These days, you don’t have to be in the New York area — or the outer limits of AM radio range — to keep up with the Mets. You just need an MLB account and a certain amount of cell service.
Well, and a little luck.
The beginning of the Mets’ game against the Red Sox found me in the southwest of Washington State, where a handful of roads skirt vast tracts of wilderness and eventually emerge to run along the Pacific. Most of this is timber country, with the scars of logged areas giving way to acres of newly planted pines and then to sections of old forest, huge and dark and mossy. It’s gorgeous, though a little intimidating for someone who grew up on Long Island without mountains.
Lots of trees, not many cell towers.
This affected a number of things about my improvised trip — I wanted to see a new bit of the world — starting with the route I’d carefully programmed in Google Maps. When service disappeared so did my map, leaving me to feel my way using road signs and memory — and remembering with a smile that this was the way we always did it before the Internet. (At least those of us who didn’t have a road atlas in the car. Remember those?)
The MLB feed was a little easier to access than Google, for whatever reason, so Howie Rose and/or Keith Raad would be chattering away through my car speakers and then vanish, leaving me contemplating mountains and trees until they returned. MLB Audio generally picks up where it left off, so delays accumulate until you’re several minutes (or more) behind the actual game, something important to remember should someone else in the car glance at GameDay. (I was by myself, so there was neither peril nor opportunity there.) When the feed’s available, you can advance it 30 seconds at a time and so catch up, but I decided it was more important to not drive into trees than do that.
And anyway, I don’t really mind. The game may not quite be live, but it’s live for me, and a certain tension gets added to the proceedings if the feed cuts out with a pitch on the way to a hitter with a 3-2 count and runners that need driving in. During these silent lacunae you wonder what’s going to happen, consider the fact that it’s already happened, and go down other quietly philosophical rabbit holes.
(Less amusing: My dumb rented Audi would not play nice with my phone, taking CarPlay away randomly and sometimes silencing everything until I could get to a town and put things temporarily right again.)
In fits and starts I heard Luis Severino set Red Sox up and knock them down, aside from a run that scored after a Brandon Nimmo misplay. I heard Francisco Lindor‘s heroics and the Boston defense refusing to let the Mets get too far ahead. I heard the Citi Field crowd, a welcome change after all this time on the road. I heard Howie and Keith speculating about Sarah Sze Hat Night, which delighted me because Sarah is my college classmate, and it’s quietly amazing (amazin’, even) to flash back to freshman year and then forward to now and the unlikely development that someone I know making a Mets giveaway item. (A pretty neat one, too!)
Anyway, in time I left the forests and the seashore behind and passed by Olympia (with its signs for Sleater-Kinney Road, another unexpected touchpoint) and returned to Tacoma. As I checked into my hotel Phil Maton was grappling with a last trio of Boston hitters. I hit something as I was juggling pens and credit cards and phones and so saw on another screen that the game was a FINAL — no surprise given how many delays had accumulated.
Good final or bad final? The Mets weren’t so far out in front that a Boston uprising and a failed Mets counterattack was impossible. But I had a good feeling about it — the Mets are playing some of their best ball of the season right now, and while that’s only as good as the next game, when it’s happening you can see it and hear it and feel it. (Pick two out of three depending on your current media consumption.)
Maton got the last hitter and confirmed what I’d devoutly hoped and mostly believed: good final. Better final, even, what with the Braves idle and so now just a skinny half-game ahead of the Mets. Cue a quiet little celebration in the hotel lobby — a delayed one, sure, but live for me.
You can be anywhere in the world now, and follow the Mets (or any team) with MLB.tv and audio. I also live in Washington State, and between the time zones and my hatred of commercials, I rarely watch the games completely live. MLB.tv has pretty good DVR functionality (including a Resume function), so it’s easy to not miss any of the excitement AND to skip over commercials.
Devers was retired twice as the tying run with 2 on, 2 out, the second time by Danny Young after he issued a walk, hit batsman, and wild pitch. RISP LOB isn’t only a Mets thing. Besides the 8th inning scare, it was a smooth win that had the look of a contender. With Butto scuffling, if Maton can be trusted as a back-up closer, that’s big. The Mets have 2 question marks in the rotation right now with Quintana and Blackburn/Megill. Removing a 3rd question mark with Severino catching his 2nd wind is big. The Braves have a solid starting rotation and bullpen with a lockdown closer. After the win, Mendoza and Severino both pointed out that Severino has exceeded expectations for innings pitched and that needs to be monitored.
