You have to laugh it off. “Ha.” There ya go.
Seriously, though — the Mets just endured their worst-ever postseason loss in terms of run differential, and it wasn’t even close. Dodgers 9 Mets 0. The Mets had never lost in the spotlight portion of October by more than six. Few teams get beat by a lot in October. Teams that get to October tend to be skilled at keeping games close.
We know that the true worst postseason losses are the heartbreakers, the choke jobs and the eliminators. This was none of those. This, the now fifth October 13 loss in Met postseason history against no October 13 wins (but who’s superstitious?), was just an old-fashioned blowout, old-fashioned like 2017 when the Mets visited Dodger Stadium for regularly scheduled ass-kickings and none of us who could keep our eyes open blinked when the Mets would lose, 12-0, behind Robert Gsellman, or 8-2 behind Tyler Pill. The 2017 Mets weren’t supposed to be the historical precedent filtering into my head during the first game of the 2024 National League Championship Series, but there they were. Goodness knows the 2024 Mets didn’t show up.
Everything about Game One was off, starting with practically every pitch Kodai Senga threw and didn’t get over in his inning-and-a-third of woebegone work. Whatever Senga found as he ramped up his on-the-fly rehab program in Philadelphia vanished once the Mets went west. His many bullpen buddies varied in their degrees of effectiveness, but, boy, did a lot of them get used. Maybe the Mets didn’t pick the right day to subtract an additional arm from their relief corps.
There was virtually no Met hitting. Jack Flaherty saw to that. There was lousy Met baserunning on those rare occasions when Mets made cameos on the basepaths. Jesse Winker saw to that. The Mets defense also managed to create holes for the Dodgers to burst through, and like the Rams and Chargers on any given Sunday, they repeatedly crossed the plane of the goal line. For ill measure, Brandon Nimmo — the only Met extant from the aforementioned Gsellman and Pill outings — let it be known he’s dealing with a touch of plantar fasciitis, in case you wondered why he was limping. You’re forgiven for not noticing if you didn’t, as the Mets were collectively in limp mode.
Overall, it was as dismal an opener to a vital series as could be imagined, except it wasn’t a heartbreaker or a choke job and certainly not an eliminator. It was the opener. One of seven games, the first of seven games. In the second, Sean Manaea will start. It’s an afternoon game in L.A. Manaea has been dependable for months, awesome under the sun. Remember that flirtation with perfection versus the Orioles in August? Sean shone brighter than anything in the sky amid that sunny matinee. Remember that makeup game in St. Louis? It was also a Monday in daylight, also a beauty. That was the day it occurred to me that Manaea could be a postseason ace for this team. Here’s his chance. Here’s our chance. We still have a big one.
We had a big one on Sunday night and it blew up in our faces, but that’s over. Consider it laughed off.
9-0? Did they forfeit? Kind of felt like they did by opting to leave their ace on the bench and go with essentially a bullpen game with no off day the next day. Oh, well. Let’s get ’em today! We’ve bounced back before … and we’ll do it again.
senga did a pretty good glavine imitation there.
so much for an opening statement.
it can only get better.
we got the dog of a game out of the way,
i believe?
Much may be said about starting Senga instead of Manaea, but if the Mets couldn’t score a run with all other things being equal, it would have been a wasted Manaea start. This team needs to wake up and stop California Dreamin’.
sure, but hitters are human, and starting this huge series with a very questionable decision going *so* badly couldn’t have been helpful.
i really don’t understand this use of senga when the starting rotation fared so well without him, and when the upside is, at best, a bullpen game.
the start reminded me of the beginning and end of the 2015 WS.
a gut punch opening, and a starter talking himself up and flopping at the very end.
i guess i’ll make believe tonite is game 1 and we gave the dodgers a 1 game headstart.
4 of 6. win tonite, sweep at home.
or something like that to counter the embarrassment in prime time.
Yep. There’s a reason for the old adage, “you dance with the one that brung you.”
Listened to the first couple of innings in the car driving home. That was no good. Half-watched/listened to the next 3-4 while unloading the car and unpacking. Also no good. I actually paid attention to the last couple of innings and it didn’t get better.
The pitching has been there the last 3 months. I’m not worried about that. But the hitting has taken several games off at a time now and then and I hope we aren’t starting one of those stretches. It feels a whole lot better losing that game with Senga pitching a stinker (followed by Peterson/Butto crashing) than if we’d lost 2-0 and wasted great pitching. Hoping that after today Dodgers fans are saying, “I wish we could have saved a couple of last night’s runs for today.”
Oy vey.
That about sums it up.
Hope the Mets got it out of their system.
BTW, the last Met I thought would be invoked today was Tyler Pill. (OK, the last Met I actually thought would be invoked today was Chris Schwinden. But he would have been an appropriate invokee as well.)
Snap out of it, boys!
By the way, I never understood the concept of an “opener” anyway. It seems like whenever the Mets faced an opener situation, they did one of two things: a) they let the opener shut them down for a couple of innings, then chewed up the inevitable relievers that followed, or b) chewed up the opener, and had the relievers for dessert. I don’t know why the Mets thought it would work any better with Kodai. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of his, and I know that this is literal Monday morning quarterbacking, but it would have been better to go with Manaea and save the relievers for another day. And perhaps, instead of Senga, have a guy like Joey Lucchesi on the roster who could chew up innings if necessary. I hesitate to criticize the Mets brain trust, they’ve been very reliable this year, but I think they blew that decision. All due respect.
But would starting Manaea have changed the way the Mets hitters approached Hershiser (oops sorry, meant Flaherty)? If they couldn’t score a run, it would have been a wasted start for Manaea. Have to see how they rebound tonight, who pitches for Brooklyn, and how Manaea pitches. It could still work out OK.
You make some very good points, and it can definitely still come out OK. I think the Mets have come back from enough adversity this year that it would be premature to throw in the towel after one bad (OK, horrendous) game. That being said, there’s a big difference between coming back from a huge deficit against the other team’s ace versus having your ace face him down mano a mano. There have been some games where Manaea (or, recently, Quintana) have matched zeroes for six or seven innings, and it somehow seems to give the hitters more of a boost knowing that they’re a few timely hits away from grabbing the lead. I’m not saying that’s how it would have gone down, and maybe you’re right, if the Mets are getting shut down anyway, who cares if it’s a blowout? That’s why they call it Monday morning quarterbacking.
On to Game Two.
…and this morning, I said to myself (but did not post) – if we’re invoking Mets from the past, here’s a nice name to keep in mind – Lenny Dykstra.
Honest to God.
Nailed it.
The last short Senga start, with the overtaxed starting rotation needing to fill game 1 in the NLDS, worked out. This one did not. The problem, besides the awful pitching, is setting back Senga’s pitch count build-up.
As far as the loss itself, the 2024 Mets’ win formula is to bounce back and come back. Usually from gut punch losses, which the NLCS game 1 loss wasn’t. After winning the NLDS by being superior rather than by bouncing back, the NLCS game 1 loss returned the 2024 Mets to their comfort zone and win formula.
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