The Mets are suddenly good.
Well, not good exactly. Statistically speaking, they’re average. But in the vibes column — which you won’t find in your paper, on MLB.com or Baseball Reference, so don’t look for it — the Mets are killing it.
They rose to average statistically and red hot vibe-istically by beating the Pirates in an odd affair on Jackie Robinson Night, with both Mets and Bucs wearing blue 42s on their backs and their meeting blessed by the regal presence of Rachel Robinson, now 101. She, of course, was very much a partner in Jackie Robinson’s drama, which is somehow both long ago and ever-present given how much his work remains unfinished; seeing her greeted pregame by the likes of Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo gave me that same chill that a rich baseball connection always inspires.
By the way, I was Shea in April 1997 on the night MLB announced mid-game that 42 was being retired, up in the upper deck watching Bud Selig, Rachel Robinson and President Clinton. It’s the coldest I’ve ever been at a baseball game, if you don’t count one May afternoon in Candlestick Park. I remember three pretty random facts: being so cold that my misery ebbed into a worrisome “To Build a Fire” lethargy; that Selig mentioned Butch Huskey would get to keep wearing 42 and that I was pretty sure that was the only time Bud Selig had ever said or would ever say Butch Huskey’s name; and that Toby Borland did his best work as a Met that night, much to the relief of all of us turning into freeze-dried corpses up in the tundralike red seats.
It was just a little warmer Monday night, in the high 60s after a sparkling spring day that had seen the mercury approach 80. The Mets and Pirates picked up where the Mets and Royals had left off, with neither team able to push across a run. Which was statistically similar to what Jose Butto and Cole Ragans had done on Dwight Gooden‘s special day, except Butto’s great stuff had been obvious and I had no idea how Adrian Houser was surviving: He kept walking guys and leaving pitches in the middle of the plate, which were somehow missed by increasingly exasperated Pirates.
Houser’s luck ran out, as one had figured it would, in the sixth: Andrew McCutchen got a second lease on life when home-plate ump Edwin Moscoso called a sinker that caught the bottom of the strike zone a ball. (Hey you: foreshadowing.) Two pitches later Houser left a sinker in the middle of the plate and this time his largesse was accepted: McCutchen spanked it through the infield to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead and end Houser’s night. Drew Smith came on and was lousy, pushing Pittsburgh’s lead up to 3-0, and Citi Field had become a sea of mutterings.
But the Mets equalized things in a hurry in the bottom of the inning, scoring three runs of their own in rapid succession on a Francisco Alvarez bases-loaded walk, a Jeff McNeil sac fly enabled by Connor Joe inexplicably spiking the ball into the turf, and a DJ Stewart pinch-hit double scorched over Joe’s head. The Mets got exemplary work from Brooks Raley and Adam Ottavino, whose slider/sweeper has never looked sharper than it has the last two nights, and then the Pirates imploded.
2024 has been good to Pittsburgh so far, but the eighth inning was the stuff of nightmares, one of those games you find yourself fuming about at 3 am weeks later. Aroldis Chapman got Alvarez looking at a third strike, but the putaway came three pitches after Moscoso clearly missed a previous third strike. That left Chapman clearly in a state of at least moderate agitation. He struck out McNeil on a slider in the dirt, but it eluded Henry Davis and so got McNeil to first. Stewart walked, with three of the balls granted extremely close, and now Chapman had gone from simmering to roiling. McNeil and Stewart pulled off a double steal and Harrison Bader ripped a double down the left-field line to give the Mets a two-run lead and earn Chapman a shower after jawing with Moscoso for his previous sins.
The Pirates weren’t done with their pratfalls: Bader stole third off Roansy Contreras basically uncontested, and after the Pirates belatedly brought the infield in, he streaked for home on a bounder by Nimmo to the second baseman. The ball went all of 110 feet but Bader slipped beneath Davis’s tag, popped up with the sixth run and swaggered into the dugout — not quite Trea Turner‘s Fred Astaire move through the plate on the cool factor scale, but pretty close. Bader looks healthy for the first time in years, he’s mashing lefties, and he slathers any play he’s involved in with a little mustard. And I’m starting to love him, for those reasons as well as for his marvelous Lindoresque pink batting gloves, his giddy dugout yammering in the direction of anyone who might be listening, and the mean center field he plays.
Edwin Diaz came in, and truth be told he once again didn’t look quite himself, which might be a thing to watch. But it was the lone blemish on a night that started as celebratory but solemn and ended in gleeful abandon. The Mets are .500, but their vibes differential suggests a better record than that. Which is a bit of advanced stats I can get behind.
I’m still not sure what “self” Edwin Diaz is, post-injury. He seems to be getting the job done, but we don’t hear much about how he’s feeling.
After 1/10th of the season my assessment is, “We don’t suck.”
That may not be much but I’d have taken it when we were sitting 0-5.
Even though he gave up a HR, the final Royals game is the only time I thought Diaz approached his 2022 self. Hoping it’s just rust. But even at 80% he’s getting it done.