A hangover game for the Mets would have been annoying but forgivable Friday night, what with the team having just taken a series — immediate and season — from the mighty Dodgers, AKA the Probably Inevitable NLCS Level Boss.
Happily, the Mets didn’t have one — or perhaps they did but the innate lousiness of the stripped-down Nationals was effective in hiding its symptoms.
Either way, they won — and got contributions from a trio of players whom we’d at least begun to worry about.
Eduardo Escobar was first, smacking a two-run homer off a Josiah Gray curveball in the second to get the Mets pointed in the right direction. Escobar’s been vital in the clubhouse and valuable in the field but lacking at the plate; a late-season reversion to his career mean would certainly be a welcome addition to the lineup.
Next came Mychal Givens, who hasn’t exactly been the relief addition we’d clamored for at the deadline. (While it’s not Givens’ fault that he’s right-handed, it pretty much is his fault that the numbers he’s put up have been mostly wrong-footed.) But Givens pitched well against Los Angeles and even better against the Nats, coming in to direct water at a man-on-second, one-out, tie-game blaze after David Peterson ran out of gas in the sixth. Givens did so, was handed a lead, pitched an effective seventh and earned a well-deserved win.
Thirdly, we had Pete Alonso, who’s looked desperately like a man in need of a head-clearing day off of late, doing more damage through bat-snapping shows of self-loathing than to the guys in the other uniforms. But Alonso came to the plate against Gray in the seventh with the Mets having just surrendered the lead and gave immediate notice that such an indignity would not stand, swatting the second pitch into the left-field seats and kicking off an inning that ballooned once the Nats commenced to play stupid.
(For the record, I still think a day off would be a good idea.)
The Braves won, so the Mets were thwarted in stretching their lead, and the gap between the two teams is too entirely too slim to ponder magic numbers and what-not. (I’ve peeked and you probably have too; let’s limit it to peeking for now.)
Whatever happens with the NL East standings, though, the Mets have won 85 games, which is worth a moment’s reflection.
I’d call 85 wins the lower bounds of a good year — definitely something to build on, if you get there from below. But it’s not even Labor Day. Now, I don’t think the Mets will wind up with 114 wins (though it’s not impossible), but those 29 remaining games are mostly against weak competition and the Mets look fundamentally sound with the stretch run upon them.
Numerical achievements don’t translate to flags — just ask the 2001 Mariners — but they’re still worth noting. And what the Mets are on track to do is notable indeed.
In 2015, I thought the Mets’ 90 wins were an important milestone to stamp a worthy division winner. 1st place is 1st place no matter how many wins, but less than 90 wins makes me think of a least bad team rather than a top team. In 2022, they’re going to blow past 90 wins. They should easily be there by next Saturday.
On the other hand, the Mets realistically should top 100 wins and that still might not be enough to outlast the Braves. Comparative strength of schedule doesn’t mean much when they’re blowing up the leading NL Cy Young contender.
The Mets offense last night looked more like the early season Mets with key contributions from the top, middle, and bottom of the order.
Vogelbach’s lack of speed concerns me. When McNeil is compelled to sacrifice a runner in scoring position so Vogelbach can score from 3rd on a reasonably deep sacrifice fly, that’s a problem. Maybe not against a bottom dweller. But that’s the kind of giveaway that can lose a game to a contender.
I’m not confident in the Mets bullpen. Even Diaz has looked shaky of late. Lugo took his turn last night skirting a meltdown. I wonder if he’s hurting given that Lugo looked like he was meant to come into game 3 versus the Dodgers and didn’t. Yet the bullpen has consistently held up. They bend a lot but rarely break. Ottavino, who’s been up and down over his career, is up right now. If Givens is finding his footing, that’s good.
The Phillies have dropped back since Harper’s return. I don’t like that because, coupled with the Brewers fading from wildcard contention, the Phillies are approaching an equilibrium in the standings where they have no especial incentive to win their Braves games.
Jason’s talk of the Mets season wins makes me think of the Yankees, in particular that the Yankees were the 1st team to 70 wins by date, game 104 on August 1st. (The Dodgers were the 1st to 70 wins by game, game 103 on August 2nd.) A full month later, the Yankees are stuck at 79 wins while 4 teams have passed them with 80-plus wins. And that was with a 5-game winning streak in August.
I believe the Yanks had the worst record in the A.L. in August
It’s fascinating that the Yankees dropping out of 1st place has become plausible. If that happens, it’ll be just as fascinating to watch the Yankees drop into the wildcard race given that the Rays are close to the other 3 70-win AL wildcard contenders, unlike the Braves in the NL wildcard race. There are few enough games left now, though, that even if the Yankees slump enough to lose 1st place and keep slumping in a wildcard race, their lead for the 3rd wildcard may be enough to be saved by the calendar.
And as I read this, the weak competition’s pitcher has completely transitioned from batting practice pitcher to crafty veteran lefty. And of course Scherzer coming out after 67 pitches. So as noted philosopher Joaquin Andujar once said, you can sum up baseball in one word; you never know.
[…] And within a week, The Worst Collapse Ever commenced, serving as a reminder, perhaps, that nothing is clinched until it is clinched — or, perhaps, when one takes into account the ten wins in twelve games bracketed by calamity (0-4 at CBP) and disaster (5-12 to finish) — that nothing is blown until is blown. After the Truist Park stumble this August, the Mets won three of four at Philadelphia, culminating in Damn Thing IV, one of about twenty candidates for Game of the Year this year. An immediate stumble at Yankee Stadium was obliterated by three uplifting victories over Colorado, the last of those wrapped in the emotional high of Old Timers Day. Then they don’t score for two days before picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and polishing off the Dodgers all over again, winning that series and then staving off any hint of a letdown by summarily stomping on Washington less than a week ago. […]