I had the feeling I was seeing something I hadn’t witnessed before, so I ran through it in my head to confirm. Eleven postseasons. Twenty postseason rounds. Ninety-four postseason games. It took until the respective eleventh, twentieth and ninety-fourth of the above for the New York Mets to do something they’d never done before. Never before had the Mets been as few as six outs from clinching in a playoff situation without, in fact, clinching.
Not the history we were seeking Wednesday night in Milwaukee.
A Wild Card Series sweep was close enough to taste, distant enough that you couldn’t really get a grip on the fork you wished to use for the tasting. Yes, we were up a run with two defensive innings to go. No, it wasn’t a case of fait accompli interruptus. Six outs against a ballclub like the Brewers is simply too many to count down if you’re planning to drape plastic sheeting over the clubhouse stalls with confidence. The first three outs the Mets had to get ended up intertwined with three Brewer runs. There wouldn’t be anymore defensive outs after that.
Oh, that eighth inning. Oof. Honestly, though, you could say “oof” to a good bit of Game Two before Phil Maton gave up the two home runs that turned the tide for, one hopes, one night and not the entire series. “Oof” watching Sean Manaea struggle a little more than usual through five (though his bottom line of just two runs wasn’t too bad). “Oof” watching Pete Alonso tangle his feet in his bat as he sought to beat out a potential double play, which seemed possible on this particular first-inning, one-out grounder — with Mark Vientos on third — until Pete failed to appear in our picture. The Polar Bear hit the ball, dropped his lumber, tripped over it, and so much for dashing down the line in time for Vientos to score. The Mets had put one on the board. More right away would have been nice.
“Oof” repeated itself often, as the Mets singled eight times, only to leave nine runners on base while going 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and producing nary a double, triple or homer. Pete plopping to the dirt notwithstanding, they actually looked pretty swift getting to first, second and/or third on several occasions. It was the not bringing any of those runners home after the second inning that doomed them.
That and Phil Maton, I suppose. Manaea did all he could across 86 pitches, and I was OK with limiting him to five innings. Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek held the 3-2 fort in the sixth and seventh. Maton, the second-half godsend who didn’t have it in Atlanta, didn’t suddenly rediscover it in Milwaukee. Jackson Chourio, who led off the game with a homer, smoked Maton ASAP to knot the score at three. Phil gave up a single to Blake Perkins directly thereafter, but a crisp double play (we did execute some sweet defense) erased him. Howie Rose and Keith Raad were barely done confirming that, should it be relevant, ghost runners don’t materialize in extra innings in the postseason — I’d muted ESPN — when Willy Adames singled and Garrett Mitchell made the subject of extras moot. Mitchell’s two-run homer put the Brewers up, 5-3, and you sensed the Mets would not be upending Devin Williams’s apple cart in the ninth. They didn’t.
I resisted taking my own calculation of “six more outs” too seriously when we got through the seventh. I didn’t necessarily know Maton was gonna come in, but I didn’t have a good feeling about him. After riding the runaway train known as Edwin Diaz on Sunday and Monday, I didn’t have a good feeling about him for Wednesday, either. Against the runnin’ Brew Crew, I didn’t want to see Adam Ottavino. No starter was available to step in. Max Kranick’s on the roster, but this would have been quite a spot for a Met debut. Overall, I had no idea how the Mets were going to get the six outs that would have put them in the Division Series.
More runs would have been great. Some games yearn to be won with offense. Winning with offense got us into this postseason, you might recall. We pierced but didn’t bludgeon starter Frankie Montas, and nudged rather than bulldozed various Milwaukee relievers. We nursed a one-run lead when we should have building a much larger version. The construction materials were right there on base.
The good news — besides a brand new blank scoreboard greeting us for Game Three, and Jose Quintana being rested enough to conceivably fill it with zeroes — is there is a touch of precedent on our side to effect the ultimate desired outcome despite what occurred to ruin Game Two. We were eight outs from clinching the NLCS in 1973, when the Reds tied Game Four at Shea on Tony Perez’s seventh-inning home run off George Stone and went on to win after Pete Rose homered in the twelfth. Things worked out OK in decisive Game Five the next day behind, among others, Tom Seaver, Tug McGraw and Willie Mays (sometimes all it takes is a few immortals). And in 2015, the Mets had an opportunity to clinch the NLDS when they were up two games to one on the Dodgers, but didn’t take care of business against Clayton Kershaw at Citi Field. They never led or inspired much hope that they’d capture Game Four nine years ago. Instead, they saved their big finish for winner-take-all Game Five in L.A., where Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Jeurys Familia, Curtis Granderson, Travis d’Arnaud and, most of all, Daniel Murphy conjured a 3-2 win to secure the series.
