After the Mets rose up in indignation to snatch a win away from the Cardinals, I said [1] it was the kind of unlikely comeback that would keep me on my couch for umpteen nights when no such good fortune was coming out way.
Nights like Monday [2], in other words.
How many things do you want to stew about?
For openers, can we have robot umps already? In the fifth inning, with a 2-0 lead, Chris Bassitt [3] threw a perfect 2-2 sinker to Dansby Swanson [4]. It was one of those magic pitches where the pitcher’s leaving the mound while the ball’s in flight with his infielders moving along with him — the batter’s guessed wrong, he’s locked up and can’t swing, and a couple of seconds from now he’ll be standing glumly at the plate with the umpire and a bunch of surplus gear while the scoreboard starts up the usual between-innings folderol.
Chad Fairchild, inexplicably, called it ball four three.
Bassitt, understandably flustered, lost his command, walking Swanson and hitting Ronald Acuna Jr. [5] before getting Matt Olson [6] to pop out. Fairchild then did what umpires rarely do — he got Bassitt’s attention and patted his chest, telling anyone and everyone that he’d missed the pitch. Which was indeed a decent gesture, but I’m pre-weary of the pixels it will generate about honor and accountability and the human element and a bunch of other blather. The fact is that Fairchild missed it, Bassitt had to throw extra high-stress pitches, and when he went back out for the sixth he was facing the middle of the order. The Braves didn’t exactly hit him hard in the sixth, but they hit him, and before you could blink the Mets were down 3-2. Bad umpiring is more than just a thumb on the scale — it’s added weight the pitcher is never going to be able to subtract, with ripple effects beyond one batter or inning.
More things to stew about? How about the Mets commencing to run the bases as if they were blindfolded — both Brandon Nimmo [7] and Jeff McNeil [8] uncharacteristically failed to take extra bases. Or the performance of Trevor May [9], who’s looked utterly lost so far this year, caught in a spiral of overthrowing and missed execution and self-loathing and further overthrowing.
But here I should note that a common trap of recaps in particular and fandom in general is that a loss gets picked apart for things your side failed to do, which ignores the half of the game that consists of the other guys trying to win. And those other guys did plenty, from Max Fried [10]‘s solid outing and old friend Collin McHugh [11] using his cutter to all but undress Mark Canha [12] with the bases loaded to Austin Riley [13] — not quite Schwarberesque in his Met mastication but too close for my liking — going deep off Bassitt.
And there was Travis d’Arnaud [14]. You’re forgiven if you’ve blocked this out given the owner-related PTSD, but d’Arnaud’s Mets tenure ended when Jeff Wilpon had a hissy fit that a player recuperating from Tommy John [15] surgery was still rusty and engineered his release after 25 at-bats. With a fully healed elbow, d’Arnaud’s been productive for the Rays and Braves, earned himself a World Series ring … and absolutely destroyed the Mets. His first double on Monday night tied the game against Bassitt; his second one put it out of reach against May. Could someone please tell Travis that a) the Wilpons are gone; and b) we all hated them too?
OK, that’s back to something our guys failed to do, or more properly did when they should have known better, which I just said was something to guard against. But it was that kind of night. Even the most magical season will have 20 to 30 teeth-grinders where you wind up too dispirited to even heave the remote in a foolish direction. This was one of them. There will be others. Try not to let any of them drive you crazy.
And if you figure out how to do that, please let me know.