We Love Our Red-Headed Stepchild Wins All the Same

The Mets’ current formula for being 12-7 … well, it’s working while not seeming like a particularly good idea.

They pitch impeccably, which you don’t need to be a lifetime baseball fan to know isn’t sustainable, and they hit … hmm, how to describe this part? Minimally? Sporadically? Just enoughally?

Thursday night’s game followed this odd, not particularly reassuring blueprint to a T. Griffin Canning was the best he’s been in a Met uniform, showing tactical smarts as well as good stuff: In the early going he sensed the Cardinals had spent a lot of time perusing the scouting reports (ah, the iPad age) about his new approach and were waiting to ambush his offspeed stuff. So he and Luis Torrens and Jeremy Hefner pulled an in-game reversal, essentially going back to the fastball-first mix Canning had used in his days as an Angel. It worked: Looking for wrinkles left the Cardinals late on high fastballs, and before they could adjust Canning was out of the game with 100+ pitches thrown and just one run allowed over six.

Reed Garrett looked a little shaky after Canning but emerged unscathed, A. J. Minter was flawless and Edwin Diaz … well, he showed us his new, not particularly welcome 2025 trick, reporting for duty a batter ahead of his location doing the same. We can mutter about this, but it’s preferable to blowing the save, another trick we’ve seen too often in the post-WBC Diaz world.

The hitters, meanwhile, cashed in during exactly one inning: Andre Pallante (whose name really looks like it needs some accent marks) was good with the exception of the second, in which he was not particularly good and also unlucky. Mark Vientos banged a home run off the base of the foul pole in Utleyville, a location I don’t ever remember seeing a Citi Field home run recorded; strange but it counted all the same. Brett Baty (who had an honest-to-goodness fine night with the bat and in the field) drove in Starling Marte with an RBI single, and as a capper Francisco Lindor singled to right, scoring Baty. On the play Lindor wound up caught between first and second, with Tyrone Taylor shifting from foot to foot uncertainly just on the home-plate side of third; destined for an out, Lindor turned into an auxiliary coach, exhorting Taylor to scamper home while scrambling to elude various Cardinals. It worked and the Mets stole an additional run.

A lone inning of offense, great starting pitching, relief that stood up. Not sure it’s the formula we would have expected, let along drawn up, but it’s working. Just as losses don’t get recorded differently if they’re moral victories, wins don’t get discounted if they feel a little less than legitimate. In this baseball family we love our red-headed stepchild wins just as much as the ones whose progeny feels more certain.