Lessons Relearned

The first week of baseball is seductive and also a little dangerous: You’re so glad to have baseball back and to resume the rhythms of fandom that you can shrug off the disappointment that comes with every game having a winner and a loser. The first week really does offer participant trophies, and each season you need to relearn that you don’t keep those.

So it was with the third game of the Mets’ 2025 season, an odd little game that gets put in the books as a 2-1 loss to the Astros. (Strangely, there’s no meme of Howie Rose putting his headset down on the console in resignation and sighing, “put it in the books.”) I suppose I could raise my descriptive game a bit and try to bill this one as taut, tense or one of the other common pitchers’ duel adjectives, but mostly I found it annoying.

The Mets had one hit — one! — courtesy of Juan Soto in the first, a double over Jose Altuve‘s head, which you probably remember is closer to the ground than most of his MLB peers. That was it — if you arrived in the bottom of the first because you had an errand to run, or thought Saturday night’s game started at the same time as Friday night’s, you missed the entirety of the non-walk portion of the Mets’ offense.

The Mets’ best bid for a second hit came on the very last play of the game, and served as the final judgment from the baseball gods that this wasn’t our day. Once more facing Josh Hader, Soto led off the ninth by working out a walk. Pete Alonso popped up on the first pitch, his first anxious-looking AB of the new season, and Brandon Nimmo grounded to second, which moved Soto into scoring position and made Mark Vientos the last hope. Hader left a sinker in the middle of the strike zone and Vientos scorched it on a line — one that happened to intersect with the glove of shortstop Jeremy Pena.

/place headset on console
/sigh
[quietly] put it in the books

Good things did happen Sunday, starting with Griffin Canning looking awfully good in his Mets’ debut. Canning is 6’2″ but looks about 5’6″ on the mound, an impression I attribute to his even, almost elegant proportions — he doesn’t have a classic power pitcher’s big rear and thick legs — and to his pitching motion, which is admirably compact and fluid. None of that would have been worthy of note if Canning had pitched like he did in an Angels uniform last year, but the Mets have reinvented him and at least for a day it worked. Canning used his slider far more than he had in the past and it was a decidedly effective weapon against Houston’s lineup — a lineup, we should note, made up of guys who were pretty familiar with him. He gave up a solo shot to Pena (which I missed during a brief couch nap but apparently still counts) and a RBI double to Yordan Alvarez, a solid day’s work but, as it turned out, not enough.

Backing up Canning, Jose Butto looked sharp for an inning and a third and less sharp after that, which led to Max Kranick‘s Mets debut. Kranick, a Mets fan before growing up to become a briefly tenured Pittsburgh Pirate, was on the active roster for the wild-card series against the Brewers but never called upon, meaning he spent the offseason as a Mets ghost. He had to be champing at the bit to make his debut; he probably didn’t envision arriving with the bases loaded, one out and Alvarez looming at the plate. No matter: Kranick coaxed a foul pop-up from Alvarez, which Vientos made a nifty grab to snag over the camera well, and Christian Walker grounded out. Welcome to the ranks of the corporeal, Max!

Alas, Canning & Co. were just a touch less effective than Spencer Arrighetti and the Houston relievers who followed him. The Mets’ lone run was conjured out of thin air by Jose Siri, who lived up to his reputation as a maddening yet exciting chaos agent. Siri struck out aggressively in his first AB, and if you don’t think that’s an apt description, well, watch Jose Siri play baseball. But he then walked leading off the sixth, stole second easily and scurried over to third on a Francisco Lindor flyout to center. Up came Soto, who spanked Arrighetti’s first pitch back to him. Arrighetti stared down Siri, then turned to retire Soto at first, which is the way you do it. But the second Arrighetti turned his back Siri came flying down the line, arriving just ahead of Walker’s heave home. I’m not sure whether to applaud a hustle play that worked or suggest Siri have more faith in Alonso; I suspect Siri will give us more exhibits useful for arguing the point.

Baseball being baseball, Siri was also part of the play that turned the game decisively against the Mets, bobbling Alvarez’s drive off the wall before securing it for the throw back to the infield. It was a little thing — just as Arrighetti’s timing on Soto’s grounder was a little thing — but it ate up just enough time for Isaac Paredes to slide safely home instead of possibly being out at the plate.

Little things, whether momentary bobbles or balls scorched along unfortunate trajectories, decide baseball games all the time. That’s another thing you have to relearn in the opening week.