Right back where we started from
Colleen Sullivan sees that the Mets are alright and coming along as they return to D.C. for the first time since the opening series
Trivia question: Forty-five years ago this week, the Mets filed a protest after losing a game in San Francisco. What was the protest for?
Behind Enemy (Base)Lines: Washington Nationals
By Colleen Sullivan
It’s been a month since the Mets last saw the Nats. What’s happened since then, you ask?
Well, there was a combined no-hitter, Nolan Arenado making a spectacularly Metsy play in St. Louis that allowed the Mets to come from behind and win, a bench-clearing pushfest that led to Pete Alonso being taken down like a sack of potatoes, and there’s been some weather.
Oh, and the Mets haven’t lost a series yet this season. No biggie.
So, what happened last time?
“That’s all great, Colleen,” you say, “But we don’t remember what happened last month.” Good thing I’m here to help.
The Mets took three out of four in Washington. The season (and series) opener saw Tylor Megill getting noticed because of his…. assets …on social media. He also went five scoreless innings, allowing three hits while striking out six. The lone run was earned by Trevor May on a homer by Juan Soto that now sits in geosynchronous orbit over Ypsilanti, Michigan. Meanwhile, for the offense, this was the beginning of the HBP march. James McCann was hit with the bases loaded, resulting in the first run of the season. After that was a lot of small ball from the Mets: among their dozen hits, the only ones for extra bases were doubles by Eduardo Escobar and J.D. Davis.
The next day, Max Scherzer made a successful Mets debut and Francisco Lindor took a pitch to the face (thankfully he was wearing the chin guard on his helmet and only came away with a chipped tooth). That was the moment Mets fans knew Buck Showalter was not the typical manager they were used to. Mostly because he led the charge out of the dugout, not something we’re used to seeing. The Mets got their first homer of the year from Jeff McNeil and his “don’t think just hit” approach to 2022.
Game three saw the Mets four-hit the Nationals behind Chris Bassitt, Drew Smith, Joely Rodriguez, and Adam Ottavino, 5-0. We finally got an Alonso home run, and it was a grand slam. But Chasen Shreve and Trevor Williams couldn’t close out the sweep on Sunday, and the Mets, despite all their series wins, still haven’t broken out the brooms this year.
What’s happened since?
A lot of good things for the Mets. Fewer good things for the Nats. They’re last in the NL East with a 10-20 record, 10 games out of first. Soto doesn’t have a ton of help, mostly Josh Bell, with Yadiel Hernandez possibly having a breakout year… while Maikel Franco is always dangerous against the Mets, with a career .267/.308/.513 line and 20 homers in 75 games – that’s 16% of his career homers. They were so close to winning their last series against the struggling Angels but couldn’t manage to close things up neatly in the ninth, allowing a walk-off single to former friend Anthony Rendon that you probably didn’t realize was Rendon’s single because all you saw was Shohei Ohtani.
On the offensive side, Washington is averaging 4.53 runs per game and collectively batting .254, which includes a .157 average from the suddenly looking all of his 41 years Nelson Cruz. The Nationals are going to have to find their defense quickly – they’ve only had five quality starts, and their staff ERA is 4.93, already too much for the lineup to overcome before you throw in the 23 errors, which aren’t the worst in the league but definitely aren’t great.
Pitchers, we got ‘em
Tuesday is going to be a rematch of the opener, Megill vs. Patrick Corbin. Corbin of 2019 is not Corbin of 2022. He’s posting a whopping 7.16 ERA with a 0-5 record over 27.2 innings. If you thought Robinson Canó was a lot of dead money, Corbin is signed for two more years and $60 million after this season. He was also literally the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the World Series, so Corbin really doesn’t have to worry about winning another game, ever.
Wednesday is Taijuan Walker vs. Aaron Sanchez. ESPN Analytics’ Matchup Predictor has the Nationals with a 52.8% chance of winning, which I am currently finding hilarious, mostly due to Sanchez having an ERA almost double Walker’s (8.56 vs. 4.91 over 13.2 and 11 innings, respectively). While his last start was in Colorado, Sanchez hasn’t made it past the fifth inning anywhere this year, and only got through five innings when he managed to beat the Giants (despite giving up three runs) in San Francisco.
Thursday for the close is Carlos Carrasco vs. Joan Adon. Uh, speaking of Nationals pitchers with ERAs double Mets starters’ figures, Adon is posting a 6.99 over 28.1 innings compared to Cookie’s 3.30 over 30 innings. The Mets “luck out” by not facing the Nationals’ two starters with ERAs under 4.00 this season, Josiah Gray and Erick Fedde… which tells you a lot about what these matchups will look like all summer.
