Lucky Stiffs

The schedule works out well for the Mets this weekend, positioning them to take advantage of their place in the standings. They are three games out of the third Wild Card spot in the National League and they are in Pittsburgh for three games this weekend to take on the team that it turns out is their target. The Pirates, if you haven’t noticed, are the NL’s six-seed du jour, themselves running two games behind the provisional five-seed Marlins. The situation is fluid, but if the playoffs started today (which they don’t), the Pirates would be in. If the playoffs started today, the Mets would be out.

Way out.

If it seems irrelevant to the point of laughable to invoke playoffs after what we’ve witnessed from the Mets these past three days in particular and seven weeks in general — they’ve been more Jim Mora than Melvin Mora — well, it’s June 9 and 99 games remain in the 2023 season, and if you renew your Mets fandom annually for the long haul of a given baseball season, that’s what they’re giving us. We have a chance to remain invested in the pursuit of a postseason berth. Just not the one we thought would be in our grasp.

The Mets’ participation in the divisional race is essentially over. It’s June 9, and 99 games remain in the 2023 season, yet the Mets have consigned themselves to a different, lesser competitive sphere for the foreseeable future. Granted, in these Air Quality Alert times we can barely foresee down the block, but these Mets have to look up too high to make out their initial goal of first place in the NL East. On a clear day, from where they have mired themselves in fourth, they can no longer see Atlanta.

Thursday night’s finale in their three-game series versus the Braves at Truist Park hinted at what could make the Mets viable for the rest of the year and emphasized all that may very well eliminate them from even semi-serious consolation contention. They did forge a comeback. They did add on. They did exude enthusiasm and, for a while, didn’t say die. They played young and spunky and gave us hope at a hostile locale where fatalism had overtaken our view of what was possible.

Ultimately, though, their fate was to lose, 13-10, in ten innings to the Braves. If this type of loss had come at the hands of any other National League opponent, you’d almost shrug it off as one of those games where each club went to town on the other club’s pitching and the slugfest simply didn’t end the right way. But, no, this wasn’t that. This was horrible Met starting pitching from a source whose excellence was advertised as implicit; horrible Met relieving from everybody asked to get enough outs to help us make it through the night; and, despite the ten runs and fourteen hits and the overcoming of an early 0-3 deficit, horrible offense when it mattered most.

The team that can produce a grand slam — Brandon Nimmo’s — to compensate for their co-ace’s — Justin Verlander’s — staggering shortfall, and slot their hottest shot rookie catcher ever — Francisco Alvarez — as DH and get two home runs from him, and survive, to a point, a night without their biggest bopper (get well, Pete Alonso’s wrist), isn’t without merit. Two hits apiece from McNeil, Lindor and Baty. Three from the slowly awakening Marte. Tommy Pham continuing to make himself something more than useful. No sign of Daniel Vogelbach anywhere except in the dugout where he patted backs and shouted encouragement. Through the tops of five innings, the second through the sixth, mainly at the expense of otherwise able Atlanta starter Spencer Strider, we saw what this team can do and why we expected so much.

In the bottoms of innings, and as the night went on, we grew to understand why we now say adios to expectations. Verlander had no command and no answers. The most-accomplished pitcher working in the major leagues lasted three innings, allowing seven hits and four walks, somehow not trailing when he left. After Justin, it was bullpen roulette straight out of the Jerry Manuel era. Whoever Buck Showalter called on imploded to some degree. The nth degree came down to Tommy Hunter, the quintessential “I forgot he was still here” reliever, who was all Buck had available to stem the recurring Brave tide in the bottom of the tenth. Atlanta, like New York, was furnished with a complementary baserunner on second. Unlike when New York had theirs in the top of the tenth, the Braves pushed — powered — theirs across. Five different Brave batters homered, off five different Met pitchers. Seven Mets pitched. Each was scored upon either organically or via inherited runner.

