Three-and-oh? You take. Of course you take. You always take on three-and-oh. Maybe not always always, but when you’re tied in the bottom of the ninth, there’s one out, and what you need more than anything else is a baserunner, you stand and you take.
Francisco Alvarez [1]? You take. You’re like two-for-your-last-eighty (actually 12-for-72 entering Monday night). You reach and chase and pull the trigger far too quickly and anxiously pretty much all the time. Francisco, young man of 22 in whom we’ve invested so much hope and trust, please stand and take when the count is three-and-oh. Just reach base so a pinch-runner can take your place and a run can be methodically built.
Seranthony Dominguez? The Phillie refugee suddenly clad in orange and black with a smiling bird on his cap, comes up in the zone with a fastball on three-and-oh. Obviously you have to let that one go by, because it’s in a spot where swinging at it isn’t going to…
Francisco swings.
Oh.
But he hit it.
Uh…
It’s flying!
OH?
And…
YEAH?
It’s outta here!
WHOA!!!!
So sometimes you do swing on three-and-oh, even if you’ve been in a slump for more than a month, even if all you think you need is a baserunner, even if your batting eye is not as well-honed as one would like. Sometimes you do because you’re Francisco Alvarez and you understand a few things about pitches coming your way, given that you’ve usually got a mitt on one of your hands rather than a bat in both of them. Plus, as much as we lean on orthodoxy, such as you NEVER do this or that in that or this situation, exceptions — like a runner on first with one out in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game is valuable, but not as valuable as a runner rounding first on his way home to end the game — occasionally rule.
[2]King Korn, 1962.
Francisco Alvarez did, too, Monday night, swinging, hitting, homering, OMG’ing and winning the game [3] for the Mets over the Orioles in walkoff fashion, 4-3. Until that split-second decision paid off, the best part of what we’d watched was provided by Kingston Nahm-Korn, this year’s SNY Kidcaster for a half-inning. Kingston is all of nine, yet apparently grew up listening to baseball religiously during radio’s golden age, for he had the cadences of play-by-play down cold like somebody who went to sleep with his ears glued to Lindsey Nelson coming through the transistor under his pillow. Treated as a true peer by Gary, Keith and Ron, the youngster already has a better feel for the booth than (fill in the blank with whichever professional announcer it makes you feel good to put down). Whether he and his parents know it or not, Kingston is practically the namesake of a Mets sponsor from the franchise’s beginnings: King Korn trading stamps. Calling this club’s games may be his destiny.
[4]King Korn, 2024.
The Kidcaster came on in the fourth. The kid catcher came through in the ninth. No kidding — that was fun.