’re rounding into form and the sky’s the limit; if the result is a 3-3 record, it’ll be clear that they’ll never get out of their own way and a summer of muddling awaits.

Adding to my emotional baggage was the fact that the man on the enemy mound was Zack Wheeler, the last mortal sin inflicted on the Mets by the dreadful Wilpons and their hired stooge Brodie Van Wagenen, a man who should be remembered more than he will be for his oily chiseling and crumminess. It was the Wilpons who let Wheeler walk instead of resigning him; it was Van Wagenen who obediently stuck the knife in Wheeler’s back after he accurately described the Mets’ conspicuous lack of interest in retaining his services. Wheeler followed up Van Wagenen’s sneer about parlaying two half-good seasons into $118 million by proving he was worth that contract and was exactly what the Mets sorely needed instead of turning to the likes of Jerad Eickhoff and Robert Stock as their playoff hopes drained away. It pissed me off then, it pisses me off now, it will piss me off a decade after Wheeler retires.

That said, Wheeler took the mound not at his best, having had an even more abbreviated spring training than everybody else. His velocity was down and his location was off; still, he had enough to match an energized Tylor Megill — whose simplified mechanics and winter off have made him look like a different pitcher — into the fifth. This unlikely tie in a bandbox ended when Brandon Nimmo hit a missile off his old teammate into the right-field seats, but then Megill departed after two trips through the Phillies’ order and it was time for the Mets to somehow find 11 outs.

They did so at first behind Chasen Shreve — who still looks like he’s been living under a bridge, in case you were worried — and Drew Smith, whose dewy cheeks still suggest puberty has yet to arrive. The arm is fully developed, though — Smith looked particularly impressive, using his entire arsenal in the seventh to retire Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins and Didi Gregorius while sidestepping a Nick Castellanos double.

The Mets took a 2-0 lead to the ninth, but Edwin Diaz was coming in with Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto and Harper coming up, and let’s just say my confidence was not elevated.

There’s a great moment in the (underrated) 2017 movie American Made in which Tom Cruise, playing a restless pilot mixed up with drugs and guns and other bad ideas, turns on his usual high-wattage charm to ask his wife if she trusts him.

“NO!” she responds instantly, offended that he’d even try it.

That’s me with Diaz, no matter what the stats might say. The enemy ninth had “walkoff with no outs recorded” flashing red in my mind, and part of me wanted to hide downstairs until the inevitable had come crashing down.

But Diaz’s slider was working, either because he’s made some adjustment (let’s say so, because why not) or because randomness was on our side tonight (let’s not think about this). He struck out Schwarber, gave up a bad-luck infield hit to Realmuto, struck out Harper, and then coaxed a ground ball from Castellanos, which Francisco Lindor snared in the hole and tossed over to Jeff McNeil at second. Except Realmuto is annoyingly fast for a catcher, and was safe. That meant Hoskins would bat with the tying run on first as the tying run, with Gregorius behind him, and why exactly hadn’t I hidden downstairs when I still could?

Throwing all sliders to Hoskins, Diaz worked the count to 1-2 and then buried a slider in the dirt — the classic call, but not enough to tempt Hoskins. What was next? The high fastball to change Hoskins’ eye level and speed up his bat? Sure, but Diaz had to throw it high enough so Hoskins couldn’t square it up, a plan he hasn’t always proved able to execute. So the slider, then? Sure, but Diaz needed to not throw one that flattened out and sat in the middle of the plate, destined to become a souvenir. String together enough of those moment-to-moment agonies and you have a baseball game, but this game was destined to come down to the outcome of that one particular agony.

Diaz opted for the slider and it was another perfect one, diving at the knee on the opposite side of the plate. Hoskins swung helplessly and missed and the Mets had won. Won, and taken the correct path after reaching that fork in the road, the one that leads to the sky being the limit.

You believe that, right?