Partial Connections

For Saturday, it will be City Connects getting our attention. On Friday, it was what we might quaintly refer to as a national telecast. Or should we say a globally available stream? Whatever it is called, it was Cardinals at Mets on Apple TV+, which meant the visuals (even if you took advantage of the syncing to local radio option, a godsend when it works) would strive to be evenhanded. In baseball as in political coverage, bothsidesism rarely satisfies.

To illustrate to the audience just tuning in before first pitch that the Mets and Cardinals have played one another before, Apple showed highlights from the 2000 NLCS, which from our perspective was a splendid set of games, given that four of them and the pennant were won by the Mets. Show clips like those, and Apple can rise from my TV all night plus.

But then they go and spoil it all by showing something stupid like highlights from the 2006 NLCS. See, there’ve been very fine moments on both sides. That’s a connection I could have gone without seeing, but Apple wasn’t interested in reaching only me and my fellow Mets fans. Cardinals fans were watching as well. To be fair, they probably enjoyed only half of the intro, too.

The nine innings that followed didn’t constitute a very good game…unless you were one of those Cardinals fans, in which case I imagine it came off as a lovely way to pass a few hours, what with St. Louis plating four runs and New York just two. Go figure, there are people, very fine and otherwise, who like that sort of thing.

On our side of Friday night’s divide, we could cheer the injury-delayed presence of J.D. Martinez, wearing his full name on his back and delivering an ample supply of base hits, going 2-for-4 in his Met debut. I’m sorry Zack Short had to be designated for assignment to clear roster space, as Short grew up a Mets fan and has been, to date, Carlos Mendoza’s most-used pinch-runner. Those are two qualities that will endear me to most any Met, even one who’d registered only one base hit in nine at-bats and wasn’t getting much playing time. Still, you’ll make the Short-for-Martinez trade any day on any network. And, who knows, maybe Zack Short won’t be as attractive to DFA bargain-hunters as Michael Tonkin is on a daily basis.

DH J.D. providing protection for Pete Alonso is the foundational reason for the man’s coming to the Mets. Now all we need is Alonso to hit like somebody who rates such an accomplished offensive lineman. Pete wasn’t the only Met not coming through in clutch situations on Friday night, but leaving four runners on base — the same quantity stranded by Francisco Lindor, who Alonso was theoretically protecting — tends to draw your focus.

If you wanted someone to connect reliably in this game, you had to turn to the last place you would have thought to have looked on your own, and I don’t mean Apple TV+: the nine-hole in the order. That used to mean the pitcher’s spot (now who’s being quaint?) Nine is the channel where you’ll find our catchers hitting and/or missing while we navigate the Francisco Alvarezless void that faces us these next eight weeks or so. Alvarez may very well be our Big Yellow Taxi of 2024, reminding us that we don’t know what we got ’til it’s gone. When Francisco crouches, the possibilities seem electric. When Francisco bats, you believe there’s a chance for something outstanding to happen. When you stare at Omar Narváez or Tomás Nido, you think this might be a good time to go to the fridge and refill your beverage.

Nido made this Mets fan rethink such out accompli fatalism Friday night, first with an opposite-field ground-rule double to lead off the third, then with an opposite-field home run in the fifth. Nido has developed power? Who knew? Whether he was what Jose Butto needed behind the plate during the youngster’s up-and-down five-and-two-thirds or will be what the rest of the rotation requires when he gets his opportunities to re-establish his big league bona fides will reveal itself by necessity. A catcher has to catch, has to hit, has to do a lot.

After Jerry Grote died, I found a quote from Yogi Berra, spoken in plain English, from a moment in September 1973 when it was becoming rapidly clear the lousy Mets of summer had taken the last ferry out of Avalon, and the contending Mets of autumn were getting down to business. The subject was the critical contributions those Mets were receiving all at once from the likes of aces Seaver and Koosman, erstwhile All-Stars McGraw and Harrelson, redheads Garrett and Staub.

“Don’t forget Jerry Grote,” Berra said. “He’s done some kind of job for us and nobody notices it.”

Red Foley in the Daily News picked up on the theme from there: “Grote just makes the plays. The big ones and the small ones. Especially the small ones, the plays that don’t make the box score. The ones that don’t incite headlines. How many notice when he carefully nurses a tiring pitcher through a problem inning? They watch him throw out a runner trying to steal, but how many realize his mere presence serves as a steady deterrent to such would-be thieves? Who sees or appreciates the pitching patterns he concocts to defense opposing hitters with ability to bust a ballgame wide open?”

Front offices devote many bytes of analytics to such skills today. In 1973, you merely plugged in Jerry Grote.

Foley explicitly cited “intangibles,” which might draw a scoff in the 21st century, yet there were a few numbers to back up the assertions of those who saw the catcher as the key to the Mets’ renaissance. Writing shortly after the Mets completed their sprint from worst to first, Steve Jacobson of Newsday noted that “when Grote returned from his broken arm on July 11 — after an absence of two months — the team earned run average was 3.60. In the two months since, it was cut to 3.29. In the first 83 games, Met pitchers threw five shutouts. In the 75 since Grote’s return, they’ve pitched 10 shutouts. In September, with the Mets facing extinction almost every game, Grote hit .288.” Jacobson went so far as to call Grote “the main reason” the Mets were about to face the Reds in the playoffs.

Invoking the difference a depended-upon starting catcher made after returning from a prolonged absence speaks more to what the Mets figure to miss with Alvarez out than it does confidence in what his replacements might bring to this ballclub — a ballclub that, in the fashion of those City Connects, have yet to forge a tangible identity. You can watch hype videos all you want, but those babies are not going to be Mets uniforms until the Mets wear them on the field. After 62 seasons and nearly a sixth of a 63rd spent exclusively (save for a handful of one-offs) wearing METS across their chests at home, seeing NYC instead is gonna look unusual, to say the least. The 2024 Mets themselves have looked dreadful and terrific for convincing intervals thus far. We’re still sussing out who they can be, wherever they’re broadcasting or streaming. One of the things we counted on to help define them was Francisco Alvarez continuing to grow into a role he seemed born ready to inhabit. Now we will learn to count differently.

Unless another catcher we’re not thinking about is promoted or acquired, the nine-hole and its associated responsibilities means the N&N Boys and hope for the best. We got a little of that from Tomás on Friday night. We’ll gladly take a little more. Maybe he’ll keep hitting so much that he’ll bat eighth one of these days.