The Mets’ return to Mercury went about as well as the maiden voyage 25 years ago. On July 27, 1999, New York’s National League franchise garbed up as from the planet closest to the sun and got burned, competitively and aesthetically. They lost to the Pirates that night and looked like…let’s say not Mets. Not of this Earth, certainly. Orel Hershiser started and resented the get-up. Rickey Henderson didn’t dig being portrayed as an alien life form when he glanced at Shea Stadium’s prehistoric big screen. Mercury Mets jokes ensued for much of the next quarter-century. If you knew, you cringed.
But you live long enough, everything initially reviled turns fondly recalled. Thus, this second Mercurial trip, albeit one taken around the edges. The Mets gave out PIAZZA 31 shirts, not in orange and blue; or orange, blue and black; or even concrete gray and 7 train purple, but in the onyx and silver tones of Mercury. The players didn’t wear such tops, but their City Connects served futuristic enough. The EnormoVision and its handmaiden ribbon boards were all in on “Mercury” playing Atlanta. Three-eye and green-face imagery was everywhere.
I embrace the idea of the Mets embracing every silly aspect of their history, but some curios are purely of their time. Mercury Mets was a spectacular attempt to invent something evocative of 2021 in 1999. In 2024, you could rekindle only so much of that Mercury magic. Thinking about it the morning after, it hits me now on the level of the Mets redoing their scoreboard in 2019 to make it look like Shea’s in 1969 when they celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of our first championship. Good thought. Nice try. But some heavens you can only ascend toward once.
The Met offense seemed stranded on Uranus.
Alas, the New York/NYC/Mercury Mets — whatever they wore, however they identify — never got off the launching pad on Saturday. Facing none of the big Brave starters of yesteryear or this year, they flailed helplessly against Spencer Schwellenbach. In space, nobody hears you swing and miss. The Mets K’d eleven times against the Braves righty, thrice more against their relievers. Tylor Megill, who’s orbited the lower end of our rotation since the universe was created, pitched lights out for three-and-two-thirds, then was sucked into a black hole of gopher balls. Expectations shouldn’t have been too high. Tylor was supposed to be no more than the sixth starter in a fresh alignment helmed by a fully recovered Kodai Senga as we defended our hard-earned spot atop the Wild Card standings. Ah, plans. We’ll see Senga no sooner than October, should we see October.
The Mets lost, 4-0, snapping a five-game winning streak and falling to a precarious though perfectly viable third place in the consolation prize stakes. On the sunny side, they were kind enough to not rudely interrupt my friend Kevin from Flushing and I as we sat in 520 and enjoyed a nine-inning tangent about most everything baseball-related except the game playing out in front of us. Our team couldn’t distract us with runs, and I kept referring to John Rocker as John Smoltz (someday I’ll call Spencer Schwellenbach Spencer Strider) . Not a lot of crispness in the air, but at least the air wasn’t terribly humid. Change is in the Metropolitan forecast, however. Reliever Ryne Stanek has arrived from Seattle, perhaps partially compensating for however many heretofore relied-upon bullpen arms are currently on the IL, and Jesse Winker is winging his way from Washington, sent here by the Nationals Saturday night in exchange for pitching prospect Tyler Stuart. Winker is quite familiar with the folks in Flushing.
Might as well make yourself at home, Jesse. It’s the year of Grimace; the year of Max the so-called Rally Pimp; the year of Glizzy Iggy, that sparkly dog who nibbles on hot dogs in the stands; the year of Jose Iglesias, that journeyman second baseman who produces hits that show up in box scores and Billboard; the year the Mercury Mets took another bow; the year the term “en suite” infiltrated a baseball broadcast; the year we were absolutely dead and buried; the year we burst from six feed under to lead (for at least a day) the Wild Card race. And it’s not even August. Jesse Winker, the closest thing we have to a professional wrestling heel in the 2020s, is one of us for the duration of the playoff chase? Of course he is. Bizarreness always merits a place in our world.
Slight correction, they actually struck out 3 times against relievers, so 14 in total. Can’t win em all, but it seems the Mets couldn’t even get the bat on the ball last night. Frustrating…
Thought “thrice,” typed “twice”. See “Braves named John”.
Odd that on a night that could have been the beginning of something special, Mendy left our recovering star pitcher in too long, and then the next day we fall to 3rd in WC.
Sigh…
Guess the next man up is Winker.
The Senga injury just seems like ill fate. The ace dominance cut short by an injury was like having deGrom back.
