Back to the Track

The season began with plenty of warning, yet I found myself scrambling in the hours before and after Opening Day to update all the things I keep track of once the season is underway. The files I maintain for my and occasionally your amusement/edification looked like the aftermath of a party nobody had bother cleaning up from before turning out the lights on 2023. Damn, I had all winter to get these ready, yet I haven’t touched them since early October. Some things I monitor are germane to the dawn of a new year, others specific to baseball’s daily nature, others kept in reserve for when a specific oddity occurs.

It took me a few games to regain my keeping-track rhythm, but now I’ve returned to my groove. And, oh by the way, so have the Mets! On Thursday afternoon in Atlanta, they appeared to be the team that too often creams them, winning by a score of 16-4 while simultaneously pinning a loss on the Braves by — what a coincidence — that very same score. I may have been hallucinating, but I could swear I saw an awfully familiar utility infielder pitching for the team that was hopelessly behind.

The Braves are rarely hopelessly behind the Mets, either in a game or in a season, but some days surprisingly don’t belong to them. This one was the Mets’. My track-keeping fetishes and I happily shared it.

Facts that fascinated me in and around a matinee:

• The Mets were delayed by 42 minutes at the start. Not so fascinating, but it became their first rain delay of 2024 not to become a rainout (they’ve had four of those already). After a particularly soggy spring and summer a few seasons back, I began keeping track of how many minutes the Mets are delayed in a year. In 2023, we stood around and stared at our shoes for more than eighteen hours before somebody, one way or another, said ball could or couldn’t be played.

• After the offense had woven enough of a cushion in support of Jose Quintana and Drew Smith, Carlos Mendoza was confident enough to tell 29-year-old rookie lefty Tyler Jay to come on in, the lead is wide. Jay is a journeyman’s journeyman who persevered through quite a journey to replace Dedniel Nuñez on the roster and become a) the 1,233rd Met overall; b) the 427th player to make his major league debut as a Met; and c) the eighth Met in this century to feature a last name that ends in “ay”, joining Ruben Gotay (whose pronunciation of choice didn’t prepare him for this little club), Darren O’Day, Lance Broadway, Jason Bay, Trevor May, Sam Clay and Anthony Kay. Also, Jay, the latest temp to punch the clock in our gig economy bullpen, gave up a run while recording six outs, which stands as his most vital statistic, but you can track down that information anywhere.

• Luis Guillorme (pity it’s not GuillormAY) became the fifth Old Friend™ to compete versus the Mets this season, though the only position player to pitch against them thus far. In the non-trademarked Almost Acquainted category, we saw Allan Winans, a former Met farmhand, start for the Braves. We also lit him up for five innings. (Neither Travis d’Arnaud nor Jarred Kelenic were involved in this game, though they did show their faces earlier this week.)

• Amidst this backdrop of romping giddiness, word arrived that Julio Teheran, a Met in whom we invested our allegiance for the very first time a whole three nights earlier, was outrighted to Syracuse, declined the assignment and declared free agency. This means Julio — pending a Recidivistesque turn of events — has been set aside for next year’s edition of the annual Mets Who Have Left Us salute, a holding area where Phil Bickford (let go during the latter stages of St. Lucie sorting, only to fall in with a bad crowd), Michael Tonkin (swapped to the Twins for Cash Considerations, a name that must have been hell to carry around the schoolyard) and Yohan Ramirez (not good enough for us, but suddenly worthy of being an Oriole) find themselves loitering. Keeping track also means looking ahead.

• The 16-4 victory, enabled by 16 Met base hits and nearly as many Brave misplays, was the first 16-4 victory for the Mets since April 19, 2005. Our blog was just over two months old; Tyler Jay was celebrating his 11th birthday. The Mets hit seven home runs that night in Philadelphia, then a franchise record. On Thursday, only DJ Stewart and Tyrone Taylor went deep, but Stewart had a man on and Taylor’s was a grand slam. Sweet Sixteen, indeed.

• The Mets have now played one-dozen games in 2024, or their 2,988th dating to Opening Day 2005. When they play another dozen, Faith and Fear in Flushing will reach a triply grand milestone: 3,000 consecutive regular-season Met games blogged. THREE-THOUSAND CONSECUTIVE GAMES BLOGGED?!?! Really and truly. It sounds like a lot. It is a lot. It’s what happens when you stay with something relentlessly into a twentieth season. But you have to keep track of things to be aware of what you’ve done.