The Mets — yes, those Mets, the ones you root for even though the reason is no longer faintly discernable — won a baseball game.
A baseball game played against the Atlanta Braves, no less.
They won it slowly and then in a hurry and then slowly again: Kodai Senga [1] fell behind 3-0 in the first when he surrendered a bases-clearing double to Marcell Ozuna [2], but harnessed his ghost fork after that, which gave the Mets time to ambush Yonny Chirinos [3] in the 5th.
That inning featured what might be the least impressive batting around I can recall: a flurry of soft singles, fielders’ choices, three straight walks and a catcher’s interference call. But it was enough to change the score from 3-1 Braves to 5-3 Mets, and then a sharp single from Rafael Ortega [4] gave the Mets a 7-3 lead. Ortega was the first man to bat in the inning and the 10th, collecting bookend singles and reminding all of us that he was pretty effective in an everyday role for the Cubs not all that long ago, and so perhaps shouldn’t be chucked on the mental pile with the rest of the misfit toys filling out the current lineup.
If you detect a certain weariness and cynicism to that perhaps, well, welcome to the 2023 Mets.
The Braves didn’t play with particular urgency once they fell behind, leaving old friend Collin McHugh [5] out there to absorb some innings, which is the right of a first-place team more interested in testing guys and tuning up their roster with the postseason in sight. But being the Braves they still almost caught the Mets, whittling away at the lead with Sean Murphy [6] and Matt Olson [7] homers. 7-6 Mets looked like a recipe for disaster entering the 9th, but Adam Ottavino [8] had one of his better outings of a confounding year, needing just eight pitches to send the Braves away empty-handed for once — and, I imagine, sending Greg and pal Kevin [9] home happy after the baseball equivalent of a MAN BITES DOG story.
There was nothing remarkable about the Braves losing this one — they were auditioning pitchers for roles, one of them ran out of gas and the other one is still looking to fix what’s broke — beyond the fact that we didn’t think the Braves could lose, at least not to us.
But they did [10], so you’re allowed a little pep in your step pending the Mets reporting for duty against the Pirates. There’s a lot of season left and not a lot of hope attending it, so gather ye rosebuds while ye may and all that.