These days…
I’m tempted to offer no notes on what feels, now that it’s been put in the books, like a perfect win. The Mets never trailed. When the score grew close, the Mets added on eventually. When the score grew close again, the Mets prevented it from becoming even — then added on immediately. The starting pitching was spectacular. The relief pitching was effective. The offense picked its spots to be timely. The defense made every play it had to.
You might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face…
Except one, maybe. So I do have a note.
And when you do, you’ll know how it was meant to be…
It’s the eighth inning Tuesday night at Citi Field. The Mets are leading the Red Sox, 3-1. Whatever’s gone swimmingly to this point needs to go another couple of laps. Mark Vientos’s homer in the seventh provided breathing room. Deep breaths are in order, nonetheless. Jose Butto, he of the nine pitches for three quick outs the frame before, dips into trouble. Two walks to the Sox. One walk to the phone with an urgent message: “Reed Garrett, please report to the pitcher’s mound.”
See the signs and know their meaning…
Reed Garrett can worry you. Every reliever can worry you. Every starter has worried us at some point in 2024. There was a time David Peterson didn’t seem like a sure thing. He’s sure reliable now. Six innings, one run, eleven strikeouts, very little trouble. Butto, as mentioned, was wonderful in the seventh, not so much in the eighth. Garrett wasn’t touched at all over the weekend when he last worked, but those were other Sox. The Red ones are capable of unspooling a good night’s work. The Red ones have Rafael Devers coming to the plate with runners on first and second and nobody out.
It’s true…
Devers grounds a ball toward short. No tailor has been involved in its production. If it’s going to turn into a much-needed double play, the stitching will have to be handled in ad hoc fashion. The shortstop is Francisco Lindor. Who else is it going to be? Francisco Lindor took his position on Opening Day and has yet to have left it. Francisco Lindor makes so many plays, it is reasonable to assume he will make all of them, including a double play on a slow grounder that is by no means tailor-made for DP purposes.
You’ll know how it was meant to be…
Lindor hesitates in the simultaneous act of deciding and fielding just enough to let you know a) the Mets aren’t going to get the runner at second via Lindor’s toss; b) the Mets aren’t going to get the runner at first on the ensuing relay; c) the bases are loaded and still nobody is out; and d) contrary to emerging conventional wisdom, Francisco perhaps can do it all but doesn’t always manage to do everything every time.
Hear the signs and know they’re speaking to you…
Lindor coming up shy of constituting a one-man team is all right, however, because the man does have teammates, and they are pretty helpful to his, their and our cause. Garrett gets the next Red Sox batter, Emmanuel Valdez, to fly to medium-right. Another right fielder — like strong-armed Starling Marte, who’d just been taken out for defense — might have fired home to attempt to nail the lead runner. McNeil, who doesn’t play a ton of right, judged himself better served by getting the ball back into second. He couldn’t prevent the run that trimmed the Mets’ lead to 3-2, but he did keep a runner from advancing to third. A few pitches later, Garrett teased another ground ball. Not tailor-made, but Iglesias-assisted in meeting its double-play destiny: 4-6-3, with Lindor square in the middle of the rally-snuffing.
To you.
Clinging to a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth loomed as the Mets’ job if they did not expand their edge in the bottom of the eighth. “OMG” may be the theme of the year, but “TCB” still has some utility in Flushing. The Mets’ offense took care of business ASAP. McNeil singled to where he’d just been standing and throwing in right. Francisco Alvarez, one of the Mets seemingly forever mired in a 3-for-30 slump (we have a couple in every lineup), also went to right field via a convenient hole in the infield. Who should be up next but Francisco Lindor? It was as predictable as finding him at short in the top of the inning. Lindor is up just about every time we need him and comes through practically regularly. That lead Peterson was able to protect? That was Lindor’s doing on a two-run homer in the third. Lindor’s always doing something. David Stearns, who doesn’t have to worry about inflating his value since his contract was signed and sealed long before he showed up to run baseball operations, suggested before the game that Lindor not only bears a striking resemblance to what an MVP looks like, he’s also quite possibly putting together the “greatest individual position player season” any Met has ever crafted. Talk about tailor-made foreshadowing.
Our team, our theme (one of them).
Lindor, whose impact on the Mets’ fortunes in 2024 is roughly equivalent to that of Kelly Leak’s on those of the Bad News Bears in 1976 (save for the second-hand smoke), doubles home McNeil with the insurance run to restore the Mets’ lead to two. Then Brandon Nimmo brings in Alvarez with a sac fly. And, in case you’ve forgotten we have a Polar Bear roaming the premises, Pete Alonso socks a ball out of sight to make the game both 7-2 and a foregone conclusion. Alonso’s home run was his 31st. Lindor’s home run earlier was his 30th. Mighty generous of Francisco to leave a category for some other Met to lead.
When Steve Gelbs co-hosted his nightly edition of The Francisco Lindor Show in the moments following the final out, the star of the game and just about every game allowed his praises to be sung out of courtesy to the fellow holding the microphone, but mostly he wanted to acknowledge he didn’t make that play on that ground ball in the eighth and that his teammates picked him up. That, I thought, is how you contend for Most Valuable Player honors in this league, by not settling for doing almost everything right — and almost always expressing the most valuable of sentiments.
