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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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by Jason Fry on 22 July 2024 10:37 pm Monday night’s game against the always delightful Marlins in always delightful New Soilmaster Stadium unfolded as your recapper and family made their way from coastal Maine to an ancient inn outside of Boston, and the game kept morphing and changing shape along with our situation and surroundings.
While we were bombing down 95 south of Portland it was anonymous and a little dull: The Mets laid into Yonny Chirinos, with a seemingly resurgent Jeff McNeil connecting for an early two-run homer, Francisco Lindor hitting the first of two on the night and Jose Iglesias not connecting but getting connected with, giving the Mets a 5-1 lead via a bases-loaded HBP.
We missed some of that while eating dinner in Kittery; my kid conveyed the at times slapstick doings via Gameday updates, accompanied by shakes of the head at the indignities involved. The Marlins were up to typical Marlins things, which is to say they were not fielding balls as one ought to or throwing them as one ought to or sometimes both. The Mets were also doing recently Metsian things, though, never quite landing the big blow and letting the Marlins hang around being detestable, which always makes you worry that they’ll transit over to being Detestable.
(Seriously, the other night I asked, “Why would a benevolent God allow there to be Marlins?” and I wasn’t entirely trying to be funny.)
The Mets increased their lead to three runs courtesy of Lindor as we exited 95 and headed through the Massachusetts night on our way to Sudbury and the Wayside Inn, which has been around in one form or another since the late 1600s and is widely reputed to be haunted, but it’s OK because the ghost is my third cousin eight times removed. (No, seriously, she is.)
They were doing construction on the old Boston Post Road, which meant a detour off into the dark, with Google Maps trying to catch up with where we were and where we needed to be. That was about the time Edwin Diaz came in for the save, and pretty soon I was a lot more worried about Marlins going bump in the night than whatever scare the lonely spirit of my cousin might bring to some hapless traveler. The car twisted and turned down increasingly unlikely roads as Diaz, having secured one out, gave up a single and then a walk and then made an awfully casual throw on a grounder to the pitcher that didn’t get anybody.
The bases were loaded, the tying run was a double away from scoring, and Josh Bell was at the plate. We were fumbling through the darkness and so was Diaz, and it wasn’t entirely clear if any of us were going to reach our destination.
But then Diaz got Bell to ground out (making the score 6-4 but who cared) and got Jake Burger (so many detestable Marlins!) to pop a ball up, and a few minutes after that a winding ribbon of barely two lanes merged with the Boston Post Road and there was the Wayside Inn, a literal light in the darkness.
Whews all around. Should my ghostly cousin appear and seem bent on spectral mischief, I think I’ll say boo right back. Hey, if it works on Marlins, why not try it elsewhere?
by Jason Fry on 21 July 2024 10:57 pm “Why is Howie talking about LBJ? I wonder if that means … oh.”
It was quite a way to find out about the latest election-year earthquake, with the news delivered via MLB Audio a second after we tuned in while scooting around midcoast Maine with friends on the final day of this year’s summer residency. Discovering and then discussing the particulars squeezed out close attention to the game for a while, but a lifetime of listening to baseball has made me pretty good at assembling a narrative from little bits and pieces, so I registered that a Luis Torrens sacrifice fly had given the Mets a 1-0 lead after a couple of hits and some crummy Marlins defense.
Half an inning later, the narrative twist introduced by Jazz Chisholm Jr. was all too clear: a Christian Scott slider redirected into the stands for a 3-1 Marlin lead. After the game, there was some interesting discussion about Scott being undone by a couple of pitches a game, that his full-count slider to Chisholm wasn’t a hanger but a well-located pitch that would usually have resulted in an out, and that maybe Scott’s aggressive approach to hitters had needed a little modification in what Carlos Mendoza called “a teachable moment.”
Like I said, interesting — all those yes buts and on the other hands make for a good lively baseball debate, and it’s certainly been a year to note the significance of debates. But it would be nicer to discuss Scott having recorded an actual win than to speculate on all the wins we’re assured are in his future. In the present, though the Mets were only down by two, so far in the second half a two-run lead has seemed like it’s lugging a zero along behind it.
