Despite indications it might never happen [1] in the course of a year that had only just begun [2], in their seventh game of 2023, the Mets (3-4) fell below .500 for the first time. So much for white lace and promises.
In their 61st game of 2023, the Mets (30-31) fell below .500 for what turned out to be — if you’ll excuse the expression — good. Watchin’ the signs along way told you there’d be no return above the break-even point.
In their 153rd game of 2023, in which they were defeated by the Phillies [3] in Philadelphia, 5-4, the Mets (71-82) made it official that they’d finish with a losing record.
And yes, we’ve just continued…to lose.
Eleven times over the past fifteen years, the Mets have lost more games in a season than they’ve won. By that very specific metric, this has been the worst fifteen-year period ever in Mets baseball, an enterprise that has been around long enough to contain multiple, overlapping fifteen-year periods and legendary amounts of losing. One wouldn’t intuitively think to measure the Mets by fifteen-year periods, except here we are, having finished under .500 for the eleventh time since 2009.
Which is to say this all feels a bit too familiar.
These past fifteen seasons have included four Septembers that have been more fun than not to blog during: 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2022. Those were the four seasons when the Mets finished with a winning record. This takes into account that the Mets’ bid for a Wild Card fell short in 2019 and the division lead was slipping away as 2022 wound down. Yet in both seasons they were a winning team overall. Until you’ve continuously covered, from an advocacy perspective, a ballclub that spends its Septembers almost never in a position to win more than it loses, you come to value the Septembers when the opposite is the case. A year like 2019, with no playoffs to show for a spirited second-half sprint, and a year like 2022, when a gaudy regular-season record isn’t quite good enough to clinch a division title, are, by comparison to what has otherwise been the norm in these parts, the stuff of a golden age. When you’re dealt years like 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 and now 2023, the pennant run of 2015 and the followup surge to one night of the postseason in 2016 shimmer as if emblematic of a mythic dynasty — particularly as one remembers the practically unyielding doldrums preceding that two-year interlude in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Still here, though.
Still mining silver linings, like thinking it was encouraging that almost if not every time they fell behind Thursday night, the Mets came back to tie the Phils.
Still getting excited over the latest prospect who shows a little pop, like Mark Vientos [4] homering again.
Still taking solace in a veteran hitting his stride when he earlier appeared unmoored from his previous form, like 2B-LF-RF Jeff McNeil [5] continuing to play everywhere and hit everything (single, double, triple, a couple of runs, a couple of ribbies, even a stolen base).
Still tuning in whenever the Mets play, wherever they air or stream.
Still planning another trip or two to the ballpark to soak up the last of this next-to-last-place team’s endeavors before they end.
Still reading explanations and gleaning rationalizations [6] for what went wrong this time.
Still writing about the experience for anybody who’s still interested more days than not.
Four winning seasons in the past fifteen. Three that have included extensions of the year beyond was what initially scheduled. One that has gone as far as participation in a World Series. No world championships in any of these fifteen seasons, nor any of the fifteen seasons before these, plus none in however many preceded those until you count back to 1986, which is as close to today as 1949 was to 1986 in 1986. Thirteen winning records in the twenty-two seasons spanning 1987 to 2008. We blogged the last four of those. A couple of Septembers therein admittedly tested the concept of fun with winning records, but any way you cut or collapse it, over .500 is over .500.
In a matter of days, perhaps hours, the losing-record 2023 Mets will also be mathematically eliminated from postseason contention, another formality. At that moment, the “haven’t won since…” clock ticks forward to 38 years, and the 2024/1986 temporal relationship analogizes to 1986/1948. The Cleveland franchise won its most recent world championship in 1948. By 1986, they had waited forever. By next year, their fans will therefore have waited two forevers, meaning we’ll have one under our belt. But, after a while, unless you keep count, you lose count, because when you lose more often than you win so often, it all feels like forever. Fifteen Septembers with eleven seasons concluding on the wrong side of .500 is enough losing to last you a lifetime that you devote to a ballclub that probably doesn’t mean to devote itself to losing, yet there they are, finishing another year when they’ve done exactly that.
And here you are reminding yourself and anybody else who shares your wavelength that first pitch tonight from Citizens Bank Park is at 7:05 PM on Apple TV+.
I’m also reminding you to listen to the latest episode of National League Town [7], which includes a paean to dashed expectations; a milestone-anniversary remembrance of one of the losing years among the eleven referenced above; and a tribute to someone we lost too soon. Believe it or not, it’s cheerier than it sounds.