The Mets only came to Citi Field to do two things Saturday afternoon: kick some National ass and hand out some Jay Bruce bobbleheads. Come the sixth inning, looked like they were almost outta bobbleheads.
But they weren’t done with the other top priority of the late summer, so in addition to Zack Wheeler continuing to daze and confuse Washington hitters, and Mets defense similarly perplexing their visitors from the Middle Atlantic, our batters brought out their paddles to build an eventual 3-0 win.
Amed Rosario in the sixth: WHACK — home run off Tanner Roark, into the M&M’s Sweet Seats.
Todd Frazier in the seventh: WHACK — home run off Wander Suero, out to left.
Michael Conforto in the eighth: WHACK — a grounder the other way through a hole that gaped too invitingly to decline, off Matt Grace, a lefty brought in to retire previous hitter Jeff McNeil. But McNeil, as we know, is just getting going (his hitting streak has reached ten; Mike Vail beware). McNeil singled Rosario to third. Rosario was on first after speedily beating out what might have been a double play ball in some other runner’s colorful Player’s Weekend shoes. Then came Conforto making like the headiest of geckos, providing the insurance run.
Wheeler had put us in good hands with his seven shutout innings. A little bending, no breaking — vintage Helen Reddy stuff familiar to those of us who’ve been on track with Zack going back a ways. The next sets of reliable arms belonged to Daniel Zamora, Drew Smith and Jerry Blevins, a curious blend of freshman and senior relievers, but who’s asking for ID when everybody’s chipping in toward ending a game? Kevin Plawecki grabbed a foul pop at the screen in the seventh after nailing a stealing Juan Soto in the sixth. Soto tried to nab an extra base off Austin Jackson in the eighth, but Rosario stood firm for the tag when the wunderkind bounced ever so slightly off the ground. And how about Amed being in exactly the right place to start an inning-ending double play on Bryce Harper in the fifth? The last time Zack pitched, his shortstop was positioned hither and yon and, next thing you knew, here came temporary left fielder Dom Smith, his GPS set to Good Intentions, his sense of direction all kaput. Wheeler wasn’t too happy when that excellent start of his wound up in hell.
Ah, but that was when the Mets were wandering in circles. That was Monday. This is Saturday. Saturday the Mets in their adorable, unbeatable Little League-ish togs are winners over the Nationals twice in a row, winners in general four of their last five, a 14-8 juggernaut since August 4 and three games over .500 since the turn of July.
You can argue that none of it adds up to anything other than good days outnumbering bad days as a bad year winds down. But that’s all right, we’ll worry about that later. Let me ask you this in the meantime: is it ever any less than a marvelous thing when the Mets nudge the Nationals ever closer to their demise?
I didn’t think so.
If we could declare that June never happened, The Mets would be 52-50 and something like 4 1/2 games behind the Braves.
Confine the whole season solely to months that begin with A, and I think we could start making plans for Oct..uh, Actober.