J.D. Martinez got the Mets within one in the fifth but Jake Burger restored the deficit in the seventh, and you could feel the air coming out of the balloon. Or judging from the sound, maybe it was a whoopee cushion — the late innings of this one were not exactly a showcase for the majesty of baseball. Balks, throws back to the pitcher gone awry, a cringe-worthy steal attempt and rundown, and the suspicion that replay review back in New York was being conducted while doing Whip-Its. In the ninth the Mets went down on a pair of Ks sandwiched around a flyout, and they have one more to play at New Soilmaster than any sane Mets fan would want to find on the schedule.
Will that game feature Howie Rose once again pressed into the role of town crier to announce world-shaking events? I suppose we’ll know tomorrow night. Will the Mets remember how to hit and/or the Marlins discover how to field? Same advice applies.
by Greg Prince on 20 July 2024 9:08 pm There’s a lot of disinformation circulating out there regarding current events. We would like to use this platform to help you sort out reality from fiction in one area of interest.
MYTH: The Mets always lose to the Marlins.
FACT: The Mets occasionally lose to the Marlins. They also occasionally beat the Marlins.
MYTH: The Mets never win at the Marlins’ soulless ballpark, whatever it’s called.
FACT: The Mets occasionally win at the Marlins’ soulless ballpark, an edifice officially known as the Marlsoleum.
MYTH: The Mets left a small village on base in Saturday’s game at the Marlsoleum.
FACT: Small villages usually have a population greater than 10, which is how many runners the Mets left on base Saturday.
MYTH: The Mets can’t win if they’re going to leave 10 runners on base.
FACT: Although it is quite challenging to win a baseball game in which 10 runners are left on base, the Mets did win Saturday’s game.
MYTH: The Mets can’t win if they’re going to score only run.
FACT: The Mets scored one run on Saturday and won.
MYTH: No team can win if it scores only one run.
FACT A team can win by a score of 1-0.
MYTH: Scoring one run allows no room for error.
FACT: The Mets committed one error, yet won, 1-0.
MYTH: The Mets never take advantage of scoring opportunities.
FACT: In the fourth inning on Saturday, the Mets loaded the bases and proceeded to score one run on Francisco Alvarez’s well-placed fielder’s choice ground ball.
MYTH: Met starting pitching always exits early.
FACT: Saturday’s Met starter, Luis Severino, lasted six innings.
MYTH: Luis Severino will look good for a while but eventually crack.
FACT: Severino gave up no runs while stranding six runners.
MYTH: The Mets’ bullpen will inevitably find a way to blow it.
FACT: Jose Butto, Dedniel Nuñez and Edwin Diaz each threw a scoreless inning. Among them, they stranded four runners.
MYTH: Nobody leaves as many runners on base as the Mets.
FACT: Both the Mets and the Marlins left 10 runners on base Saturday.
MYTH: Everything is home runs today.
FACT: No home runs were hit in this game.
MYTH: You just don’t see low-scoring games anymore.
FACT: The Mets won on Saturday, defeating the Marlins, 1-0. It was their first 1-0 victory over anybody in 2024, but it does happen now and then. It just did.
MYTH: Mets fans can’t believe when good things happen to and/or for the Mets.
FACT: For the most part, this is factual.
by Greg Prince on 20 July 2024 11:31 am Prior to the All-Star break, it was most every Met except Jeff McNeil powering the Mets into playoff contention. Directly after the midsummer pause, it was mostly Jeff McNeil attempting to restart the Mets’ engine.
Things work better with more than one player revving us up, apparently.
We can certainly celebrate indications that Jeff McNeil’s ability to hit the ball and hit it with power are back, having returned in tandem with the season’s so-called second half. Three hits and two home runs attest to the Squirrel’s offensive capabilities being alive and well and spending the weekend in South Florida. A couple of nice catches in right indicate intermittently superb fielding remains another McNeil tool. There was a throwing error, but let it not overshadow the versatility we are occasionally reminded Jeff brings to the table when a manager decides to let him show it. We already know he can run. What we want to know is how far he can run from his .622 OPS.
