Using a bookmark is usually a very effective method of keeping your place while reading. No “I was reading this really interesting book, but I seem to have lost my place, whatever will I do?” laments are necessary when you properly employ a bookmark. If you don’t insist on something fancy with a tassel, access to a bookmark requires no additional purchases. Nearly any thin household item that fits decisively but unobtrusively between pages should do the trick. For example, if you’re not planning on ginning up a game of rummy anytime soon, you can pick a card, any card, from a handy deck and, presto, you’ve got a bookmark!
Warning, though: The aces in your deck don’t automatically help you keep your place any better than anything else you use.
For the last two nights, Jacob deGrom [1] and Max Scherzer [2] pitched well enough to propel their team to victory. At the same juncture, they didn’t pitch well enough to unquestionably tilt the hand they held in their team’s favor. We know they’re aces their entire careers. On consecutive nights, they could’ve been mistaken for a pair of threes. Had they been available, you could have slotted, I don’t know, Mike Pelfrey and Dillon Gee in their stead and gotten roughly the same results.
Thing is, when you unseal your deck, deGrom and Scherzer aren’t supposed to look like Pelfrey and Gee or any perfectly decent pitchers from whom you’d be satisfied by three or four runs given up in five or six innings. They’re aces. Aces oughta be most adept at holding your place when your place is first and your opponent has designs on it.
Aces like they oughta be aren’t always what you wind up dealing.
One night after deGrom (6 IP, 3 ER, all on Brave home runs in a 5-2 loss [3]) couldn’t do quite enough to help the Mets keep first place to themselves, Scherzer (5.2 IP, 4 ER, three on Brave home runs in a 4-2 loss [4]) couldn’t do quite enough to allow the Mets to maintain any of it. In the aftermath of deGrom and Scherzer being Pelfrey and Gee — and the players who batted on their behalf bringing early-2010s energy to the table — the Mets have indeed lost their place. The heretofore first-place Mets are presently the second-place Mets.
Not lethal at this very late stage of the season. Not ideal, either, but hardly the end of relevant competitive pursuits. The Mets will play the Braves one more time, and the opportunity remains to:
a) win that meeting tonight;
b) in the process of winning tonight, tie for first place once more;
c) in the process of winning tonight and tying for first place once more, claim the division tiebreaker over Atlanta, thanks to what would be a 10-9 season series advantage;
d) defeat last-place Washington as often over the succeeding three dates as the Braves defeat the Marlins (doing it, not just saying it);
e) finish in first place;
f) exhale;
g) proceed to the Division Series without installing along their potential championship path an additional obstacle called the Wild Card Series, an exercise in which losing two games out of three would be lethal, thus you might as well avoid the extra steps and possible pitfalls inherent in that unforeseen detour if you can.
Should all of those absolutely conceivable events unfold, order up a clinching pizza and pour yourself a nice glass of bubbly. You’ve won the NL East. That’s something to toast and a fitting reward for a long season that, until very recently, has been extremely worthy of celebrating.
And if it doesn’t? If the second-place Mets remain the second-place Mets and go to the playoffs as the top-seeded Wild Card and commence postseason activity several days sooner than desired? Grab a slice and a sip anyway, for the answer lies within the question. The Mets will be in the playoffs. They’ll have to deal with a best-of-three against a quality team capable of knocking them off and out — at the moment, San Diego — and if that’s the draw of the cards between tonight and Wednesday evening, well, the Mets will be ensconced within a playoff structure that has been generously widened to allow for losing first place, provided you haven’t dropped it with a resounding thud and won sufficiently before a little too much ill-timed losing set in.
That’s not just the postseason the Mets are going to regardless of what happens in one more game at Atlanta and three versus Washington at Citi Field. That’s a whole new season, or a series of highly condensed ones. Close to a hundred wins and (hopefully) counting earns you at least that much these days: a chance to extend your winning ways or a chance to freshen up from your visit to the doldrums. Twelve teams out of thirty will be in the playoffs. Eighteen teams won’t. Even if they don’t shake off this sudden fascination with landing in second place, the Mets belong to the party of the first part.
Party like it’s 1999 [5], like it could be 1969 [6]. It surely beats moping like it’s 1979 [7].
[8]Having more than two aces can help you find your place again.
What card do the Mets have up their sleeves to optimize the remainder of their journey? I do believe I see another ace. The name “Chris Bassitt [9]” doesn’t shimmer from a distance the way “Jacob deGrom” and “Max Scherzer” do when they top the GAME TONITE marquee, but if the pitching half of my season came down to just one Met starter in 2022, and I pulled a Bassitt from the deck, I wouldn’t have the slightest inclination to throw it back. I do believe Chris has been the stealth ace of this team from April through September. Righty rather than lefty, I nonetheless get a strong Bobby Ojeda [10] vibe from him. The Mets went 4-0 in postseason games started by Bobby O in 1986. Twice he was masterful. Twice he mastered the challenge of not letting a Game Six get away when it very well could have slipped into oblivion. Gooden, Darling and Fernandez all had All-Star accolades attached to their names headed into October of 1986. Ojeda, who didn’t, was the guy I wanted out there most.
(Bobby Ojeda and a problem with a finger on the eve of another postseason and its disturbing historical parallel to the current status of Starling Marte constitute a different thread for a different day. Not gonna pull on that one right now.)
DeGrom isn’t done because he didn’t outduel Max Fried on Friday night. Scherzer isn’t done because he didn’t outduel Kyle Wright on Saturday night. The Mets aren’t done because they didn’t touch the Brave bullpen enough on Friday or at all on Saturday. This ace talk can be a little simplistic. But aces do get your attention even if they don’t always hold your place.
On to the next pair. Chris Bassitt has the ball tonight. So does Charlie Morton. They’re both pitchers you’d assign a value of no less than jack, queen or king on any given day. Bassitt will have to be better than Morton. Met relievers will have to be better than Brave relievers. Met hitters will have to stir from their stupor. Have faith that these Mets — they of the “98” under W and an indelible “x” or “y” alongside their name depending on where you study your standings — can ace this test. I don’t know that they will, but they can. Faith, like the common household object you might use as a bookmark, is already something you have within easy reach. Don’t give up on it or these Mets. Don’t be overwhelmed by doubt. This is neither the time nor the place.