Turn the Lights Back On

Care for an omen? The Mets lost their last game of the season in 1968, a home game. They then lost their first game of the season in 1969, also a home game. That particular unpromising strand of homestanding Closing Day/Opening Day synergy hadn’t transpired again until they lost, 9-1, at home last October 1 to finish 2023 and then lost, 3-1, at home, on Friday to start 2024. Not all calendar-spanning two-game losing streaks are created equal. Some serve as prologue to unlikely world championships.

And some are just two losses in two different seasons. We’ll have plenty of opportunity to find out more of what the latest sample portends in the 161 games that follow.

One of the many Met coaches introduced on Opening Day might want to advise the hitters to start generating some electricity.

If you don’t care for an omen, mostly what you got out of Opening Day 2024, beyond a plethora of pageantry and a return to routine, was Carlos Mendoza’s inaugural edition of the New York Mets being one-hit and their second baseman being slid into in chippy fashion. The one hit was Starling Marte’s second-inning home run, a good sign to all who remember those halcyon days of Marte’s considerable skills not being compromised by injury. The chippiness was furnished by former Phillie Rhys Hoskins, now wearing the Cub Scout garb of the Milwaukee Brewers after a year of rehabbing a torn ACL. You can take the Hoskins out of the Phillies, but Chase Utley proved Buttleyness lingers anywhere. Hoskins, charging from first on a grounder to third in the eighth, took Jeff McNeil out after an infield force. Jeff himself said he wasn’t going for the double play, so he didn’t know what the hell Hoskins was doing coming at him spikes up, other than being Hoskins.

Umpire review confirmed the slide was legal. In a previous era, it might not have raised an eyebrow, but sliding directly into a guy’s left leg is generally frowned upon in today’s preservation-minded version of the sport. I don’t blame McNeil, who plays now and not a hundred year ago, for expressing displeasure, nor the benches for emptying Harrelson-Rose style in response to the escalating yaps. As for Hoskins making a wah-wah! gesture from the safety of the visiting dugout, there’s no rule against McNeil bunting up the first base line today, is there? Pity if he runs straight into the Milwaukee first baseman. What’s his name again? He used to the play for the Phillies, I believe.

The Brewers’ starting pitcher, Freddy Peralta, was magnificent. The Mets’ starting pitcher, Jose Quintana, mostly navigated through trouble. We got some good relief from Drew Smith and Michael Tonkin, less good relief from Jorge Lopez. As Opening Day usually offers, there was a lot of window dressing. Festive as it is, it loses a little oomph when your lineup is all but impotent and your second baseman is mistaken for second base.

Maybe we all need time to get our act together. Early on, I watched a Francisco Lindor fly ball travel to right and decided it had a chance to leave the park. Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was my out-of-practice perception, but the ball was headed nowhere near the fence. In a split second, my thought process shifted from “keep going!” to “don’t go so far, maybe you’ll fall in!” It wound up caught by a Brewer, but it was comforting to know I’m still on speaking terms with baseballs.

A bad omen for Opening Day might have shown itself in living color when the Mets couldn’t get through their pregame In Memoriam tribute without an unforced error. In attempting to remember lefthanded pitcher Ken MacKenzie (1934-2023), they displayed a picture of lefthanded pitcher Bobby Ojeda (1957- ). MacKenzie pitched for the Mets in 1962 and 1963 and died in December. Ojeda pitched for the Mets from 1986 to 1990 and, at last check, is still with us.

Top: Ken MacKenzie. Bottom: not Ken MacKenzie.

The mistake that took a routine good intention and dropped it on the transfer — when will the Mets ever again have reason to devote enormous video screen bandwidth to their first winning pitcher, a gentleman who cherished his Met affiliation? — is almost understandable if you know that MacKenzie and Ojeda each wore No. 19 at Old Timers Day in 2022, just as they did in their Met tenures. The picture of Ojeda is that of a fellow above standard playing age wearing No. 19 standing and waving to the crowd on that occasion. It’s a nice picture. But it’s of Ojeda, not MacKenzie (who needed to be wheeled to the foul line to take part in those 2022 ceremonies). The Mets made this same mistake in initially announcing MacKenzie’s passing, but corrected it shortly thereafter, if not permanently within their files. Quality control that amounts to “I’m doing a search for an old dude who wore No. 19 less than two years ago in this very ballpark” apparently nets you more than one match.