McNeil’s out of the blocks in fine fettle. The rest of his team got kind of stuck in the mud at the sponsored facility that houses the Miami Marlins. The Fish swam by the Mets, 6-4, on Friday in a game that did not satisfy the yearning any Mets fan had to see baseball again following too many days off. Marlin home games, ever since they drained their port of call of its personality, inevitably bore from an aesthetic standpoint. Toss in the Mets trailing early and continuously (and my personal need for a nap that spanned the seventh and eighth innings), and it wasn’t quite the picking up where we left off we would have planned. Of course, we left off last Sunday with a loss, but it didn’t diminish the era of OMG feeling we carried into the break. A couple more like the non-McNeil portion of Friday, however, will have an impact, and not for the best where our interests are concerned..
By some miracle, we’ve come to view the 2024 Mets as this incredibly fun enterprise that has surprised and delighted us for about a month-and-a-half. I’ve rooted for several Mets teams whose best days unfolded in the middle of their campaigns. Started not so great. Ended not so brilliantly. But my gosh, the chewy center was delicious. They don’t hang banners for those campaigns. Whatever happens this year, I’ll remember it. That’s what I do. However many other Mets fans will be able to distinguish 2024 from its surrounding seasons will probably depend on whether this season’s center holds.
I’m moved in purely non-political terms to think of an answer President Biden gave at his post-NATO summit press conference when he was asked about his legacy. “Look,” he said, “I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job I started.” Different campaign context, but a single season’s baseball team doesn’t usually leave behind an easily recognized legacy without winning something extraordinary (or losing like crazy). Remember that year the Mets were really good in June and half of July? We were really into it, and there was a new meme we all latched onto pretty much every week to celebrate it while it was going on…no? Oh c’mon you HAVE to remember!”
Or maybe you don’t. Winning something extraordinary will help jog your memory. But that’s for later. The 2024 Mets aren’t in this for their legacy at the moment. At 49-47 and in a virtual tie for the third Wild Card, the job does go on.
by Greg Prince on 15 July 2024 8:11 am On Sunday morning, I read the Mets had lost their final game before the All-Star break the previous seven years there had been an All-Star break (which is to say not including 2020). Hence, I kept my hopes in check that the Mets would extend their momentum to a six-game winning streak and burnish the sense that they have become unstoppable. The surprise in the short term wasn’t that they lost to the lowly Rockies, as any team can lose to any team at any time. The surprise in the context of a season that once appeared anything but promising is that there were hopes to keep in check.
The Mets have given us a license to realistically hope. They pull into the break — despite bowing, 8-5, in their “first-half” finale — in playoff position. The slight lead on the pack of Wild Card wanna-bes is gratifying, but even better is the knowledge the Mets are in it until they’re out of it. It’s quite a step up from trying to rationalize, as we attempted in 2023, that maybe if they get lucky they still have the slightest chance to get close to not being altogether done.
Sure would have been nice to have swept the Rockies. I thought we might once Pete Alonso remembered he’s an All-Star and a Home Run Derby participant. Pete, who’s definitely a star in any season if not an indisputable All-Star this season, belted his nineteenth long ball on the year, his first in nearly two weeks. That blast knotted affairs at two apiece in the fourth. A subtler rally — a single and three walks — put the Mets ahead several batters later. Jose Quintana had settled down from a shaky first, and here came that segment of the game where the decidedly good team takes over decisively from the decidedly bad team.
But that business about any team losing to any team at any time rang a little too true. The Rox, who entered Sunday thirty games under .500, retied the score in the fifth and continued to add on in every frame through the eighth. While Jose Iglesias was rapping out four singles, Michael Toglia produced the biggest sounds with three home runs, while Ezequiel Tovar backed him up with a pair that also popped. OMG, you can’t win them all.