The win was the Mets’ sixth in a row. They are eleven games over .500 for the first time this season and eleven games over .500 for the first time in any season in which they’d previously fallen eleven games under .500. I wouldn’t have given you a plug nickel for their chances to get as high as .500 when they were wallowing, thereby suggesting my predictive powers aren’t worth a plug penny. Nevertheless, I will allow this: I now have a feeling about this team I haven’t had all of 2024. They’re not yet in a playoff position, but I believe they will be. They most definitely haven’t clinched anything, but I believe they are bound to. There is no telling what might happen in the postseason, but I’m envisioning what I’m envisioning. To elaborate would be to predict, and we’ve already established my predictions are worthless.
But these are days when my feelings for this team are off the charts.
“Reed Garrett can worry you.”
Yup. Coming in with runners on base. A guy who can take one, or two, or three, or never batters to find the strike zone. Then the Lindor WTF? play. But disaster averted.
“Nevertheless, I will allow this: I now have a feeling about this team I haven’t had all of 2024. They’re not yet in a playoff position, but I believe they will be.”
Another yup. Being a fan is a case study in recency bias. I’m there too. Though with Megill pitching tonight I hope the 8th inning was just a warmup. Yeah, he beat the White Sox but those were the White Socks. These are stockings of a different color. We need to score some runs.
i’m with you greg.
though with bases loaded top of 8th, i was preparing to be very didappointed, but stayed calm.
lead held.
was thrilled with getting a run back…then two. with pete coming up “c’min pete, be clutch”
and clutch he was.
i homestly thought this team had peaked, finding a home at .500 after the break, but perhaps they were saving a little for thd current sprint for the finish line. it will be stressful for certain.
i remember that every day feeling of stress from the 2015 post-season.
all aboard!
It will be funny if 2024 is remembered as the OMG year. Maybe these are the good old days? You never know.
Somebody should photoshop Grimace and Jorge Lopez’s flying glove into that team portrait.
“he [Mendoza] seems to make in-game decisions that (occasionally) work out. and his experience as bench coach on teams that go to the playoffs might just have some utility in a few weeks.”
Mendoza’s enduring faith in Garrett paid off. If early revelation Garrett is back, that’s big. I respect Mendoza’s approach from his experience with the Yankees, that if a player will be needed down the line to win bigger games, then he needs to be trusted and challenged now to step up with a game on the line. We’ve seen that with Mendoza’s approach to Diaz.
Greg: “They’re not yet in a playoff position, but I believe they will be. They most definitely haven’t clinched anything, but I believe they are bound to.”
The Padres and Diamondbacks end the season playing each other. That means of course that if the Mets “TCB” in Milwaukee, they’ll gain ground on one of them. Given the Mets’ current games behind both (and yes, that should have been 2 less games) and the tie-breaker the Mets have on both, that could be the way the Mets squeak into the playoffs at game 162.
The wildcard teams in front of the Mets that played yesterday, won, which is frustrating. Clearly, none of them intends to just give away their wildcard to the Mets. But behind the Mets, it’s not a small thing that the Cubs lost again to the Pirates to make that cushion 4 games. And, while I wanted the Giants to beat the Diamondbacks, the Giants comeback falling short has a benefit: they hold the tie-breaker on the Mets. I don’t mind the threat of losing a wildcard to the Giants on a tie going away. The Mets own the tie-breaker on the Padres, Diamondbacks, Cubs, and Cardinals. The Braves-Mets tie-breaker will be decided in Atlanta.
The Mets pitching was better than the 2 runs allowed say it was. The Red Sox’s 1st run scored because Nimmo inexplicably braked on a can-of-corn pop fly that landed at his feet. Had he simply kept running, he would have caught the pop-up in stride. It’s like Nimmo flash backed to the triple he gave up the night before.
The 2nd run traded the run for an out in the middle of Garrett escaping the bases loaded, no one out jam. I guess Lindor saw the ball headed right at 2B and saw a double play in his mind, but the timing wasn’t there. I believe if Marte had been in RF, Duran, as fast as he is, would have stayed put, and Garrett might have escaped with no runs scored. Marte is moving well enough since his return that I wonder if he can defend enough like his old self so that when Mendoza goes to his defensive switch, the Mets can keep Marte’s arm in right field. (I wonder, if the Mets sign Soto, would Mendoza routinely take him out for defense, too?)
Houck has been the Red Sox’s best starter. Megill is anything but the Mets’ best starter. But if Megill can surprise us, sitting Diaz last night can pay off tonight.
So far, the Mets have beaten the Red Sox more handily than they did the White Sox. That’s not a surprise. The Mets play down. They also play up. It’d be a shame to miss the post-season where the Mets can only play up.
Greg, you always know how to articulate what’s on the mind of a Mets fan, as he or she considers whether to fully express joy or keep such a foreign emotion (for September, at least) held tightly in check…
You complete us.
Thank you, Dr. Lou.