Letting the Chips Fall

Things are getting chippy between the Mets and A’s — and you know what, that’s fine. Baseball should be a little chippy.

Tuesday saw Austin Adams, whom most of us forgot was ever a spring training Met, all but levitate after coming in and saving Joe Boyle‘s bacon, a display that culminated with Adams doing the Mets’ OMG pantomime. (Which I assume he never witnessed in Port St. Lucie, but who am I to police the pettiness of others?)

So on Wednesday, after Francisco Lindor homered off Joey Estes in the third inning to give the Mets a 2-0 lead, it was of course time for the obligatory OMG, which Lindor just happened to direct not at his own dugout nor at the stands but in the direction of the A’s pen. Unless Lindor’s message was for Adams’s relief colleague T.J. McFarland, whom I had no memory of as a 2023 Met and so required a trip to The Holy Books for verification. Yep, McFarland’s in there (as a Syracuse Met); no, I still don’t remember him.

I do remember Mike Cameron, who was at Citi Field to cheer on his son Daz, now employed by the A’s. Next to Cameron during a Steve Gelbs interview was Phil Nevin, whom I also remember, and whose son Tyler is also employed by the A’s. That got me wondering about Estes, who I figured had to be the son of Shawn Estes. Poor Shawn Estes — he homered off Roger Clemens, not something starting pitchers generally do, and yet is remembered primarily for failing to hit the Rocket with a pitch in that same game.

For the record, no, Joey Estes is not the son of Shawn Estes. And while he’s a little chippy himself, his location was off: In the second, Mark Vientos ripped a scorcher down the third-base line that Darell Hernaiz couldn’t corral, bringing in Jesse Winker for the Mets’ first run. Estes flung his hands up to his head, following that with an arms-out, WTF gesture; between innings, he walked right by Hernaiz. Ron Darling didn’t miss that and didn’t like it; after the game, Estes had a not very convincing alternative explanation for what had happened.

(Darling also noted it as a teachable moment for A’s manager Mark Kotsay, which I’m sure it was; we should always remember that baseball clubhouses are kabuki theaters, with Estes’ postgame comments the public display and something else quite possibly happening away from the cameras.)

Our last moment of chippiness came from David Peterson, who was not happy to see Carlos Mendoza coming out of the dugout to get him with two outs in the seventh and the Mets up 3-1. Peterson was superb (as he’s somewhat quietly been since making his belated season debut at the end of May) and wanted to keep going north of 90 pitches, which is something you’d like your starters to be a little chippy about. As it turned out, Huascar Brazoban cleaned up nicely and a six-run seventh drained the suspense from the game, with Danny Young and Adam Ottavino cleaning up.

Those last two Met runs came in on a double from scabby-nosed Pete Alonso, the last of his four hits on the night. Alonso had looked better in the first game of the series, not expanding the strike zone the way he’d been doing during a long slump, and I had the feeling something might be turning while refusing, as a lifetime Met fan with the scars to prove it, to say so with much confidence. An Alonso tear could mark yet another acceleration in this strangely stop-start Mets season and lead to more chippiness from opponents.

Which none of us would mind at all.