When your team’s bad you spend a lot of time fuming about how it should be made good. This guy who’s failed too often needs to lose his job to this guy who hasn’t failed yet, any fool can see the lineup should be revamped so it works like this, etc.
I’m not generally one for half-measures, so my favorite proposed remedy is to declare that the Powers That Be should DFA everybody, which has never happen but would indeed sure show ’em. I have on occasion gone a step further and advocated that the Mets be contracted, though that usually requires them to have offended me by doing something truly dreadful, such as losing six of seven.
That’s the formula for bad times. When your team’s good, on the other hand? Lips tend to stay zipped. Nobody wants to offend the baseball gods, those capricious beings capable of directing batted balls past or into gloves. And, really, what is there to say?
On Friday night the Mets beat the Kansas City Royals, who’d won seven straight and attracted all sorts of accolades for their youth and dynamism, by the rather convincing score of 6-1 [1]. They got key hits and airtight defense from Brett Baty [2], solid work from Luis Severino [3] and the bullpen, a no-doubter of a homer from Pete Alonso [4], and a ridiculous number of two-out hits. Seriously, the last part was mildly absurd: Ten of the Mets’ 14 hits came with two outs, and five of those timely tallies drove in runs. No wonder Michael Wacha [5], our old friend from the bell jar 2020 season, spent a good chunk of the evening stamping around the mound looking consternated.
“Don’t make a third out” isn’t a particularly replicable formula, so maybe just shrug and enjoy that part, but it wasn’t all the baseball gods deciding to scatter rose petals: Beyond Baty’s welcome continuing maturation (or at least his continuing run of confidence-breeding good results), Jeff McNeil [6] looks more like his old self of late and Harrison Bader [7]‘s bat has come alive. Severino’s pitches didn’t strike me as particularly sharp, and he lost the plate at times, but his last act was to fan Royals phenom Bobby Witt Jr. [8] with KC threatening to make it a game again, and that final line is undeniable regardless of how many caveats you attach to it.
It’s also not like the Mets are firing on all cylinders. The baseball gods have apparently forgiven Brandon Nimmo [9], but both Starling Marte [10] and Francisco Lindor [11] have hit in oddly poor luck. Oddly for them, of course; it’s not odd at all for someone in the lineup to be suffering a run of misfortune, just as it isn’t odd for someone else in that lineup to be enjoying unexpectedly good results when meeting ball with bat. (Not to ruin a good story, but so far in 2024 that’s Baty.)
The fans greeted Lindor with standing Os, offering an antidote to some vile social-media drive-bys on his family; there hasn’t been the same mutterings or poor behavior about Marte, probably because everyone’s still glad to see him hale and hearty again and he’s less of a heart-on-his-sleeve player than Lindor, which gives onlookers less to react to. (Also: Even if I were reincarnated as a skeevy Internet troll, I would prefer to not have Starling Marte angry at me.)
Lindor expressed his gratitude, saying being cheered “fills my heart” (aw); one imagines a few more balls touching down on grass would have the same effect. Maybe the baseball gods will grant that wish next. Or maybe they won’t. We’d never presume to tell them what to do, after all.