Still, it wasn’t wholly one of those sleepy Sunday-before-the-break losses that feels characteristic of an Amazin’ letdown, the kind that serves as prelude to the Mets predictably wandering off a competitive cliff once the schedule resumes. A good fight was put up in the bottoms of the eighth (two runs) and ninth (two baserunners). Reaching the middish-season pause with a 5-1 homestand encourages us to anticipate rather than dread. If you can’t cheer a win in your final game before the break, at least you can feel like you’re rooting for a winner.
by Jason Fry on 13 July 2024 11:56 pm We’ve all said it. Made it a mantra, even. Enemy runner on first, maybe other bases too, maybe they’re loaded. Outs? Not enough of them. Maybe just one. Maybe none.
C’mon, get a ground ball.
It’s been called the pitcher’s best friend for a century or more — the ball put in play that yields two outs (occasionally even three), turning danger into relief. In its purest form there’s a kinetic poetry to it: one hard hop right at the second baseman or shortstop, letting you can see the play unfold before it actually does. A quick shovel to the other infielder, the enemy baserunner sliding in too late (that’s one!), then the ball thudding into the first baseman’s glove (that’s two!), with the added cruelty of the batter turned runner having to watch his best-laid plans gone awry.
Tailor-made, they call it when it unfolds like that. “Just get me a little love,” Kevin Elster used to say during meetings on the mound with spooked Mets pitchers, by which he meant, “you supply the ground ball, we’ll do the rest.”
Saturday’s matinee against the Rockies? It was a story of pitchers’ best friends, and three fateful ground balls.
The first one came in the bottom of the second. Colorado starter Ryan Feltner had struck out the side in the first but seemed to lose his way an inning later, loading the bases with one out. Luis Torrens hit a grounder to second, but Brendan Rodgers (a Gold Glover, no less) bobbled it and then threw it into left field. Instead of the inning being over with the game still scoreless, the Mets were up 2-0; three pitches later, a Jeff McNeil double gave Christian Scott a 4-0 lead.
Scott would need every bit of that lead, as he looked out of sorts all day. Perhaps it was that the Mets’ Citi Connect alts look kind of like Colorado’s uniforms — there was a lot of purple-on-purple crime in deciding a winner Saturday. Up 4-1, Scott got the first out in the fifth but then gave up a single, a homer, a double and a walk, making the score 4-3 with the deficit threatening to vanish entirely. Carlos Mendoza went to get Scott, whose first win will have to wait yet another turn of the rotation (ah pitcher wins, oft derided and yet still so avidly pursued), with the manager calling on Jose Butto.
Butto’s first assignment was Elias Diaz, the Rockies’ powerful catcher. Diaz hit a grounder — which, it must be said, wasn’t exactly tailor-made, but a ball hit at Pete Alonso, who flung it to Francisco Lindor, who fired it back to Butto covering first. The Mets executed a tricky play and Butto was out of the inning with the lead still at 4-3.
Butto got the Mets through the sixth and seventh and was sent back out for the eighth, only to immediately run into trouble: a single and a walk. Enter Dedniel Nunez, among the most junior of the Mets’ relief corps and also one of its most trusted members, though that could be damning with faint praise. Nunez’s assignment? Yep, Elias Diaz. After a tough battle, Diaz smacked a ball to McNeil at second, who started a 4-6-3 double play. That moved Ezequiel Tovar to third but left the Rockies with just an out to play with. No matter: Nunez got Brenton Doyle to hit a foul pop to Alonso and the Mets were three outs away.
Three outs away, but up by a skinny run. Who would protect that slim lead? Edwin Diaz, whose last pitch to Tovar on Friday night was a slider that hung in the middle of the plate but was somehow swung over? Nope, it turned out to be Nunez — and to be a lot less of a nail-biter, as Lindor smashed a three-run homer off the launch tube of the apple to increase the Mets’ lead to a more exhalable four. (Nyet, Victor Vodnik, nyet.)
If a pitcher’s best friend is the ground ball, what’s a three-run homer in support of his cause? That has to count as a acquaintance to be cheerfully greeted, right? And definitely as a little love.