With his last pitch, Senga was at 73 pitches, mostly low stress ones with his dominance and the Mets lead. 73 was less than his pitches thrown in his last rehab start, so Senga should have gone 80-plus pitches to take the logical next step in ramping up his pitch count. That’s in addition to the starters’ general duty to reduce innings for a bullpen that’s overworked and vulnerable to giving up big leads outside of Butto and Nunez. 6 innings, maybe even 6.1 depending how many pitches Senga used up to get the next 2 outs, was the proper choice by Mendoza.
Moreover, watching the Senga injury on replay, there was no obvious unusual action by Senga–nothing awkward, twisted, or caught–that preceded the injury, at least to my layman’s eye.
The only thing I can think of is Luis Rojas factoring in “up-downs” in his decision-making when removing a pitcher. While an 80-plus pitch target was the logical next step in Senga’s pitch-count ramp-up, 6 ups, 5 downs were a jump up from Senga’s minor-league rehab starts. We used to mock Rojas’s “up-downs” like we mocked Calloway’s “dry humping”, but maybe there’s something to it after all.
As far as the starting rotation, with the losses of Senga and Scott, I’d like to see Butto get a shot at the 5th spot. Yes, Butto has proven to be vital in the bullpen in the Lugo role. But Megill just confirmed he’s the same Megill as a starter. He’ll start off pitching well, then lose it early and all of a sudden, and get hit hard when that happens, pretty much what Scott showed us before he went on the IL. Scott is a rookie with more runway to prove himself. Megill has a track record that implies he ought to be in the Lugo bullpen role, not a starter.
With the Mets staying with a 5-man rotation, which means keeping 8 in the bullpen, Maton looking like he may be reliable, and Stanek added to reinforce the bullpen, I’d take the gamble of giving Butto a shot at starting and Megill taking over for Butto in the Lugo role. If that role switch doesn’t work for either pitcher, then switch it back. But if it works, and I have faith at least in Butto that it would, the Mets will have a superior starter and minimal drop-off in the bullpen.
Replacing Stewart with Winker smacks of Tyler Naquin to me, but there’s a low floor there, so it won’t hurt at minimum. Stewart will be available if needed. Tyler Stuart was one of the five Mets AA or AAA starters that were listed with a 2024 ETA on MLB.com, yet aren’t considered big-league starting depth. I thought Stuart or any of the other four should have been pressed into service in the bullpen. Hopefully Winker produces and Stuart doesn’t become one that got away for cheap.
First off, Callaway and Rojas deserve to be mocked for anything they do, including how they tie their shoes.
All slide-rule stats aside, the game is still played by people, not computers. We had all the momentum in the world on Friday after 5 innings. Sit the guy down for the rest of the game, and then if he trips over his dog or slips in the shower, that’s the kind of fate I’ll just have to accept.
Should have just wrapped him in bubblewrap and see him in a week. I’d like to think we would have swept or split the next two if that would have happened, and I cannot assume the team is not down over this.
Hopefully this malaise will be just temporary.
Well, you can assume rightly that I feel down. We got an exquisite taste of having a bonafide ace again; and now we’re back to the teeth-grind of starters piling up too many stressful pitches in chronically short outings with the goal of limiting the damage nightly because that’s just their third-to-sixth starter talent level. For all that, they’ve exceeded our expectations by pitching as well as they have.
Not his shoulder. Not his arm. Not even his upper body, an oblique or some such. A season-ending calf strain from a normal, relatively mild baseball action. It was Stanton-esque. I wonder if Senga over-trained his legs in order to take stress off his shoulder and triceps.
As far as malaise, the Mets have been streaky all season. The team that has often looked like the best in MLB since June? That’s in them. But the team that looked like the worst in MLB going 11 under before that? That’s still in them, too. Yesterday, I could chalk it up to the opposing pitcher stepping up and Megill being Megill. Today was the bad Mets showing up.
The thing is, all the teams in the NL wildcard scrum have been streaky. In terms of winning and losing, the Mets aren’t worse than the other teams in the scrum…But they’re not better either. The Braves made a statement by coming back to even the series. No matter what trades they make, I don’t believe the Mets are going to run away and hide with a wildcard. They’re not going to fall out of the scrum either. I believe it’s going to be like this the rest of the way, and I just hope they’ll be holding a wildcard when 162 runs out. It may take a tie-breaker.
At least now the Braves are in the scrum too, so that’s 3 wildcards up for grabs. Rising to the 1st wildcard and single digits behind the Phillies was a nice achievement, but any of the wildcards is fine by me. As of now, with the Diamondbacks loss, the Mets are still holding onto the 3rd wildcard. Not a good day, but it could have been worse.
always a pleasure to spend 9 innings talking Mets, laughing about the Mets, coming up with fun hypothetical Mets dilemmas, and (on seemingly rare occasions) cheering for good things the Mets do on the field when we’re together at Citi. Until next June or August (or if we’re lucky, October)!