Baseball Makes No Sense

Baseball makes no sense.

Just ask the Mets, who went into the second inning at Busch Stadium Tuesday night down 3-0 to the Cardinals, as Jose Butto couldn’t command his fastball and St. Louis was whacking his pitches all over the ballpark. It sure looked like Monday night’s relatively streamlined, professional win was the exception to the recent rule and the Mets were once again mired in the frustrations that dominated the Tampa Bay series.

So of course the Mets went ham in the top of the fifth. Jeff McNeil led off with a little soft single that Nolan Arenado couldn’t convert into an out despite that being pretty much what Arenado does. Tomas Nido singled and Brandon Nimmo unloaded, tomahawking a Miles Mikolas slider into the stands to tie the game. And the Mets weren’t done: Starling Marte doubled, Francisco Lindor singled, and Pete Alonso sent a double the opposite way for a two-run lead. Yes, the same Alonso who spent three days at the Trop looking like a boy who’d lost his puppy and so was benched for his sanity once the Mets arrived in Missouri. A J.D. Martinez single brought in one more run and the Mets somehow led 6-3. It was one of those exhalation innings that teams and tortured fanbases both need every now and then – an explosion that erases a long track record of frustration and leaves everything thinking, “Oh, so this is what it’s like to actually breathe – I’ve missed this.”

The Mets made defensive changes in the bottom of the fifth, primarily getting poor DJ Stewart out of left before some horrific pratfall put him on the IL. That was wise but also a reminder that there was a lot of ballgame to go, and ample time for things to go wrong.

Said things went wrong when Sean Reid-Foley got in trouble in the seventh and Jose Lopez arrived with two on, one out and the tying run on first. Lopez immediately yielded a single to Ivan Herrera, who’d come in when Martinez’s backswing broke Willson Contreras’ forearm on a gruesome case of catcher’s interference. Bases loaded, Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt coming to the plate, and once again nobody with Mets rooting interests could get enough air.

But remember our thesis: Baseball makes no sense. Lopez left a sinker up in the zone to Arenado, who fouled it back and then popped out. He then left a slider up in the zone to Goldschmidt, who fouled it back and then struck out. I was simultaneously relieved and pretty sure I didn’t want to know how many alternate universes featured Arenado and/or Goldschmidt not missing those pitches.

In the ninth, Alonso took MLB newcomer Chris Roycroft deep: reassurance for the suddenly doubt-stricken Polar Bear, insurance for the Mets. SNY had a good time showing Roycroft’s family in the stands: They were gleeful when Roycroft struck out Francisco Lindor, then turned philosophical when the Alonso AB had a different conclusion. That endeared them to me, despite the ample Cardinal red and baby blue on display: Every pitcher winds up turning around in dismay after the occasional pitch that didn’t do what it should have, and while that was Roycroft’s first such pitch in the big leagues, it won’t be his last. His cheering section were also baseball lifers, and they knew this perfectly well.

Anyway, it was 7-4, but the question was how the Mets were going to secure three highly necessary remaining outs with no properly rested, reliable relievers. (Oh wait, there was Adrian Houser, ha ha ha.) Carlos Mendoza opted for Adam Ottavino, whose recent workload was more than 50 pitches, and it was buckle-up time.

Ottavino retired Brendan Donovan, but Lars Nootbar homered, Herrera singled and Arenado walked on four pitches.

The bad news about Ottavino was he was a) obviously gassed and b) therefore stuck with a disobedient sweeper. The good news about Ottavino is that he may or may not get beaten but I’ve never seen him panic: He goes about his business with an Eeyore-like affect and a certain existential heaviness that comes from knowing the universe has already decided the outcome and he’s just along for the ride.

Fortunately for Ottavino and for us, Goldschmidt was the next hitter and he’s lost in the same nightmare that has been plaguing Alonso, a deep slump that leaves a hitter feeling like he might as well be playing blindfolded. Ottavino threw two sinkers more or less down the middle, almost erased Goldschmidt on a third that sat just wide, gave him something to think about with a changeup, and then threw a fastball that Goldschmidt couldn’t have hit with an oar. He tried anyway and missed.

That left Alec Burleson, who hung in there as Ottavino sent everything but a bunch of balled-up hot dog wrappers and the kitchen sink his way, hoping some offering – any offering – would yield an out and let Ottavino go collapse in a dark room until Friday. The fifth pitch was a sinker up and away at the top of the zone; Burleson’s bat ticked it backwards, it found Nido’s mitt and went no farther, and the Mets had won.

Won using the usual blueprint, of course: Starter gets clobbered, team that can’t hit ambushes opponent, slugger lost in the weeds staggers out of them blinking and amazed, reliever goes unpunished for throwing two hangers, exhausted reliever finds just enough in himself to push the car into the service station.

What do you mean that’s not the usual blueprint? Hey, take it up with the powers that be — I already told you baseball makes no sense.