Postscript: It was fun to see Bill Pulsipher in the stands being interviewed by Steve Gelbs. For those who don’t know, Pulse’s big-league debut was also the first time your recappers met live in person. Pulse gave up five in the first — a heck of a crooked number even if it isn’t your maiden voyage — but the seeds of this blog were planted. Greg tells the story here.
by Greg Prince on 13 July 2024 12:03 pm I wanted to go home from Friday night’s game sick of “OMG”. I wanted it to be forced down my throat and stuck in my ear. I wanted it to be played to within an inch of my life. I want the Mets’ home run song to be blared incessantly because I want the Mets to homer incessantly.
There was indeed a ton of “OMG” at Citi Field, but we never reached the saturation point. Close enough, however, will do for now.
The Mets bashed five home runs Friday. Jose Iglesias therefore belted out his chorus in a veritable loop, including within two self-serenades. There was also the matter of his walk-up accompaniment, which happens to be the very same smash hit. Bring it, Candelita.
Between repeat airings of “OMG” and the eighth-inning karaoke crowd choice of “Dancing Queen,” I was ascending simultaneously toward musical and baseball heaven. Stephanie and I, ensconced in lovely Field Level seats down the third base line alongside our ever thoughtful friends the Chapmans (Sharon and Kevin, the undefeated couple of Mets baseball in any season), always perk up to ABBA, especially on a Friday night when the lights are low. Looking out for a place to go? Try over the fence, repeatedly.
Met noise. Bat noise. Fan noise. It’s a beautiful noise. Little remembered is the Colorado Rockies grabbing a 2-0 lead on a home run of their own in the second inning. Hard to forget is the Rockies nearly causing a fatal avalanche with four late runs, almost crashing our baseball party until it was on the verge of shattering. But in between, it was a Met gala the likes of which I’ve rarely experienced in July at Citi Field. Vientos goes deep! Iglesias goes deep right after! One out later, it’s Bader! All in the bottom of the second. So much for the Rockies jumping ahead early.
See that team, watch that scene, digging the big Mets lead. Once it got to be 7-2 in the fifth — another homer apiece for Jose and Harrison — it was unimaginable any harm could be done to the spectacular vibes. The only real mystery remaining was how many kids in the rows below us were going to reach out and touch Mr. Met. Yet my inner karma barometer told me the Citi A/V squad was pouring it on a bit too thick with the psych-out light & sound spectacular they unleashed on the scoreboards and ribbon boards every time the visibly downtrodden Coloradoans made a pitching change. Sure enough, close calls began going against us and the Rockies rose from the dead to nip Sean Manaea for another homer to dent his otherwise superb seven innings. Then they did to the Met bullpen what every team does to the Met bullpen. Versus Jake Diekman and Phil Maton in the eighth, they turned a laugher into a beseecher. We went from singing “Oh! My! God!” to thinking “oh dear God…”
Edwin Diaz and his blast-from-the-past entrance music became necessary for the ninth. Then Diaz became nerve-inducing. A couple of walks. A surfeit of preemptive grumbling. Ultimately, the vibes survived as the Mets hung on, 7-6. We’re still a playoff team months before the playoffs. Everything about this team is still fun as hell. But maybe next time you’ve got them where you want them, let sleeping Rox lie.
by Greg Prince on 12 July 2024 10:46 am You know the old baseball saying: The team that has the sixth-best record in the league, assuming it’s at least the third-best non-first place record in that same league, is a lock to go to the postseason. And if it’s not an old saying, let’s repeat it enough so it becomes one.
Congratulations to our ceaselessly beloved 2024 New York Mets, in whom we’ve never expressed a scintilla of doubt, for moving into playoff position with a mere 70 games to go in the regular season. Keep winning, and this thing is in the bag.
 If the playoffs started today…alas they do not. Who would engage the services of one of those MLB-approved tout services that advertise during broadcasts and bet against these Mets right now? Right now, they’re barely stoppable. Against the Washington Nationals this week, rolling through Thursday afternoon, they were truly unstoppable, sweeping away the perpetually pesky Nats in their series at Citi Field and adding an exclamation point by shutting them out in the finale.
