Empty Garden

Jose Quintana came highly recommended on Angi when you were looking for a gardener. He wasn’t necessarily the best, but he was very good. So you contacted him. Jose informed you he’d be very happy to help you with all your gardening needs, except he had to tend to a medical situation before he could tend to your lawn, but if you could wait a few months, he’d be sure to come by. Yes, you said, and you wrote down the appointment, and Jose wrote down the appointment.

Except you forgot all about Jose and, when the spring and the first part of summer weren’t what you were expecting, and your lawn looked beyond repair, and you had all your grass pulled in favor of a makeshift rock garden while he was recuperating from whatever ailed him. Thus, when Jose, who it turned out was very diligent, kept his word and rang your bell, you didn’t really have the job for him that you agreed on.

“Um,” you were forced to improvise, “how are you in terms of working with a bunch of rocks?”

Jose’s a total pro. Sure, you don’t have the fancy lawn you had when you hired him, but a deal’s a deal. Jose now looks after your rocks approximately every five days and does a damn fine job of it.

They’re still rocks, of course.

In the world we know, Mr. Quintana was supposed to be a solid No. 3 starter for a pennant contender that no longer exists. It barely existed once he showed up for work shortly after the All-Star break. It’s nothing but dust now. Yet Jose is pretty much the pitcher the Mets signed last December. He’ll give your team every chance to win. If your team is These Mets, every chance will not be put to any use.

In Baltimore on Sunday, Quintana gave the Mets six terrific innings, leaving with two runners on in the seventh and trailing, 1-0. Had Rafael Ortega timed a dive better in center, Jose would not have allowed a triple that set up the lone run, which scored when Mark Vientos didn’t execute better on a grounder to third. Journeyman Ortega’s not supposed to be here at all and young Vientos is gaining some of that valuable experience for which early-arriving ass ends of seasons are made. One run in six innings. Who could ask for anything more?

The bottom of the seventh began when Old Friend™ James McCann decided nobody wearing a Mets uniform should be safe from his scorn. McCann doubled off Quintana. Ryan McKenna — one of approximately 18 Orioles named Ryan — singled McCann to third. Quintana left the mound after 92 pitches, climbed into his truck and waved goodbye, planning to see the Mets and their rocks in five or six days. Trevor Gott entered the scene and made only the mistake of allowing an Oriole to make contact. Ryan O’Hearn (see?) grounded to Danny Mendick at second. Mendick could have thrown home. McCann all but dared him to throw home, decelerating for a rundown that never developed, because Mendick passed on the potential out at home to get the all-important out at second.

That was the second Baltimore run and the ballgame. Actually, the first Baltimore run was the ballgame, because the Mets basically asked Quintana to carry the load of rocks himself. They didn’t hit for him. They didn’t field for him or his successor, thus a second earned run landed on Jose’s ledger. And the rest of the day wasn’t tangibly different. Orioles win, 2-0. Orioles sweep the Mets. Mets lose their sixth in a row.

In a parallel universe, in which…

• Steve Cohen entered the clubhouse in a slightly soggy half-zip two Thursday nights ago during the rain delay, expressed to the assembled damp players that he and wife Alex still maintain all the confidence in the world in you boys, now go get ’em when they take that tarp off;

• David Robertson warmed anew (up-downs be damned) and retired the Nationals in advance of several save opportunities to come;

• Tommy Pham and Mark Canha filled in capably for Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte on the road trip ahead;

• Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander took their scheduled turns against Interleague competition, leaving David Peterson in the bullpen and Tylor Megill at Syracuse;

• and instead of going 0-6 in Kansas City and Baltimore, the 2023 Mets went maybe 3-3, probably 2-4, probably not whatever it would have taken to make us convince one another We Gotta Believe.

Though there’s no telling. The once dead Cubs have moved into a playoff position. The terminally underachieving Padres have charged toward if not completely into the fray. The Mets couldn’t have been the next also-ran to suddenly start achieving and let us dream a little dream of October and give us something to build off from there?

They couldn’t have been as bad as they’ve been since Robertson was traded and everybody who remained once the others were traded took that transaction as the whitest of flags, but, to be fair, they weren’t supposed to be as bad as they had been before management gave up on the season. The players who were left and the players who took the place the of the players who departed may simply be following suit. If they haven’t intentionally surrendered, they have failed to bring the verve or the nerve or whatever the hell it is major leaguers are supposed to have that allows them to compete at the highest level, whether it’s against a last-place outfit like KC or a high-flying unit like those O’s. Maybe everybody’s truly trying their best. Maybe nobody’s truly capable of succeeding. That’s the universe we inhabit, even if it’s the one we’ve been instructed to look past. Look instead at that lush-lawned universe slated to emerge in two or three years. Be sure to stay alive and well until 2025, 2026 at the latest. Just we wait.

There’s a new world comin’
And it’s just around the bend

It worked before. Maybe it’ll work again.

In our current space-time continuum, Jose Quintana, hopefully enjoying a hard-earned cold one, puts his feet up and wonders why those people asked him to do this job. He really thought he’d be working a lush lawn and maybe learn something from a couple of legendary gardeners with whom he’d barely shaken hands before they took off in their own much fancier trucks. “Ah, whatever,” he concludes. “Summer will be over before we know it.”