The Mets’ 1-8 with RISP is somewhat misleading as 1 run came in on a productive double play and 2 runs were 1st to home.
The Rafaela triple looked bad on Nimmo, who whiffed on a dive, but it came out after the game that the wind was doing tricks with fly balls. Basically, it’s not that Nimmo took a stupid risk on the dive; rather, the ball knuckled on him at the last moment. Nimmo’s RBI double took off on Duran, and Nimmo had to dive again to catch Devers’s line drive with 2 on, 2 out.
The Cubs had a 3-0 lead after 7 innings and lost 5-3 with Jorge Lopez giving up 4 in the 8th. I appreciate the added breathing room behind the Mets, now 3 games. Take that strength of schedule. Rockies, take note.
Cautionary tale: The Royals have lost 6 in a row since they tied the Guardians for the AL Central lead. The last time the Mets caught up to the Braves, the Senga game, they promptly fell back. The Mets are in position to catch the Braves again, and they need to make sure to keep pushing forward when they do.
Speaking of the Senga game, one of the more interesting off-the-field stories this week was Kodai’s interview the other day. He left the door open for him coming back at the end of the wild card run as a reliever. That’s actually intriguing. Having him be Sugar’s setup guy, or even his co-closer, would turn the Mets bullpen from acceptable to formidable. Imagine having to face that ghost fork in the ninth inning when you’re down by a run. I’d almost feel sorry for the other team.
I figure it has to be frustrating for Senga. All that work to get his shoulder and arm right, shows us for 5 innings that he’s back with his ace stuff, and then a calf strain out of the blue kills his season.
There’s a bigger opening for a starter that I’d rather Senga fill. But with Butto’s control busted and apparently lacking a quick fix like Diaz’s, Nunez out for who knows how long, and Diaz not a sure thing either, there is an opening for a reliable fireman, set-up man, and back-up closer. Senga filling that role, and for 2-3 innings if needed (picture Sid Fernandez game 7), would be big too.
aim *through* the braves, aim for the d’backs, the padres, the phillies.
and as i keep saying: win them all ;0]
jason: enjoyed your coping with cell-free zones and sticking with the feed-as-received. i do much driving closer to home that requires similar strategies…and i still carry a road atlas of the region in my car.
“as i keep saying: win them all ;0]”
The rest of the season is a play-in tournament. The Mets don’t have a thing in hand yet. The Braves losing 3 of 4 to the Phillies doesn’t fool me. It just showed how tough the 7 Phillies games are going to be. The Braves aren’t going to give away anything. I expect the 1 more loss the Mets still have on the Braves to have staying power.
Nice to see DJ Stewart with a productive AB – two-out single he later scored on. Plus hit another one hard. Good game. I give Nimmo a pass on missing that ball considering how many diving catches he’s made for us, including the one to close out the 6th (and save a run).
Wondering if we might be seeing a temporary swap of starting and backup catchers. Beyond Alvarez not hitting, just lately he seems to have had a lot of passed balls and wild pitches that IMO he should have stopped. It’s September and a race for the WC. The time for player development and sparing feelings is past.
“Wondering if we might be seeing a temporary swap of starting and backup catchers. … The time for player development and sparing feelings is past.”
In addition to being young and early in his career, don’t forget the April left thumb (ie, his catching hand that gets hammered on repeatedly with a rock every game) injury and surgery. I expect Alvarez is still dealing with that and other wear and tear. Playing beat up is part of the job description for big-league catchers, and learning to deal with it is part of his development. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing more days off just to see if the rest will help restore Alvarez’s power.
FYI, per Baseball Reference, Alvarez’s catcher ERA: 3.51; Torrens’s: 4.04.
pnw is a beautiful, still uncolonized part of the world, with wifi a negotiable virtue. stayed in quinault, wash, in olympia national park earlier this year and cell service was so nonexistent the tiny post office had an old-school payphone for out-of-towners to use.
kudos for persistence and securing a line into metscasting. was at the game last night (tuesday) and citi field was vintage playoff atmosphere. fantastic game – red sox made some great plays – and those caps are amazing, maybe the best freebie ever! (sarah sze also threw out the first pitch, btw, and did it well!)