When the Offense Passes You Over

No doubt as the Mets’ traveling party gathered for its team Seder on Saturday evening in Sacramento, one of the elder statesmen at the table — my guess is bench coach John Gibbons — noted that the 3-1 score by which the club lost in the afternoon was the first 3-1 loss the Mets had suffered at the hands of a band of Athletics since Game Six of the 1973 World Series. Whether any contemporary lessons could be drawn, or any useful parallels gleaned, from such a mirror image is likely something Gibby or perhaps a veteran like Starling Marte or Brandon Nimmo put forth for the group as a whole to contemplate between bites of gefilte fish.

While Passover isn’t specifically a commemoration of repeated Met failures to pass over home plate more than once thousands of miles from their ancestral home, we are reminded that an unleavened offense can be a sign of eternal struggle. Yet where the veritable children sat, youthful Mets Brett Baty and Mark Vientos surely wondered aloud how the same bad things continue to happen to new generations of faithful people. “We are Mets, we seek to bring joy to millions, yet we continue to hit directly to rival fielders or often not at all. And why must Jose Siri endure such pain from a simple foul ball?” This is where the rabbinical wisdom of a Carlos Mendoza can come to bear. Mendy teaches in his low-key manner the importance of patience and practice, going out and getting them tomorrow. There have been many tomorrows across Met history. This one finds them again wandering the West…West Sacramento, specifically.

When the big hit is hidden as if it’s the afikoman, the herbs can be bitter, indeed. David Peterson toiled without reward for six innings of competent pitching. Nimmo strove to support him with a ball that departed Sutter Health Park, yet no Met stood on base as Brandon connected. It was a solitary trot for the senior member of the roster. Nimmo has seen famine on the diamond before. The team’s 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position necessarily has to be attributed to one of nature’s mysteries.

Yet the youngest at the table, Luisangel Acuña, would be right to express curiosity. “How is it if we begin a lineup with a Lindor, a Soto, and an Alonso, that we do not score plentifully? How do we inevitably wind up stuck in proverbial mortar as we attempt to transport one another from first, second, or third to home? It is here that one supposes pitching coach Jeremy Hefner clears his throat to tell the tale of Game Six of the 1973 World Series, that only other Mets-A’s contest to end on the wrong side of a 3-1 tally.

”Our people were at the precipice of the Promised Land,” Hef imparts. ”Belief was exhorted and miracles were evoked, yet our substance was constructed of solid material.” The coach, of course, refers to Stone, a fourth starter of a rarely surpassed caliber. “Remember, in those long-ago days, a fourth starter was what a fifth or even sixth starter is today, especially in a best-of-seven series.” The decision was made that Stone should sit and Seaver should go. Even the youngest in attendance at the Sacramento Seder nodded knowingly, for Seaver is a figure of legend and respect wherever Mets roam.

“But,” Hef continues, “it is as the St. Louis prophet Joaquin Andujar was once said to have said: ‘you can sum up this game in one word: you never know.’” Though Seaver had pitched throughout 1973 to a level worthy of the legend and respect that attaches to his name to this day, his right arm might have been a little weary the day of Game Six, and might have benefited from an extra day of rest. That’s what Stone was for, to give Seaver a chance to be at his best. Alas, the Mendy of his day, a golem of sorts named Yogi, wished to utilize Seaver at once and crash through the gates of the Promised Land, a destination that had seemed so distant for so long in the preceding summer, yet now stood a mere win away.

The 3-1 A’s triumph that Saturday in October of 1973 remains a shank bone of contention for Metropolitan scholars decades later. Seaver produced a pitching line that appears quality by modern standards. He lasted seven innings, he permitted two earned runs. Yet he was bested by an opponent named Catfish, never to be confused with gefilte. The Met batters in Game Six totaled only six base hits in the ancient kingdom known as Oakland; just one came with runners in scoring position. So went the 3-1 Met defeat, and thus brought on Game Seven, a desolate denouement to what had been a rousing march toward ultimate glory.

Yet there was a “day after” after Game Six, and there would be a “year after” after 1973. It took thirteen more years for another band of Mets to enter the Promised Land. A time span that measures three times that time span has since passed, and the Mets of today wander their continent in search of the happiest of resolutions to their season still. So many Mets have come. So many Mets have gone. Yet the journey in this current season only recently commenced. The tomorrows are plentiful. Another game in Sacramento, then on to Minneapolis. The map is full of places our ancestors never gave a second thought to, but we exist to keep thinking and keep learning. Or so Gibby certainly suggested as the matzo was passed from Met to Met.