That part was particularly nice, considering the Mets hadn’t shut out anybody all year. The zero drought hadn’t gone on long enough to develop into an albatross, but it was getting there. All it required to become a trend was its continuation. The Mets hadn’t no-hit anybody for 91 games in 1962. The next thing you knew, we were waiting 50 years for our first no-hitter.
By the time mopup man Adam Ottavino was called on to not give up a run in the top of the ninth — he did everything but — the bottom-line result was as secure as one could hope. The Mets were up, 7-0, which indicates eight innings of superb pitching supported at some point by robust hitting. The Mets did their scoring in two frames — five runs in the fifth, another pair in the eighth. Brandon Nimmo, apparently one of the best players to never be recognized by any awards voter in any realm ever, delivered the key blow, as Brandon Nimmo has been doing most every game. The Mets loaded the bases in the fifth in that admirable way they have when they’re being their best. Their backup catcher Luis Torrens doubled off MacKenzie Gore to lead off, vouching for depth that attests to the ability to give Francisco Alvarez an occasional blow. Beleaguered Jeff McNeil, who has fallen so far in popular esteem that one could discern a collective sigh from Flushing when it was realized Jose Iglesias was not available to play second base Thursday, gritted out a walk. OMG, the Squirrel still has some life left in his bushy tail. Superstar who avoids being chosen for games with stars in them Francisco Lindor also worked a walk, one of those acts of patience and selflessness that tingles our spine when it means a rally is gaining tumescence.
Then Nimmo goes Wham-O, with a dart of a double to the center field wall that brings in all three baserunners. Brandon had homered in the three preceding games, but this half-a-homer seemed more authoritative than any of his dingers. Home run streaks are freaks of nature. Hard hitting that finds gaps just keeps coming. Getting Nimmo across the plate would make the inning that much better…and, would ya look at that? J.D. Martinez drove him home, and Pete Alonso did the same solid for Martinez.
David Peterson was making his 72nd career start Thursday. The first 71 indicated little definitive about his future, other than to hint that once you’ve been on the scene quite a while taking semi-regular rotation turns and it’s still not certain what to make of you or your role, you have tangibly less future than you used to. Peterson has been around since 2020, the season none of us went to the ballpark to watch him pitch. On the current active roster, only Nimmo, McNeil and Alonso predate him. He’s coming up on his 29th birthday, transmitting a perceptible signal that calling him one of our “young starters” is a misnomer. He’s been in and out of the Mets plans for five seasons now, judged neither discardable nor indispensable. Good starts. Bad starts. Indifferent impressions. As a first-round draft choice, he didn’t have the benefit of sneaking up on anybody. As a perennial contingency option every season dating back to the COVID campaign, he hasn’t overwhelmed opposing hitters, let alone organizational decisionmakers.
In his 72nd career start, David Peterson pitched for the first time like he was an indisputably vital component of the New York Mets staff. The circumstances demanded it. On July 11? We can read a calendar, but the same ballclub reasonably left for dead in late May had revived itself to the point where it could pass every also-ran and move, if only for a day, into position to look down on all of them. Once he was staked to a 5-0 lead, Peterson had to hold it in place. Had to pitch one more scoreless inning. He’d struggled a bit earlier, but had righted himself with no runs permitted. He’d outlasted Gore. Now he’d have to outlast the Nat bats altogether. The Mets would be eligible to win if Peterson went only 5.1 IP, or had he let the score become 5-2, but this wasn’t a day for dithering or dilly-dallying. Shut out Washington in the sixth. Post a sixth zero. Establish yourself as best you can amid the more veteran starters Quintana, Severino and Manaea, who aren’t about to be dislodged; the rookie Scott who hasn’t given anybody a reason to return him to Triple-A; and the nearly rehabilitated Senga, who is on track to pitch in the majors again soon (no, really). Do everything you can to make sure that when this day is done, the Mets are a playoff team, never mind that the playoffs are more than two-and-a-half months away. Do all that, and you’re locking yourself into everybody’s plans in these parts.
