Who are these Mets, anyway?
Joey Lucchesi [1] was terrific, Mark Vientos [2] homered, Pete Alonso [3] drove in three on a homerless night and — in the most astonishing development of all — Trevor Gott [4] and Drew Smith [5] were allowed to pitch and didn’t fall apart like cheap watches. There was a nifty flying slide home by Jeff McNeil [6], some dopey D-Backs’ baserunning — really, there wasn’t much to complain about [7].
Not that it was complaint, exactly, but in our living room we fell into a discussion of players, at bats and the law of averages. After Francisco Lindor [8] finished a second dogged, tough at-bat, I remarked idly that it felt like Lindor looked hopeless in a surprisingly large percentage of the outs he made. That wasn’t meant as a dig, but as a point of puzzling contrast — I was trying to explain my confusion about a player whom I think of as a genuine star in terms of both production and leadership (witness his huddle with Alonso and DJ Stewart [9] to offer a scouting report on one of the Arizona relievers), but also as a guy who can look bizarrely lost at the plate. We talked about confirmation bias and things evening out, both of which were fair points, and I was challenged to name Mets who I remembered as never having the kind of ABs like the ones I was attributing to Lindor. Keith Hernandez [10] came to mind, as did David Wright [11] — or at least Wright as he was before he got hit in the head. In hindsight, I’d put Brandon Nimmo [12] in that category, at least before he started selling out for power a bit more. I don’t know what the answer is there — probably it’s simply that memory plays tricks — but still, I find Lindor a confounding mix of superstar and question mark.
Back to Lucchesi: An old baseball adage is never to trust what you see in garbage time, but he’s looked pretty good in his last two starts, even if those two mark his only big-league outings since May. And, oddly, he’s been no great shakes at Triple-A. That last note is a flashing yellow light I ought to heed, but I like Lucchesi’s non-nonsense demeanor and his simple, rock-and-fire motion. It feels like the Mets could do a lot worse than offering him another short-term deal and seeing what he can do as a rotation regular. Just like they could do worse than seeing what Stewart might accomplish as a fourth outfielder/DH.
I doubt Lucchesi and Stewart are at the core of a championship team. But that’s not the sole measure of success — being useful complementary players would be victory enough. Maybe that’s not the stuff of stirring reveries, but let’s let garbage time have its pleasures.