Prescience Doesn’t Make It Palatable

The Mets scored seven runs against Washington on Sunday afternoon, featuring five in the first along with one apiece in the second and the fifth. Tylor Megill posted six strong innings of one-run ball. And I sensed that it was all going to be for naught. It was without pessimism or prescience. There was just something in the air as transmitted from Nationals Park via Channel 11 that suggested, despite the early edge the Mets enjoyed, neither enough runs would be added nor prevented by day’s end. At 6-0 in the second, I told Stephanie, “I’m now going to spend the rest of the game waiting for them to blow this lead.” I don’t usually say that or think that, especially in a season like this one has been to date.

To be fair, after a while I stopped waiting for the worst and attempted to dismiss my nagging hunch as the stuff of a wayward Cassandra. But I also noticed the Nationals’ starter, Mitchell Parker, hung in there for five innings, despite all the runs he allowed. Any time a pitcher primed for the hook bears down and perseveres seems like a harbinger of something. Also, too many fielders were having trouble with the sun and the sky. I mentioned that to Stephanie as well, more from an “isn’t it something the way they can track balls in these conditions?” perspective of admiration rather than as a foretelling of doom and gloom. It was one of the least comfortable six-runs leads I could remember. The Mets weren’t adequately adding on and the Nationals weren’t quite curling up, let alone dying.

But, like I said, I was willing to wave it away because the score was 7-1 after six, and Tylor, continuing to live up to my Bobby Jones 1997 comparison (underwhelming homegrown mid-rotation staple approaches stardom in his fifth season), was cruising. Then, however, the SS Megill encounters choppy waters…and Tylor leaves with one out, a runner on, and a run in in the seventh…and that runner who scored materialized on base because that aforementioned sun and sky came crashing down around Juan Soto in right field, resulting in a fall-in leadoff double that carried ill tidings…and here came Jose Butto, whose ability to fill a viewer with confidence was already limited…and the 7-2 lead the starter bequeathed the reliever ended the seventh as 7-6.

Just score more runs, and we’ll be fine. In the top of the ninth, after Huascar Brazoban wriggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth, the Mets mounted about as substantial a threat as could be requested. Second and third, nobody out. The Nats are playing the infield in. It works for them once. It works for them twice. With two out, they can play at normal depth. That works, too. Three grounders, three outs. Still 7-6.

Ryne Stanek comes on for the bottom of the ninth. He’s the closer Sunday because Carlos Mendoza doesn’t wish to overuse Edwin Diaz. Truly, the entire bullpen is overused. Megill making it into the seventh was too much the aberration. Met starters, as splendid as they’ve been, don’t give depth. Maybe nobody’s starters give depth. But the Mets are the only team I watch daily, and I know I see our relievers too often.

As soon as Stanek gave up a leadoff double, I kind of knew the game was a lost cause. Still rooted to be wrong. Still knew or at least sensed I wasn’t gonna be. This is no way to conduct a bottom of the ninth after a top of the ninth like the one that came up empty. Sure enough, there’d be a productive out; an RBI single that knotted matters at seven; and, at last, the encapsulating play, the highlight/lowlight that could be enjoyed in Washington and abhorred in New York. With one out and runners on first and second, Luis Garcia — a pain all weekend — grounds a ball not very far, but to just an inconvenient enough spot wide of first. Pete Alonso grabs it and makes an abominable throw over Stanek’s head, which doesn’t absolve the pitcher, because the pitcher is slow to cover, so let’s just say everybody who can be at fault is at fault when it winds up Nationals 8 Mets 7.

Everybody’s lost in D.C.

Ultimately, it became one of those games you’ll reference in your head the next time something seems off when everything otherwise appears to be on. I spun through probably a half-dozen games like this one ended up being in the course of Sunday afternoon. Now I have a new example for future use. Yippee.

I didn’t know it was all gonna go down that way, but I sure as hell sensed it. Sensing it was coming didn’t make it go down any easier.