3 out of 4
2 out of 3
2 out of 3
3 out of 4
2 out of 3
2 out of 3
2 out of 3
My muscle memory still works. I still remember, even from the lofty heights of first place, how to be disgusted with my team as if it hasn’t been living in first place practically every night of this season. It didn’t matter to me at the close of business Sunday that my team was 23 games over .500 or 2½ games ahead of its closest competitor (a game better than it had been a week earlier) or as secure as could be in putting a deposit down on a playoff position well before postseason berths are officially issued.
My mostly wonderful team lost to the Cubs, 3-2, in one of those games that was there for the taking for nine innings but got given away or left on the table in most of them. Bleh! Bleah! Bleech! Whichever sound you choose, I was making it between 5:30 and 6:00. It was a game that shouldn’t have been lost, yet it was lost. There were approximately a hundred and twenty-three (rough estimate) flyouts into the wind. There was a dumb decision to attempt to score from second on a single into short left field made by the same runner who cleverly evaded a tag that led to a run hours earlier. There was an error of commission by the third baseman who must have invested in pork belly futures Saturday because he’d saved his club’s bacon twice. There was relief that wasn’t on the heels of so much relief that was. And there was the other team figuring out how to accomplish the feat I enjoy least in a matchup against my team: beating them.
The manager of my team is always reminding me, through the media, that the other team, whoever it happens to be on a given day, is capable of winning a baseball game. That message has been absorbed by his players who repeat its essence after infrequent instances of non-wins on their part. The worst element of this alibi is it is largely true. Nobody should ever beat the first-place Mets, but occasionally somebody does.
It happens because not even the 2022 Mets can win them all.
2 out of 4
2 out of 3
2 out of 3
1 out of 3
3 out of 4
2 out of 3
1 out of 3
3 out of 3
3 out of 3
I needed a half-hour to decompress from Cubs 3 Mets 2; to rationalize that bad days happen to good teams and vice-versa; to remember that although my worldview is often susceptible to the last thing it saw — Lindor getting thrown out at home; Escobar fumbling a double play grounder; Smith’s arsenal being turned back on him in the form of sharp grounders finding holes — overwhelming the larger or more significant sample sizes of the things that preceded it. This is not just a day-to-day instinct. These Mets have four All-Star selectees among them. Three were Mets in recent years. When recent years did not go swimmingly, I was willing to toss each of these recently certified stellar Mets overboard.
Not that I have that authority, nor do I have the attention span to construct hypothetical trades (not even for Juan Soto). But these past two winters, I swear I wasn’t attached with epoxy to anybody who couldn’t help the mopey Mets of 2020 and 2021 turn the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Seaver Way in 2022. If I could have been convinced a transformation could have been achieved without the contributions of Messrs. Alonso, McNeil and Diaz, let’s just say it wouldn’t have taken a whole lot of convincing. And I wasn’t holding onto budding star starter David Peterson (5 IP, 0 ER Sunday) with both hands, either.
Glad nobody listened to what I was thinking. Glad somebody thought to hire a manager who knows what he’s doing, even when we’re left to wonder (Saturday night’s one-bullet bullpen roulette) what the hell he’s doing. Buck Showalter comes along after his tactics work, as they somehow did when he stuck with Yoan Lopez, or after they don’t, explains himself, moves on, and I nod. He tells us maybe not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. I imagine he addresses his charges similarly. A bigger wonder than “why didn’t you have anybody warming up to replace the 27th man who allowed the tying run and put additional runners on base?” is why we were left to sift through deviants and amateurs as managers when this guy was out there just waiting for another dugout to fill.
I don’t have faith in Buck Showalter’s Mets. I have confidence. It’s a world of difference.
2 out of 4
1 out of 3
2 out of 3
2 out of 3
3 out of 4
0 out of 2
2 out of 3
0 out of 2
Crummy game [1] Sunday. Aesthetically displeasing weekend. Where was that beautiful Wrigley Field to which we only get one exposure per season? Covered in clouds. It rained, it murked, it blew in. Whatever became of “a real Wrigley Field game,” one of those 12-10 jobs we’re conditioned to crave at the sight of Waveland Avenue? We got the other kind: 2-1; 4-3; 3-2. Yawn. I was hoping to depart the non-statistical first half on a high, not only sweeping the Cubs, but reveling in Wrigley for something beyond its cup-snake charmers. The Friendly Confines ain’t what they used to be. Then again, neither are the Cubs. I guess the latter is for the better.
We left behind the ivy taking three of four. We do a lot of that wherever we go, wherever we play. That’s how confidence is cultivated. The Mets won this series. They won the series before it, against a much more relevant rival in Atlanta. The Mets have played 29 series. They’ve lost five of them. They’ve tied three of them. They’ve won all the others. Rarely have they swept series, but they’ve methodically done all the taking they’ve needed to. Being methodical adds up. Boy, does it add up. The Mets’ record of 58-35 is their second-best ever after 93 games. It’s probably their second-best at the All-Star break, too, but since “the first half” is a malleable concept annually (the 1986 Mets played 84 games before the break; the 1999 Mets played 88 games; the 1980 Mets played 78 games), I’m not bothering to look it up.
2 out of 3
2 out of 3
2 out of 4
2 out of 3
3 out of 4
By six o’clock, I wasn’t any longer bothering to stress the Sunday loss to the Cubs. Susceptibility to the last thing I saw notwithstanding, it was easy enough to brush off. Rest up, fellas, I’d tell the players if they hadn’t already jetted to their vacation destinations. Tune up, I’d tell the front office (bullpen roulette can be chancy and another bat would be swell). Overall, everybody in orange and blue, keep doing what you’re doing in this year of years that thus far pales historically only in comparison to 1986. You’ve got my confidence. And my faith, in case you need it.