The Mets, of late, play two kinds of games: ones in which they lose seemingly winnable affairs in horribly frustrating ways and ones in which they beat the absolute tar out of their opponents without breaking too much of a sweat. We’re a third of the way through September, and I’m not sure I can take a full slate of grinding torments and giddy laughers — it’s giving me a case of emotional whiplash when I’m a little raw already.
At least Saturday night’s tilt in Miami was one of the laughers. The Mets started off looking a lot like they did Friday night [1], turned aside by lousy sequencing and a double play en route to falling behind the Marlins. But all was not lost, even if it felt that way to all of us grinding our teeth on our couches. The Mets tied the game in the third on a Jeff McNeil [2] RBI single, then unloaded on Pablo Lopez [3] an inning later, with the knockout blow a Mark Canha [4] grand slam that greeted Lopez’s replacement Andrew Nardi [5]. Canha has been one of the abiding pleasures of a wonderful year, a professional hitter whose at-bats remind me of his antecedents in bat artistry, from Dave Magadan [6] to John Olerud [7] and Edgardo Alfonzo [8].
Canha’s blast gave the Mets sufficient margin for error to allow the rest of the game to drift along vaguely accompanied by an increasingly Dada broadcast from Gary, Keith and Ron. (That’s said with affection.) Eduardo Escobar [9] and Francisco Lindor [10] each homered on three-hit nights, Carlos Carrasco [11] did his job on the mound and was backed up by JV relievers who didn’t do anything too terrible, and much-requested call-up Mark Vientos [12] sparked his new teammates to an 11-run outburst [13] without even needing to set foot on the field.
The mood swings of such nights are much harder on fans than on players — unable to affect the outcome on the field, we’re left to beg, plead, follow superstitious rituals and remind ourselves when nothing works that the wall would not, in fact, look better with a new hole in it the size and shape of the remote. That’s always true in a pennant race, but this recent stretch, I venture, has been a little harder still. The feast-or-famine games are a trial, as is trying to read the tea leaves of a single W or L each night, not to mention waiting grimly to hear that the Braves won again. It’s all too much, which is why we’re tying ourselves into knots about bullpen management, slumps and streaks, who’s trying too hard and who might not be trying hard enough, whether the trade deadline should be relitigated yet again, and a dozen or so other unhelpful pursuits.
Honestly, the Mets’ only real sin is not playing .700 ball, as the Braves have somehow done since the weather’s gotten warm. But that’s not a story, just math we don’t like. Like fans since time immemorial, we need a story, and so we construct any number of them to fill the gap. It’s what we do — baseball isn’t much fun if you turn off the set every night and are gently philosophical about what’s transpired — but it’s not good for our health. Probably not ever and certainly not now.
My advice is to at least try and pace yourself: The terrors and joys of October still await, in whatever measures they’re parcelled out to us. But our path there isn’t mapped yet, and the only way to find that path is to walk it along with the players whose successes and failures will dictate our happiness for the coming weeks. (Of which we devoutly hope there are eight that matter.) What I just outlined is good advice that I won’t be able to follow myself. More heart attack nights lie ahead.