David Peterson did what he had to in the sixth on Thursday. He threw three ground ball outs around a single walk and didn’t give up a run. He kept the Mets ahead, 5-0, as did bullpen import Phil Maton for an inning, as Maton gave us hope that he can be this summer’s version of Rick White. We needed more relief help in July of 2000. We need more relief help every July. That July, we had our eyes on the postseason. We don’t always look that far down the road. We acquired White from the Rays when they were the Devil Rays. White, among others, pitched us into October and acquitted himself there splendidly. Erstwhile Ray Phil put down a marker of his own with a spotless seventh. Danny Young didn’t display his stealth magic in the eighth, but Dedniel Nuñez did. Another zero. Two more runs came around in the bottom of the inning to make the Met lead surely immune to implosion. Then Otto came on to test that assessment. Lord knows he did what he could to poke holes in budding presumptuousness, loading ’em up with one out and compelling the simultaneous loosening of Edwin Diaz and tightening of our chests. We were pretty sure we were gonna win. But we really wanted that shutout.
Adam reached down to remember he’s no mopup man at heart. He struck out James Wood looking and Jesse Winker swinging. Ottavino escaped any damage. The Mets, 7-0 victors, left behind the notion they can’t shut out any opponent. They also rose .001 above the pack that crams the also-running portion of the Wild Card derby.
Sixth-best record in the league. Third-best among teams not in first place in one of the three divisions. There was a time that and correct fare would get you on the subway. These days, it could very well take you for a ride on the express track.
by Jason Fry on 11 July 2024 1:40 am Some random observations from the Mets’ cudgeling of Patrick Corbin and the Nationals:
I’m going to get the complaining out of the way first: Dear God, what did they do to the black uniforms? Eliminating the white drop shadow was a dreadful idea; without it, the tops look murky and muddy, with the orange and blue muted and lost. I’m only mildly annoyed by this, as I think the black unis are best left on the shelf save for an occasional nostalgia night, but every time I see them I’m taken aback all over again.
On the other hand, how is it that the Mets have never screwed up their original uniform, given everything else they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with over the years? Sure, they stuck racing stripes on it for a while and there was the year with the tail and the dopey off-white seasons, but they’ve never veered too far from the fundamentals. The pinstripes are simple and solid and iconic, and it’s amazing that they’ve escaped a thorough overhaul. May it always be so.
It’s appropriate that Jose Iglesias‘s “OMG” has become the song of the ’24 Mets, because Iglesias has been such a critical part of their renaissance. When they recalled him from Syracuse on May 31 they were 24-33; since then they’re 22-12. Iglesias was front and center once again Wednesday night: His two-run single in the sixth gave the Mets the lead, one of three hits he collected on the night. He’s been deadly in the clutch, reliable in the field and brought a certain intensity to the proceedings that looks like it’s rubbed off on the rest of the lineup.
It made me smile every time Gary Cohen reported on what the Padres and Cardinals were up to, with an eye on the Mets moving on up in the wild-card standings. (For the record, they’re now half a game back of the third wild card.) It’s only July, and there’s a lot that can and will happen given the scrum of so-so teams fighting for the MLB-mandated extra playoff spots. But however overengineered some of us traditionalists think the wild card is, baseball is more fun when you have a reason to scoreboard-watch. And Gary’s excitement was contagious; fundamentally, he’s one of us.
Next time Francisco Lindor‘s walk-up music ends, keep listening to the crowd. They reliably finish the verse of “My Girl” on their own, a cappella, and it’s adorable.
We didn’t see new addition Phil Maton, who’ll become the first Met player to wear 88, but we did see Jose Butto finish the game, relieving Danny Young, who’d followed an actually effective Jake Diekman. Maybe Butto can be the next piece of spaghetti to stick to the wall; I worry about interrupting his development as a starter but the team is desperate and he sure looks like a solid option. On the other hand, Reed Garrett has a date with an MRI machine to peer into his inflamed elbow. I’d assumed Garrett had been stuck on the IL with some vague malady so he could recover from being cruelly overused, but there seems to be genuine concern here.
