So far — which, I’ll admit right off the bat, is a necessary qualifier — this is one of the stranger successful Met seasons I can remember.
After sweeping a split doubleheader from the Braves — no burying the lead in this recap — the Mets are 30 games over .500 for the first time since 2006.
I remember 2006 as a cakewalk romp, with an impossibly young David Wright [1] and Jose Reyes [2] front and center. Maybe one day I’ll remember 2022 the same way. Maybe it’s simply that 16 years have sanded away all the agita and grumbling so that I just remember the good parts of ’06. Maybe in 2038 I’ll analyze some bit of Metsiana and reflexively reach back for 2022 as the year Pete Alonso [3] and Francisco Lindor [4] blitzed through the NL East and Edwin Diaz [5] struck out everyone in the Mets’ way, and it won’t occur to me to mention the little black cloud that seemed to follow us everywhere.
Because it does, doesn’t it? I swear we’re the unhappiest 30-games-over-.500 first-place fanbase imaginable. And I won’t claim I’m immune. Saturday’s double-header was played with the usual sense of foreboding and klaxons of imminent doom, despite headlines that were very much to our liking, and looking back at it I find myself thinking that it was more than a little ridiculous.
First spot starter David Peterson [6] filled in beautifully in Game 1, giving the Mets 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball while the hitters tormented Jake Odorizzi [7] and a succession of Atlanta relievers with a parade of RBI singles. When Atlanta climbed back into the game with a two-run sixth, the Mets shrugged and added three more runs in the very next half-inning, making their margin even larger than it had been.
OK, sure, they’d need that margin, as Yoan Lopez [8] was handed a six-run lead for the ninth and gave up a flurry of hits and three runs, with no end in sight. And yes, that forced Buck Showalter [9] to call on Diaz. (Your recapper was at yet another Maine brewery — WHAT? — and decided this called for MLB.tv and not Gameday.)
But happily, Diaz quelled the uprising [10] on just seven pitches, and the Mets won. If that’s what counts as bad news, please give me more of it.
The nightcap belonged to Max Scherzer [11], who knew the bullpen was on fumes and so made up his mind to be his own bullpen. He didn’t throw a complete game — that would have been malpractice on a sweltering night — but he did give the Mets 108 pitches over seven exquisite innings, the last one a downright savage evisceration of the Braves on unhittable sliders. Four hits, no walks and 11 Ks? That will do nicely, thanks Max.
The Braves looked frankly flat in that second game, though in fairness Scherzer will make a lot of good teams look like less than themselves. They were sloppy in the field, with Dansby Swanson [12] having a particularly miserable game, they were out of kilter at the plate and they generally looked like a tired squad that wanted to be somewhere else. Meanwhile the Mets were on point, whether it was Luis Guillorme [13] firing a ball home to nail Travis d’Arnaud [14] or Tomas Nido [15] executing a textbook suicide squeeze for an insurance run.
Sure, the bullpen wasn’t exactly water-tight once again, with Mychal Givens [16] and Trevor May [17] both giving up runs in their innings of work. Givens is the only newcomer not welcomed with open arms so far, as his command has been iffy at best in two games, but perhaps 41 pitches is too small a sample to consign a guy to oblivion, however much we resent his not being the southpaw we felt we were promised. The Mets won anyway [18], in a fashion anyone but a professional worrywart would call convincing.
(Oh by the way, my prediction is Peterson ends the year as the lefty we needed.)
The Mets won anyway, despite all the bumps in the night we’re convinced are the ghosts of Chipper Jones [19] and Bobby Cox [20] and Ryan Klesko [21] and Eddie Perez [22] waiting to shred our psyches. They’ve already taken the series, with Jacob deGrom [23] looking to make it four of five on Sunday. They’ve thoroughly outplaying the Braves in their three victories and fought back doggedly in the one loss.
Saturday was a baseball day well spent, so for Pete Alonso’s sake don’t grouse about a glass that’s one-quarter empty. Good things have happened. Rank superstition is the only thing stopping us from thinking more good things will happen. You’re allowed to enjoy things! No, really, I give you permission!
I give you permission because baseball can be cruel and dark, as a fan of any duration can tell you. But it isn’t always like that. And there’s no reason to jump at shadows when it’s sunny.