None of those guys is on this team right now, but this team and the guys we do have have brought us further than any of us dared dream they could when the season was young…hell, when the season was middle-aged. One more night awaits, one that could unlock more. Let’s root for that, shall we?
Wow, pretty lame presser from Mendy,
invoking Luis Rojas with that mumbo jumbo about “matchups.”
When you use that strategy, you are trying to be too cute, doing an end-run rather than going with your strength, whatever that may be.
Maton’s throwing motion appeared as if he was pitching in the Home Run Derby. He had nothing and it sure showed.
Pete Alonso has been specializing in “oof” moments this season.
“Overall, I had no idea how the Mets were going to get the six outs that would have put them in the Division Series.”
Yeah. I don’t know if Manaea should have come out after 5 or not but I sure wished he could have gone 6. I could get us 3 decent relief innings but not 4, not with as often as Maton had worked and Butto probably being unavailable. Even an inning from Diaz would have been a knuckle-clencher after 66 pitches in 2 days (a short start, but a start) with just 1 day of rest. Had me wondering about 2 innings from Garrett.
I’m telling myself that tonight we’ll have a well and truly rested Diaz who could get 6 outs if needed. I’m telling myself a lot of things right now. The biggest one is that it’s too early for me to start focusing my fandom on the Knicks.
The Mets look exhausted, not only physically but emotionally. They have been playing games for weeks that, while not technically “must-win”, were for all intents and purposes elimination games, flown back and forth from New York to Atlanta to Milwaukee to Atlanta to Milwaukee in the space of a week, and have had no rest except for waiting out a hurricane. After the contact high of Game One of the doubleheader, last night was a crash back to earth. This team has been resilient all year, but it will take a heroic effort to push through what I fear may be the change of momentum that was obvious from the first inning throughout last night’s game.
Mendoza looks like a manager who has no real bullpen options, but I thought he was correct to keep Diaz for tonight and give him more rest. Those who were calling for Garrett and/or Stanek to pitch more than one inning are not accounting for the fact that this is the way he managed all year, not wanting to warm a reliever up, have him pitch well, let him get cold on the bench, and then bring him back. Whether one agrees with that philosophically or not, making huge changes to a team’s normal pattern of operations during the playoffs rarely works out well. Perhaps Maton was the only realistic option, but he has more than carried his weight for the Mets over the last few months and he needs a couple day’s rest.
Pete looks lost at the plate (although he may have personally saved a couple runs in the last week on defense; he has definitely not “checked out “ mentally). I can’t condemn a franchise-changing player for the physical mistake of tripping over his bat; it surely was not intentional.
But the always perceptive Gary Cohen said on the SNY post-game what I have felt for weeks; rather than not caring about the outcome of these critical games, Pete cares too much and is pressing, and the pressure keeps multiplying. No matter how much he tries to convince himself or us that he is having “good at bats,” both he and we know it’s not the case.
And not for nothing, but Cohen demonstrates the absolute value of having home team broadcasters on these games. Only someone who has watched the entire arc of Pete’s career could get that deep. I remember when at least one of each team’s broadcast crew would join the national broadcast for just this kind of insight; the networks and MLB should think about reviving that practice.
And so finally, the Mets have arrived at a true elimination game; it’s win or go home. Lindor has struck his mighty, immortal homer for the ages; while I’m sure he will contribute his usual sparkling, intelligent play, it may be too much to ask him to come through once more, again, playing through pain with everything on the line. He needs his teammates to find not just the desire, but the the will to win he is demonstrating every day.
Perhaps my rabbi will stand up this morning and tell us to “Go home and say a prayer for Pete Alonso.” It couldn’t hurt.
Going into the September Brewers series, where he pitched fine, Maton had been under-used. Maton gave up a HBP and a soft single before Diaz’s implosion against the Braves, but he wasn’t obviously exhausted in that game. There was some opinion that Maton should have been given at least another batter in the Braves game.