I can’t wait to see this home run derby between Alonso, Bell, and Soto. Odds are in the Polar Bear’s favor.
Boycott Walgreens until the series is over in solidarity. Hopefully, the Nats inform the Secret Service the next time they decide a flyover of the stadium is a good idea.
Trivia answer: On May 8, 1977, the Mets and Giants faced off in a scheduled Sunday afternoon doubleheader at Candlestick Park. Problem was, it was a rare rainy day out in California, and the mound at Candlestick Park required loads of sand to keep it from simply washing away. Having lost the first game, 4-2, the last day of the Mets’ miserable West Coast trip got even worse when Lenny Randle’s error (two months before Randle was at-bat when the 1977 blackout hit at Shea) on a Willie McCovey grounder (he threw an inning-ending double play ball into left field) brought home three runs in the first inning… and then things deteriorated. Giants pitcher John Curtis tripled, which Lee Mazzilli turned into a Little League home run with an error in center field. Mike Vail made another pair of errors in left. Including the one that brought home the last two runs in the Giants’ 10-0 romp.
So, what could the Mets have had to protest when they got their butts handed to them so badly? The field conditions. The great Leonard Koppett reported for The New York Times that the protest was unlikely to succeed, and that was being generous. His ice-cold kicker on the story of a disastrous affair for the Mets: “Foli tripled and Andrews singled, making the tally 5-0 and reducing the suspense to the question whether the umpires would let play continue. They did.”
The piece on the continuing slide of the Mets, two days later after more rain in New York postponed both the Mayor’s Trophy game and the opener of a series against the Padres… that piece by Dave Anderson, another legend, well, it gives a significant amount of space – right at the start – to an analogy that, really, what did editors in the 1970s even do?
Perhaps the New York Mets belong in Family Court instead of in last place. In the quiet years, M. Donald Grant always spoke of the Mets as a “family” and now its members are bickering loudly among themselves. Not that the Mets ever really resembled a family. The imagery was figment of M. Donald Grant's imagination, as was the belief that the Mets would be a contender in the National League East this season. In reality, the Mets, like most teams sports, resembled a plantation and still do. That's M. Donald Grant in the plumed hat, riding in the carriage. And there's an uprising out in the cotton fields. The workers are grumbling about the foreman, about shirkers and about the available workers who were not hired. As the Mets returned to Shea Stadium tonight against the San Diego Padres, these nasty words were still echoing from seven losses in the last eight games:
Say what?
Anyway, these were the quotes:
Tom Seaver to Rube Walker when the pitching coach was sent to the mound by Manager Joe Frazier: “Tell him to leave me alone.”
Jon Matlack when Dave Kingman took himself out of the lineup in Los Angeles: “If he doesn't want to play, the hell with him.”
Jerry Koosman after having lost, 3‐1, to the Dodgers: “Working without any runs is starting to get to me after 10 years.”
Plus ça change, Jerry Koosman? If Jacob deGrom isn’t starting on the jersey retirement day…
As for Kingman, for someone who gets talked about as being kept out of the Hall of Fame because the media had a grudge against him, and for all the talk about how he hit 35 homers in his last season, then couldn’t get a job, the Koosman quote says a ton.
Of course, the Koosman quote came via media, and so did the next bit of the story, but it gives a hint as to how Kingman was seen at what was still the peak of his career, 10 years before he couldn’t find a team to join in pursuit of a 500th career homer.
In offering Dave Kingman an annual salary of $200,000 for anywhere from one to five years, M. Donald Grant was more than generous. Dave Kingman does not deserve that much money. But he did not deserve to be humiliated for not taking it. Now he's sulking and occasionally traveling alone on United Airlines, for whom he works in the off‐season, rather than on the Mets' flights.
The other Mets players were better off for it, because Kingman was the guy, after all, who sent a live rat to reporter Susan Fornoff in the press box, during a game, in the middle of that season that nobody would sign him after.
Don’t think for a second, though, that not signing Kingman was because he was a misogynist. It’s because nobody could stand him in general, to the point where, even coming off his first All-Star season and back-to-back years in the MVP top 20, a teammate would still say “the hell with him” in the newspaper, on the record. The rat incident got Kingman a fine of $3,500.
Screw that. If you’ve got to think about someone working for United Airlines, enjoy the Fountains of Wayne classic Mexican Wine, whose video features Drew Carey, and did not quite achieve to popularity of the Rachel Hunter-starring Stacy’s Mom video.