Having emerged from the forced march portion of their schedule, the Mets returned to Citi Field and took care of business against the Rockies, though a game that looked poised to become a laugher never quite launched, turning into a too-close-to-the-ground 3-1 win. Still a good outcome, particularly given that the Braves didn’t win, though a fair chronicler might note that they also didn’t play.
The Mets’ victory [1] was anchored by Jacob deGrom [2]‘s deadly slider, Pete Alonso [3]‘s big bat and some bend-but-not-break work by Seth Lugo [4] and Edwin Diaz [5] in the bullpen, with Adam Ottavino [6] happily scrambling the narrative by securing a no-fuss save.
DeGrom is so good that it’s easy to let the focus on him blur the competition into a meaningless smudge, similar to how nobody much paid attention to the Washington Generals beyond seeing them as the Globetrotters’ opponents. For instance, deGrom positively tortured Charlie Blackmon [7], feeding him sliders that resulted in two strikeouts and then using what he’d put in Blackmon’s head to erase him a third time with fastballs. You probably read that and mm-hmmed or maybe nodded your head, but the point is that Charlie Blackmon is not Rockies Schmo Number Whatever — he’s a career .298 hitter with a batting championship on his resume. (He’s also the possible owner of baseball’s best beard, though that resists quantification.)
DeGrom does that to people — his sheer brilliance turns batting champs into cardboard cutouts like the ones that thankfully no longer stand in for all of us in baseball stadiums. Which also makes his rare departures from excellence startling: When Ryan McMahon [8] took him deep Thursday night or he briefly lost command of his fastball-slider combination, it felt like physics had somehow been repealed.
Two of the Mets’ three runs came from Alonso, who punished the Rockies for botching an inning-ending double play by demolishing a middle-middle fastball from Ryan Feltner [9], sending it on a journey that ended against the facing of the second deck. Alonso struggled on the Mets’ forced march, lunging and chasing in a way he’s mostly avoided this year before collecting a couple of hits against the Yankees, so it was reassuring to see him look more like his uber-ursine self.
We’ll need both of them down the stretch, which is a roundabout way of arriving at my unhappy conclusion: I don’t think even their contributions will be enough to let the Mets hold off the Braves. The Mets have a softer September schedule than Atlanta, but the gap doesn’t strike me as dramatic, and the Braves have been playing out of their minds for a solid three months, assisted by an annoyingly steady stream of rookies whose development has proved precocious.
Time for some rapid-fire caveats.
I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. Giddy, thrilled, doing cartwheels. Bring me all the crow I can eat and I’ll ask for more.
I’m well aware that even the stone wheels of juggernauts can go inexplicably flat.
I’m not casting the least of aspersions on the Mets, who could end up north of 100 wins and still come up short.
And I’m not saying finishing second would be a death sentence — even with the new bye format, the postseason is a crapshoot of small sample sizes, with no team that gains admission truly a surprise if revealed as the last standing.
(I’m also not convinced that first-round bye won’t prove to be a poisoned apple, but that’s another post.)
Like I said, it’s a prediction I hope turns out to be dead wrong — or comes true but winds up not particularly mattering. But I think it would be wise to look at the map to the 2022 postseason and plot some alternate routes to the destination we all want.