You Again

Because it’s too early for more complex assessments, so far the Mets new season is a stark either-or: They’re either beating up on the Marlins or getting walloped by the Brewers.

Monday through Wednesday saw our gray-clad lads off under the roof in Wisconsin, where they spent two days looking gobsmacked while Bernie Brewer went down his slide about 50,000 times and then played a semblance of baseball but got walked off, proving that baseball is pain. The Mets then got rained out of their home opener before returning to New York, which wound up being hilarious because a) Thursday turned out to be perfect for afternoon baseball and b) nobody particularly minded because they’d played so badly that a day of sitting quietly and thinking about what they’d done seemed like a good idea.

Anyhow, the Mets got back to it on Friday (a colder, windier day than Thursday, because LOL), finally at home in the friendly, somewhat-reconfigured confines of Citi Field. The Mets have a new scoreboard, which you may have noticed because it’s smack in the middle of the ballpark and the approximate size of Hoover Dam. Not to mention that it is of course super state-of-the-art 4K — seeing it for the first time on the SNY broadcast, I had to convince myself I wasn’t looking at a video insert the truck had plopped atop the broadcast feed for some odd reason.

Seriously — to resurrect a 70s baseball joke, two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water and the other third is covered by our new scoreboard. Do Steve and Alex Cohen hang out in their suite on off-days and use it as the ultimate home-theater flex? What would it be like to watch Partridge Family reruns on this thing, or use it to play Call of Duty?

There are other tweaks to the ballpark, most notably that the right-field wall has been brought closer to accommodate a speakeasy that I’ll undoubtedly never get to enter. It will take some time to assess the import of that change, though I bet David Wright has already shaken his head and sighed while no one was looking. The lesser season commemorations have been consolidated rather intelligently (standalone WILD CARD WINNER banners are just sad), Bob Murphy gets his due up among the retired numbers and other tips of the collective cap, and the out-of-town scoreboard is no longer a tire fire. I’m sure there are other things I’ve missed, but they’ll wait for an actual visit.

(A visit that better coincide with a win after I suffered the indignity of going 0-for-2022, including the two postseason games we lost, but that’s another post.)

The Mets were playing the Marlins again, and they sure looked like the not-ready-for-prime-time Marlins we saw down in Miami. Edward Cabrera once again walked the ballpark, a dissolution that was equal parts due to ground-out Met at-bats and of his own making, while Huascar Brazoban let in a run by spectating on the mound as Daniel Vogelbach continental-drifted his way to first on a grounder to the infield. The Marlins were serially inattentive to details during Don Mattingly‘s tenure and look no better at the little things with Skip Schumaker at the helm, which tells you that you can’t blame the problem entirely on roster churn and young players. I should be happy about that, since Marlin mistakes mean Met benefits, but it galls me to see the best game in the world played so badly — errors and mischance are part of the sport, but my God, you can always cover first.

At least nothing terrible involved Jazz Chisholm Jr. for three hours. I suppose that’s what passes for progress in Miami.

On the Mets’ side of the ledger things were mostly good. Tylor Megill pitched well in his second straight matchup against Cabrera, apparently surviving a bullet off the foot, though I haven’t checked the news this morning and it’s entirely possible Megill is now in a leg cast and/or iron lung.* The Mets took a worryingly long time to break through, with Cabrera’s final line showing an improbable 2.2 IP, 7 BBs, 85 pitches thrown and … zero hits, but once they did the reversion to the mean was savage, marked by homers from Starling Marte, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso; Brandon Nimmo scampering happily to first a whole bunch; and hey, a Vogelbach infield hit has to count for something on the fan Bingo card. Dennis Santana gave up a three-run homer late and Eduardo Escobar heard boos from a crowd waiting with Baty’ed breath**, but when you win 9-3 you can overlook a few blemishes.

The Mets will be back at it Saturday, with Kodai Senga once again facing Trevor Rogers and perhaps Francisco Alvarez getting the nod behind the plate. Alvarez is now wearing 4, which is a nice bit of novelty even if 50 struck me as better suited for his broad back. As for Rogers, his middle name is J’Daniel, for which I can find no explanation, and his cousin is the loathsome Cody Ross, which isn’t his fault but is surely worth a boo or two. Perhaps the scoreboard will give those of you in attendance a 4K explanation of “J’Daniel,” with each letter the height of a brownstone in Carroll Gardens; failing that, I hope you get to see a win in 1080p, or however many pixels it is that real life offers. Should the experience of mere human vision leave you feeling dowdy and without, I bet you’ll be able to find our new scoreboard.

* I checked, he’s fine

** this one deserves an apology