It wasn’t raining Tuesday night. The problem was one of tenses — not what was happening weather-wise but what had happened. It wasn’t raining, but it had rained. Considerably. Considerably as in “enough that they give the concentration of rain a proper name and track it over the ocean like it’s an invasion fleet.”
An amount of rain, in other words, that might make you cover an infield.
The grass-mowing, sod-tending members of the Mets didn’t do that while the bat-swinging, error-making members of the Mets were losing games in Philadelphia. Why? Beats me. The reason hasn’t been made clear, perhaps because it can’t be made clear. I’m neither a meteorologist nor a groundskeeper, but it seems to me that the presence of a tropical storm suggests a tarp be deployed.
No rain Tuesday, no game Tuesday. The field was unplayable, the Marlins’ reaction was unprintable, and I can’t say I blame them. If Francisco Lindor [1] had offered the Marlins a jaunty “let’s play two” on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, one of them might have punched him in the face, and I wouldn’t really have been able to say I blamed them for that either. The Marlins are scratching and clawing for a postseason berth; any scratching and clawing done by the Mets makes you back away worrying about fleas.
Despite their wrath, the Marlins didn’t exactly come blazing out of the gate Wednesday afternoon. Pete Alonso [2] homered and Lindor homered and Mark Vientos [3] homered and Joey Lucchesi [4] motored through the Miami lineup. You could see when the Marlins quit in that first game — Jorge Soler [5] showed no particular interest in participating while in right field, which means the Little League remedy for such aptitude was already unavailable — and I wondered if they’d bring anything to the fight in the nightcap.
But they did: The Mets bent Johnny Cueto [6], as Lindor hit his third home run of the day and joined the 30-30 club, but couldn’t break him. Meanwhile, Kodai Senga [7] struck out his 200th guy in his season finale, but also gave up a pair of homers, resulting in a stalemate.
The second game looked like it was going to turn when Jake Burger [8] was at the plate with the bases loaded, two out and the score tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh, facing a rather shaky looking Phil Bickford [9]. But Burger had to deal not only with Bickford but also with home-plate umpire Ramon De Jesus, whose strike zone was the kind of abstract art that makes you sniff that “my kid could do that.” (And if you’re right in that appraisal, please discourage your kid from both art school and umpire school.) De Jesus punched Burger out on a pitch that was clearly outside, then ejected Burger when he slammed down his helmet in thoroughly understandable disgust, tossing Skip Schumaker [10] for good measure when the Marlins skipper came out to remind De Jesus that no one came to Citi Field to watch him.
That substitution looked fateful two innings later, when Adam Ottavino [11] loaded the bases with nobody out (sigh) and found himself facing not Burger but Yuli Gurriel [12]. (If I weren’t too tired, I’d try for a Hamburger Helper joke here. Let’s just pretend I did and it was funny.) Gurriel smacked an Ottavino sweeper right at Brett Baty [13], and all Baty had to do next was throw the ball home and watch Omar Narvaez [14] step on the plate and then watch him heave the ball to Alonso at first, which would turn the inning around, and then…
…except Baty did what I just did. He tried to make the throw before he caught the ball and … oof. It’s been that kind of year for the kid.
Baty turned two outs into none, it was quickly 4-2 in favor of the finny visitors, and soon after that the Mets were done and the Marlins had not only survived but also pulled into a tie for the last wild-card spot. A split [15] — which, if you think about it, wasn’t bad for a day’s work, as it required beating the Mets (well, once at least), the Mets’ groundskeepers, bad umpiring, a tropical storm and some measure of unkind fate.
You could almost admire it … well, if it weren’t the Marlins we’re talking about.