Take a moment and consider the life of Huascar Brazoban [1].
Not long ago he was stuck on the Marlins, with Jazz Chisholm Jr. [2] offering near-daily examples of being a bad teammate, Skip Schumaker [3] staring out of the dugout like a man who can’t bear to think how long he’ll be on county work release, and the whole proceedings weighed down by the usual Marlins air of shoddiness and drift.
Now he’s a Met, in the middle of a race for a playoff spot, and things are just a little different.
For those who were sleeping, Brazoban was summoned in the ninth inning in San Diego after the Mets had scored five runs to make a taut, tight game into something to be dispensed with.
It didn’t go well: After retiring the first hitter, Brazoban walked the next two and allowed an RBI single. A pop-up to the infield secured the second out, but then Brazoban allowed another run on a Jurickson Profar [4] single. In stepped Jake Cronenworth [5], who’d ripped a laser-beam grounder in the fifth inning that Jose Iglesias [6] somehow corralled and turned into a double play. The laugher had already become a mutterer and a long ball from Cronenworth would return it to teeth-gritter status.
Brazoban looked saucer-eyed, like all the air had been sucked out of Petco Park when he needed it most. At shortstop, Francisco Lindor [7] was clearly as exasperated as all of us still watching. But he was also clapping madly and shouting encouragement at Brazoban, as well as his teammates and the cosmos in general. Behind the plate, Francisco Alvarez [8] had his helmet lifted atop his face and was also exhorting Brazoban.
What must that be like? Don’t you think Brazoban sometimes thinks, “What happened to me that I’ve wound up here?”
The teammate full-court press worked: Brazoban coaxed a groundout from Cronenworth to end the game [9], and his infielders mobbed him on the mound and jumped up and down, which was a little bit funny in its bit-too-muchness but also oddly sweet.
Between Lindor’s slow start and the usual lack of appreciation from Mets fans who ought to know better, one could miss that he’s having yet another phenomenal season. And even when his bat’s gone inexplicably cold, Lindor has never let his offensive struggles interfere with being the captain of the infield, constantly repositioning and strategizing and cheerleading. In that role he reminds me of Keith Hernandez [10], all but oozing intensity and issuing commands that were obeyed without question. (Except Hernandez’s intensity was faintly scary, while Lindor invariably looks cheerful even when the scoreboard looks dour.)
I also love the way Alvarez goes about his business: His offensive approach still needs refining but he looks like an old veteran calling a game. He reminds me of Rene Rivera [11], who saw his share of spooked-horse relievers and excelled at shifting between soothing, cajoling and browbeating, doing whatever was needed to get them across the finish line.
If that was the most interesting part of the game, it followed some pretty satisfying developments: another solid (or at least solid-adjacent) start by Luis Severino [12]; offensive contributions from Mark Vientos [13], Pete Alonso [14] and Jeff McNeil [15]; that game-saving Iglesias play; solid relief work from Reed Garrett [16] and Phil Maton [17]; and a Jesse Winker [18] serve into left-center that looked like a carbon copy of his walkoff homer, except this time Winker had to settle for a triple.
And, it should be noted, the Mets did all this after flying coast to coast without an off-day; they would have been forgiven a lethargic emotional letdown of a game but instead hammered out 17 hits and claimed the season series from the Padres.
The Mets are four games into a 10-game stretch that loomed as a potential season breaker; so far they’ve taken two out of three from the Orioles and grabbed the first of four from San Diego. Still work to be done of course, but that’s a good start. Here’s to the Franciscos continuing to holler and direct, and to more happy postgame mobs on enemy infields.