Was it David Robertson [1]‘s fault, or just his turn?
The Mets normally reliable post-World Baseball Classic Plan B closer was called upon to protect a 4-2 lead in the eighth against the Giants and started by striking out old friend Wilmer Flores [2], who’d homered earlier. (With Wilmer, J.D. Davis [3] and a hamstrung Michael Conforto [4] on the roster, the Giants have become something of a Mets tribute band, playing hits from years when you actually liked the team.) Joc Pederson [5] hit a grounder to first which Pete Alonso [6] — so frustrated it’s a surprise when he doesn’t snap a bat over some portion of his anatomy — misplayed for an error. Peterson walked the aforementioned Davis to bring up Patrick Bailey [7], whom you’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of before, seeing how he started this season as a Richmond Flying Squirrel.
Bailey found one heck of a nut, driving a Robertson curveball over the center-field fence for a 5-4 Giant lead. A lead the Giants held [8], with insult added to injury in the ninth as Bailey made a perfect throw to gun down pinch-runner Starling Marte [9] on a steal attempt about a nanosecond before Brandon Nimmo [10] struck out to end the game.
Important note: You just read Bailey’s name multiple times. The temptation is always to attribute a loss to some moral deficiency, but sometimes it would be simpler to say the other guys won. I will now climb down off this soapbox and complain some more.
It’s all bad. It’s all so so bad.
The loss marked the end of a 7-19 June in which the Mets played eight one-run games and lost seven of them, surrendered 14 1/2 games in the NL East and 10 in the wild card, and went from contenders about whom we grumbled to dead men walking about whom we’d prefer not to think at all. (I cribbed those stats from the Athletic, which explores [11] if what just ended was the worst month in franchise history.)
Some of these Mets will be elsewhere when this month ends, with Tommy Pham [12] leading the list of those likely to have their sentences commuted. Maybe Robertson will join him, so long as further performances like Friday night’s don’t reduce the return on him from “Double-A lottery ticket” to “already opened bag of sunflower seeds.” Mark Canha [13], Marte and Brooks Raley [14] could have new homes, one supposes. Perhaps someone will take a flyer on Max Scherzer [15] and/or Justin Verlander [16], preferably someone with a time machine and/or a stack of Get Out of Stupid Pitch Clock Free cards.
We’ll see, and by then we’ll know what other horrors this star-crossed team has had inflicted on it and in turn passed on to us. Can’t wait!