For me, the Mets are rarely if ever on the periphery. Most nights they’re front and center. But now and then even they have to share space with other pursuits.
We’re finishing up three weeks in my folks’ summer cottage in Maine, an annual visit extended this year as an experiment in remote work and escaping the city. That’s meant the addition of Internet, a big-screen TV and other trappings of city life, so our fandom has carried on largely as before.
Last night, though, we had friends up from New York and plans to investigate a craft brewery that looked fun. (It was! [1]) So the Mets’ third of five 2022 showdowns with the Braves unfolded at first on Gameday, enclosed in the glass rectangle of my phone while propped against an empty pint glass.
And that little enclosure brought glad tidings, starting with three straight outs from Carlos Carrasco [2]. Then the Mets led 1-0, revealed to be the result of a Pete Alonso [3] single. An inning later it was 2-0, courtesy of a Tyler Naquin [4] homer. An inning after that I did a double-take, as many good things must have happened: It was 5-0! (Said good things turned out to be two in rapid succession: back-to-back homers from Alonso and Daniel Vogelbach [5], who might deserve a revival of Ramon Castro [6]‘s old affectionate Round Mound of Pound nickname.)
A bit later I noticed the score had become 5-1, which was annoying but didn’t seem to be grounds for active worry. (Michael Harris [7] II RBI single, it turned out.) But I missed the immediate aftermath of that first run because I was … and, honestly, could I be making this up? … befriending a brewery chicken.
[8]I mean, you’d want to make friends too.
It wasn’t until I got behind the wheel of our car that I realized the Mets’ margin of safety had shrunk alarmingly, a realization that was immediate: Years of listening have let me accurately calibrate ballgames’ status by the tone and rhythm of Howie Rose’s play by play, and what I heard was not carefree Howie leisurely relating an anecdote or speculating on something interesting in the crowd. No, his words were being sent out quickly and arriving terse and bitten off, little packets of warning.
It was 5-3 (Ronald Acuna Jr. [9] homer, it turned out) and the Mets’ comfortable lead was gone. As we drove up Route 27, Carrasco sought to navigate the sixth against Matt Olson [10], newly minted Brave for Life Austin Riley [11] and Eddie Rosario [12] — a dangerous inning Buck Showalter [13] would later pinpoint as key to the game. Carrasco went through them 1-2-3 on a groundout, K and lineout, securing three critical outs that could be subtracted from the Mets’ relief blueprint.
As the bottom of the sixth began we were back at the house and in front of the TV, in time to see new cult hero Naquin launch his second home run of the game — the first time, somehow, that a Met had hit two round-trippers in his first home game. (I found the how more notable than the what — Naquin reached down for a ball at his shoetops and carved it out of the ballpark with what looked like a golf swing.)
That run would prove critical, as Adam Ottavino [14] ran afoul of Orlando Arcia [15] and Harris, whittling the lead down to 6-4, before fanning Acuna as the conclusion of a mini-mathematical proof of how to wreck a hitter’s timing and change his eye level (velocity up up and up + slider low and away = no chance).
For the eighth, as I’d suspected he might, Showalter handed the ball not to a recent bullpen returnee or one of the middle-relief stalwarts turned suspects but to Edwin Diaz [16] himself. And why not? That was the most dangerous inning, with Olson and Riley following Dansby Swanson [17].
Let us pause for a moment to consider the journey Diaz has been on since arriving at Citi Field: Reviled mistake, reluctantly accepted fixture, and now revered savior. Every one of us would have driven Diaz to the airport in November 2019 in return for, say, one of Jarred Kelenic [18]‘s discarded batting gloves; now he’s Sugar once again and we all exhale when he arrives to do what he does, celebrating that arrival with imaginary trumpets. Diaz coaxed a first-pitch (important!) groundout from Swanson, caught Olson looking on an unhittable slider, and got Riley to swing over another slider to complete the inning.
He was most likely coming back out for the ninth anyway, but having thrown only 11 pitches made it a certainty. Trouble beckoned immediately, as Rosario slapped a single in front of Starling Marte [19], meaning the tying run would come to the plate thrice and causing old bogeymen to at least poke their heads up somewhere in our psyches.
Diaz got Travis d’Arnaud [20] to fly out, fed Marcell Ozuna [21] a steady diet of sliders to set up 100 MPH upstairs for the second out, and then went to work against Arcia — only to miss with his first three pitches. His fourth pitch was 99 MPH at the top of the zone, boring in on Arcia’s hands. Arcia turned away from it in equal parts rejection and self-defense, only to realize to his horror that the ball had glanced off his bat and was gamboling up the first-base line with Diaz — thankfully not spectating — in hot pursuit.
“A check-swing tapper — it’s a fair ball and it’s gonna end the game!” exclaimed Gary Cohen, as Keith Hernandez [22] groaned in accompaniment — a veteran hitter’s instinctive moment of empathy. Diaz stepped on first as Arcia finished a disconsolate jog behind him and the Mets had won [23].
Won the first one, though four more (!!!) await us before this weekend is done. What they’ll bring remains to be seen, but the first one is ours, secured by Mets old and new. A night of chicken, (R)oses and sugar wasn’t what I saw coming, but it made for a delightful combination.