You have to laugh it off. “Ha.” There ya go.
Seriously, though — the Mets just endured their worst-ever postseason loss in terms of run differential, and it wasn’t even close. Dodgers 9 Mets 0 [1]. The Mets had never lost in the spotlight portion of October by more than six. Few teams get beat by a lot in October. Teams that get to October tend to be skilled at keeping games close [2].
We know that the true worst postseason losses are the heartbreakers, the choke jobs and the eliminators. This was none of those. This, the now fifth October 13 loss in Met postseason history against no October 13 wins (but who’s superstitious?), was just an old-fashioned blowout, old-fashioned like 2017 when the Mets visited Dodger Stadium for regularly scheduled ass-kickings and none of us who could keep our eyes open blinked when the Mets would lose, 12-0, behind Robert Gsellman, or 8-2 behind Tyler Pill. The 2017 Mets weren’t supposed to be the historical precedent filtering into my head during the first game of the 2024 National League Championship Series, but there they were. Goodness knows the 2024 Mets didn’t show up.
Everything about Game One was off, starting with practically every pitch Kodai Senga threw and didn’t get over in his inning-and-a-third of woebegone work. Whatever Senga found as he ramped up his on-the-fly rehab program in Philadelphia vanished once the Mets went west. His many bullpen buddies varied in their degrees of effectiveness, but, boy, did a lot of them get used. Maybe the Mets didn’t pick the right day to subtract an additional arm from their relief corps.
There was virtually no Met hitting. Jack Flaherty saw to that. There was lousy Met baserunning on those rare occasions when Mets made cameos on the basepaths. Jesse Winker saw to that. The Mets defense also managed to create holes for the Dodgers to burst through, and like the Rams and Chargers on any given Sunday, they repeatedly crossed the plane of the goal line. For ill measure, Brandon Nimmo — the only Met extant from the aforementioned Gsellman and Pill outings — let it be known he’s dealing with a touch of plantar fasciitis, in case you wondered why he was limping. You’re forgiven for not noticing if you didn’t, as the Mets were collectively in limp mode.
Overall, it was as dismal an opener to a vital series as could be imagined, except it wasn’t a heartbreaker or a choke job and certainly not an eliminator. It was the opener. One of seven games, the first of seven games. In the second, Sean Manaea will start. It’s an afternoon game in L.A. Manaea has been dependable for months, awesome under the sun. Remember that flirtation with perfection versus the Orioles in August? Sean shone brighter than anything in the sky amid that sunny matinee. Remember that makeup game in St. Louis? It was also a Monday in daylight, also a beauty. That was the day it occurred to me [3] that Manaea could be a postseason ace for this team. Here’s his chance. Here’s our chance. We still have a big one.
We had a big one on Sunday night and it blew up in our faces, but that’s over. Consider it laughed off.