Still, let’s not gather little black clouds just because we’re Mets fans. They won, and they won with Grimaces dotting the stands next to OMG signs, two phenomena that would have had us shaking our heads in disbelief if you’d told us about them back in May when everything was so endlessly dreary. A McDonald’s character threw out a first pitch and now we’ve all adopted him as a good luck charm? We’re in love with a backup infielder who spent all of 2023 in the minors? There’s a hit song? There was a postgame concert after a win? Wait, I’m confused: Who sings this hit song, Grimace or Iglesias?
Sounds thoroughly unlikely, but it’s all true. The summer’s been fun, after I’d given up thinking this incarnation of the Mets was capable of delivering anything but misery. To be proved wrong feels like a little miracle, and despite our reputation for gloom and heartbreak, we’re not unacquainted with those.
by Jason Fry on 10 July 2024 12:32 am The basics of Tuesday night’s game all look good in the recapping.
The Mets scored seven runs, powered by homers from Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Lindor, All-Stars in our hearts even if they aren’t accorded that status next week. Nimmo’s homer was a summer-night special, an apparent fly ball that got high up into the humid air and just kept going until there was nowhere for it to go that didn’t involve souvenirs; Lindor’s was a laser beam over the fence in right center, one AB after he just missed a prodigious blast into the upper reaches of the Coca-Cola Corner. Harrison Bader chipped in three hits as the Mets treated Jake Irvin and his suddenly ordinary curveball rudely. On the pitching side, Jose Quintana stymied the Nats for seven sparkling innings … or OK, six sparkling innings and one that was a struggle but turned out fine. Even more impressive was that it was Quintana’s second straight start against Washington, continuing an extended run that’s seen him quietly go from another exasperating nibbler to rotation stalwart. Edwin Diaz needed four pitches to lock down the save.
So why the air of dread? It’s because of what happened between Quintana’s departure and Diaz’s arrival. The eighth inning was handed over to Adam Ottavino, who gave up a double and then a homer, recorded a flyout and then was excused further duty after hitting a batter. Dedniel Nunez cleaned up Ottavino’s mess, but the ninth inning was basically a carbon copy of the eighth, only with Reed Garrett on the mound: double, homer, strikeout, groundout, walk. That walk was what got Diaz summoned on a night the Mets had led 6-0 and it seemed unlikely that their closer would have to throw a pitch in anger.
Except it didn’t seem that unlikely, now did it? The bullpen has imploded, and it isn’t one thing so much as it’s everything. There are guys pushed up the ladder higher than they’ve ever been because other guys are out for the year. There are young players who aren’t ready. There are veterans struggling to find the right formula. There are guys whose pitches have lost their crispness because, well, their arms are falling off. And then there’s Diaz himself, a cracked vessel from which multiple dramas are leaking.
Nunez is the pitcher to be trusted right now, but that’s setting ourselves up for disappointment: He’s never done this before and is being sorely worked. For where that can lead, look at Garrett, who was so dependable before excess mileage took a bite out of his splitter. Perhaps Phil Maton can help: He was just acquired from the Rays and has seen success under the playoff lights in his days as an Astro. On the other hand he walks too many guys, a bullpen quality the Mets aren’t exactly lacking.
Perhaps Maton is the answer. Perhaps Ottavino can figure something out. Perhaps Nunez keeps it up. Perhaps a more judicious workload helps Garrett and Jake Diekman find their way. Perhaps Jose Butto steps up into a more essential role. Perhaps Adrian Houser‘s up-and-down season is headed for another up. Perhaps Diaz exorcises his demons. Perhaps Eric Orze shakes off his star-crossed debut and winds up with a non-infinite ERA. Perhaps Matt Gage is the answer, even though none of us could pick him out of a police lineup.
Perhaps perhaps perhaps. So much spaghetti, so much wall. What we know right now is the Mets face a nightly quest for precious outs. On Tuesday night they needed six, and getting them was hair-raising. Some nights they need nine, or 12, or 13 or 14. Sometimes their quest ends happily, as it did Tuesday night. Sometimes it doesn’t. Whatever the outcome, it’s a source of constant peril.
We need a hero. But those can be hard to find, and even harder to keep.
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