Just-Anotherness Takes a Holiday

The fans who wait for their team to come off the road while the year is still young are rewarded for their patience with two Openers. There’s Opening Day, which is festive no matter that it’s taking place in another ballpark, and there’s a discrete Home Opener, which grants us a second helping of holiday spirit. As long as we get to unwrap a win somewhere along the way, the composite festiveness outdoes multiple Christmases.

Winning was indeed involved in the Mets’ 2025 Home Opener, which made the déjà vu quality of looking forward to starting all over again quite worthwhile. We may have gone through those “oh boy, baseball is back!” emotions eight days earlier when our team was breaking the season’s seal in Houston, but home is home, and getting to do essentially the same fun thing twice in such a short span can be a paean to righteous gluttony. Picture your favorite all-you-can-eat buffet. Your eyes were probably bigger than your stomach as you grabbed your first plate. In all honestly, you consumed what you really needed by the time you cleaned it. But, look — they’re bringing out a fresh tray of penne or spare ribs or whatever it was that lured you in this joint. Why, yes, you think you will take another trip up there.

The Mets’ second Opening Day no doubt left us feeling more sated than the first one. This one served up a victory that was convincing from every angle, a 5-0 shutout of the Toronto Blue Jays, a franchise that played the very first Spring Training game of its existence versus the New York Mets on March 11, 1977, but, historically speaking, was a stranger at a strange interval in Flushing on Friday. Interleague play is no longer novel, but Mets versus Jays for our Home Opener? Mets versus any AL interloper? In every Home Opener from 1969 through 1992, when the Mets were a member in good standing of a six-team division, the visitor to Shea was a National League East opponent. That never felt strange. I have a hard enough time accepting that we sometimes start our home slate versus the Diamondbacks or Brewers, but at least they’re situated in the same circuit as us.

Of course, once the pageantry is presented and ball begins to be played, it’s more or less just another baseball game…though not altogether. If it was truly Same Bit/Different Day, would nearly 44,000 make it their business to be at Citi Field? Would however many bazillions beyond that compose a robust viewing, listening, and sneaking-an-update audience while ignoring afternoon business they’ve decided was less pressing? The Mets had already played a handful of just-another-games. This wasn’t going to be one of those.

Differentiating it from just-anotherness were, in something approximating a particular order…

• Francisco Lindor, who led off the game with a hustle double that wouldn’t take single for an answer (score one for replay review);

• Pete Alonso, who went to the opposite field and kept going until he had a two-run homer;

• Tylor Megill, whose second consecutive sublime start here in his fifth season has me thinking he’s on a career trajectory resembling that traced by Bobby Jones circa 1997, the year the secondary pride of Fresno put it all together for a few months;

• Juan Soto, the new kid in (the good part of) town who lashed an RBI double that looked like one of those hits that had suitors lining up for his services that became ours, and threw in a nifty catch and heady stolen base for Steve Cohen’s money as well, no extra charge;

• and those inevitably unsung relievers who backed up Megill’s five-and-a-third nearly spotless frames with a spiffy three-and-two- thirds of their own. Hail Reed Garrett, A.J. Minter — abetted by cameras that corrected an umpire who didn’t understand the function of a foul pole — and Max Kranick, the Mets fan from Scranton who grew up to be the Mets closer on Friday.

Kevin Gausman was pretty beguiling between the Mets’ runs in the first and the sixth, but sometimes two bountiful innings is all it takes. Identities are in larval stages this early in a season, yet I’m coming to believe Mets baseball in 2025 might become synonymous with heating the iron, striking while it’s hot, and not letting it cool all the way off before striking again. Any lineup that circles back to Lindor, Soto, and Alonso isn’t going to go cold for long. A little more length would be welcome, and ought to materialize once Jeff McNeil and Francisco Alvarez return, but as long as we’re getting representative production from Nimmo, Vientos, and Winker/Marte, the offense shouldn’t go into sleep mode too often (never mind that it snoozed several nights on the road). Sean Manaea receiving a rousing ovation during the pregame introductions reminded us there will be more to the starting rotation eventually, yet what we’ve received to this point has been adequate-plus. We shall resist singing too many praises of the bullpen, because we don’t really know how to feel confident in Met relievers, but, you know, so far, so good.

Maybe it’s the holiday atmosphere attendant to a Home Opener talking, but it definitely wasn’t just another game, and maybe this isn’t looming as just another year.