In the realm of the now dormant Met-Brave rivalry (because rivalry implies two comparable foes competing at the same level for the same prize), the most disturbing part of Thursday night was the inevitability of it all. Tuesday night, the Mets held a 4-1 lead and lost to the Braves. Wednesday night, the Mets held a 4-1 lead and lost to the Braves. In 2022, the Mets held a double-digit lead at the outset of June and lost the NL East to the Braves, with Games 157, 158 and 159 in Atlanta serving as death blows. Thus, despite the energizing nature of Nimmo slamming grand and Alvarez’s bombs bursting in air and the 10-6 lead the Mets held as late as the middle of the sixth inning on Thursday, you kind of knew what was coming. Or who was coming.

Against the Braves, the Mets find a way to score ten runs through six innings, yet then go silent for as many innings remain. Against the Mets, there’s always a Brave ready to go as deep as a Brave needs to go to do the Mets in. Austin Riley off of Verlander. Marcell Ozuna off of Stephen Nogosek. Travis d’Arnaud off of Drew Smith. Orlando Arcia in the bottom of the ninth off of David Robertson. Finally, Ozzie Albies off of Hunter to walk/stomp it off in the tenth. Tommy took the loss. David was charged with a blown save. None of the above, nor non-gophered relievers Jeff Brigham and Brooks Raley, prevented runs. Team effort that.

The blur of the season that’s been in progress for more than two months yet feels endless has landed at a record of 30-33. If it looks familiar, that’s because twenty games ago, the Mets’ record was 20-23. Experientially, there’s no frigging way the Mets have played .500 ball for the past three or so weeks, yet this stretch has included that five-game flourish of fantastic finishes versus Tampa Bay and Cleveland and that three-game sweep of Philadelphia. Hard to remember, I know. During both of those oases in this otherwise arid campaign, I figured, all right, we’re back on track to where we’re supposed to be going, let’s go. Except this same stretch has also included two losses in three games to the Cubs; two losses in three games to the Rockies; three losses in three games to the Blue Jays; and three losses in three games to the Braves, each component of that last trilogy of horror lost despite having led in all of them by three or more runs, representing a new milestone in Met consecutive-loss futility. Also, if you’re keeping masochistic score, the Mets had never lost a 13-10 game before. Until now.

These Mets are lucky to have gone 10-10 in these last twenty games.
These Mets are lucky to be only three games under .500.
These Mets may appear to be a bunch of stiffs, but they are lucky stiffs.

These same Mets could sweep the surprising Pirates this weekend and, if other games in other places cooperate, they can substantially improve their playoff position by Monday (when, like today, the season doesn’t end), yet I doubt, even if they pulled this temporary 180, I would believe the Mets are heading toward the top tier of their division or their league. Maybe that’s where they were “supposed” to be, but the supposition has proven inaccurate. This is a ballclub that can do some fine things, but isn’t doing them on any kind of sustained basis. Maybe they still will, because it’s a long season, and long seasons can be forgiving if the causation of early or not-so-early missteps can be addressed and reversed. Maybe it will be enough to keep them engaged in a chase for something other than their own tails, because six teams now make the postseason in each league, and such a format forestalls funeral arrangements for a ballclub one good weekend away from fortifying its fortunes. Not dead yet is what the Mets have going for them with 99 games to play.

At the moment, the Mets are in the fourth place in the race for the third Wild Card in the National League, three games behind Pittsburgh, with both San Francisco and Philadelphia between them. San Diego and Cincinnati are closer to rear of the Mets than the Mets are to the rear of the Pirates. It’s all volatile and subject to change, but get to know these names, because these are now our neighbors. The Wild Card race, if the Mets manage to remain as lucky as they’ve been of late, is where we live.

They trail the first-place Braves by 8½ in the NL East, but I don’t expect to pay much attention to that team or that margin very much for the rest of this season. The Braves are out of the Mets’ league.