However, even after a day’s rest, Maton did look tired and off his game against the Brewers. I guess the Contreras double play convinced Mendoza that Maton had enough for 1 more out. I would have put in Ottavino after the Adames single, the 3rd hit off Maton in the inning.
The big culprit is the Mets had multiple good chances to tack on insurance runs, and didn’t.
Instead of Matteau! Matteau!! Matteau!!!, I kept saying “F*ck Maton! F*ck Maton!! F*ck Maton!!!”
Mendoza mismanaged bullpen all year and so why surprised he continued patterns in playoffs? Has no feel and will rely always on (and last time blame) analytics plus has the stupid modern principle of “have to let relievers start an inning and heaven forbid not let them come in with anyone on base.” Tell it to Roger McDowell, Jesse Orosco, and hundreds of lesser lights. So with short pen he lifts Manea after a whopping EIGHT-SIX pitches instead of trying for an out or two or three more (see Sevy, night before). He lifts Stanek after the best pitching of the night and only 11 pitches because upcoming Brewer hitters “like fastballs.” Brings Maton because “he is the 8th inning guy” but for 4th time in 5 days when he has increasingly looked like he is throwing BP. Then when clear he doesn’t have it he leaves him in for the fatal HR. But this has been Mendoza all year. And Maton is not exactly prime David Robertson anyway.
But let’s also take the halo off David Stearns who has had all year to get another actual quality reliever and has failed completely, witness the long list of failures he traded for not even on roster now, and the bullpen arms available for this series who are basically guys nobody else wanted.
You DON’T manage these games “the same way you have all year.”
This is different, and probably the hot hand Peterson would have been a better choice than an overused and clearly exhausted Maton.
Bad job yesterday, Mendy.
Hope you really go for it tonight.
Offense did get the Mets into the postseason, but unfortunately that “other” 2024 Mets team showed up after the 2nd inning. There are two teams this year, and you never know which one will show up. So I have hopeful but limited faith for tonight.
Agreed. Though for yesterday, I give the Brewers more credit than the usual Mets brown-out since the Mets seemed to put up some good at-bats with RISP. They just couldn’t finish them with runs.
I’m thinking Phil Maton is a Met nobody asked for.
Nunez, Senga, or Butto would have been useful in the 8th inning. Since they weren’t available, every other alternative made me nervous. Giving Manaea the 6th would have made me nervous. Garrett and Stanek made me nervous, though they succeeded. Pitching either of them a 2nd inning would have made me nervous. Maton (who was fine in the September Brewers series) made me nervous, and he failed. Once Maton gave up the Chourio home run, bringing in Ottavino would have made me nervous, though I do think the Adames single after the DP should have ended Maton’s night. (I agreed with not spending Diaz in that spot.) If Maton hadn’t failed in the 8th, Diaz in the 9th would have made me nervous. And if Diaz pitched the 8th instead and succeeded, Maton in the 9th would have made me nervous. If game 2 had gone extras, I would have been nervous. All which is to say, I can’t find obvious fault in Mendoza’s moves because the alternatives weren’t better. His pitching choices worked until they didn’t.
I’m nervous about game 3, just like I was nervous about the 2015, 2016, and 2022 playoff elimination games. Which Quintana are we going to get? Which offense are we going to get? Presumably Butto and Diaz will be lined up to finish the game. Who else? I assume Maton is out. When would Peterson come in, and for how long?
The game 1 win earned this game 3. The 2024 Mets have consistently bounced back punching hard. So while I’m nervous, I’m also hopeful they stay true to form and bounce back in their first true elimination game. Someone is going to need to be a star.
Myers pitched well against the Mets on Saturday, but I think seeing him again so soon will help the Mets in game 3. Yes, that didn’t help against Schwellenbach in game 161, but I don’t think Myers is on that level.
i’m stressed and pissed at how things turned out, questionable lineup, bullpen decisions etc.
soon the game will start. i plan to breathe, and hopefully enjoy a game that will take into account yesterday’s failures, and end with next stop: citizens bank park. i can see it. i can feel it.
LGM!!
OMFG!
He came through, that big sumbitch.
I feel like a big polar bear’s been lifted off my shoulders!