Stumbling Into Redemption

Given a choice between a bedraggled, ill-mannered win and a jut-jawed, morally inviolate loss, you take the win every time. And the historical record will show that the Mets beat the Yankees Wednesday night, prevailing 4-3 in walkoff fashion in the 10th at Citi Field.

But if you were watching, you know that “win” is stretching it. It’s more like the Mets survived.

Survived, and didn’t exactly calm the troubled waters of their thoroughly roiled season.

The first half of this game was a relatively orderly affair and even a taut one, with former Astro teammates Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole matching up in an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel that was notable for its contrasts. Cole looked like a classic power pitcher as he went through the Mets’ lineup like a combine, while Verlander inventoried his weapons, found his fastball a little lacking and so turned to the slider, using it and his other breaking pitches to confound the Yankees and condition them so that the fastball, reintroduced late in the proceedings, seemed a tick or two speedier than it was. It was a cerebral performance, one sorely needed, and the former Houstoners’ matchup ended after six with the teams tied at one run each.

And then the Mets commenced to play stupid.

Jeff Brigham walked Josh Donaldson to start the seventh and hit Anthony Rizzo, but then struck out DJ LeMahieu and coaxed a grounder from Isiah Kiner-Falefa, a baseball name I can’t decide whether to classify as wonderful or ridiculous. Rizzo was out at second, but Jeff McNeil made a throw he shouldn’t have made given Kiner-Falefa’s speed and Mark Vientos (who’d made some nice scoops earlier in the game) didn’t make a pickup he should have made, with the end result that a moment later the ball was caroming around on the wrong side of first and Donaldson was trotting home. Kiner-Falefa then stole second, moving to third when Francisco Alvarez threw the ball into center field, and then he stole home on not just Brooks Raley but apparently each and every person employed by the Mets. Seriously, it was like Daniel Murphy really had become invisible out there. At least Raley had the presence of mind to try and drill former Met Billy McKinney, which would have turned the theft into a dead ball, though that didn’t work either: Kiner-Falefa got up dirty and happy while McKinney looked like he wished someone had consulted him about the whole thing.

Down 3-1, the Mets tied the game back up in the eighth on a flurry of Yankee misdeeds: two singles, a walk, a HBP and another single — but Brandon Nimmo short-circuited the inning by inexplicably taking his eye off Vientos as his teammate was rounding third. When Nimmo realized Joey Cora had held Vientos he was basically at the shortstop’s usual address, and wound up making the third out trying to return to second. (Maybe he was safe, but if so no particular injustice was done.)

That was the second day in a row that the usually reliable Nimmo did something boneheaded, though he’s far from alone this year — Steve Gelbs, not exactly a bomb thrower in the criticism department, noted with apparent exasperation on Twitter that the 2022 Mets were known for crisp play and attention to detail, and so far the 2023 Mets are … not known for that.

Still, the game was once again tied and so on the two clubs played, with pretty much every Met fan waiting to see what would go wrong this time. Except that somehow didn’t happen. Adam Ottavino — one of so many Mets following up a terrific season with a thoroughly average one — allowed a leadoff double to Anthony Volpe in the eighth but stranded him, David Robertson worked around a LeMahieu double in the ninth, and Dominic Leone survived a 10th inning confrontation with Giancarlo Stanton. Which led to Nimmo facing Nick Ramirez with one out in the 10th and Eduardo Escobar as the ghost runner.

Nimmo, a man badly in need of redemption, smacked Ramirez’s second pitch off the right-field fence for a walkoff win, winding up crowned with popcorn and drenched in ice water at the center of a scrum of happy (or at least relieved) Mets. Given the outcome — hey, we walked off the Yankees! — I feel bad for noting that Escobar inexplicably stayed all but glued to second instead of going halfway while Nimmo’s drive was in the air, and might have been thrown out at the plate if a couple of Yankee defenders hadn’t made some flawed assumptions of their own.

Escobar wasn’t, though — he slid home safely and the Mets had won. Or at least survived. Close enough.