Three Cheers For The Mets

Roger, Addy, and Jesse react to New York moving on to the NLDS

The Fortune Teller

By Roger Cormier

Before the 9th inning of Thursday’s Mets-Brewers winner-take-all game, I wondered, like I did after the 2022 season abruptly ended, what it was all year long that I had been watching. Every championship season across sports has some sort of inside joke, some kind of totem, some sort of rallying cry, some “signs” something special was afoot. The 2024 Mets certainly have had all those.

But sometimes there are fake-outs. 2022 was Mark Canha Summer and Fogo de Chao and it ended with What the Fuck Fall. Jalen Brunson was going to lead the Knicks to the top last season, until he and the team both went down in Game 7. And the worst part is you don’t know you’ve been deceived until it’s too late to do anything about it. You let your heart open again. 

I went to the bar on Thursday night. I couldn’t justify staying at home, alone with the cat (named Scooter for Met reasons), in an elimination game. I stayed in for the 2022 Game 3 loss, and I couldn’t help but think I wasn’t always this way. I used to be someone who always defaulted to the bar for big games. I guess maturity and lessening financial fortunes are the reasons why that stopped. I was at the same place for the Wilmer Flores Game and Game 3 of the 2015 World Series, and for the first time since the pandemic I plopped my ass on one of its janky stools again. 

I kept to myself, focused on the television right in front of me and the MLB Gameday app. The Gameday app was, somewhat cruelly, always a pitch or two ahead of the TV feed. I remember Johan Santana’s no-hitter being “ruined” by a Chris Majkowski tweet of “Tonight, Boss” that popped up before Santana wound up for his final pitch to David Freese, and I never looked back on spoilers. I even read synopses of movies before I watch them. My theme song might as well be “No Surprises” by Radiohead. 

I didn’t want to broadcast my superpower. I can easily imagine people getting annoyed pretty quickly with someone who would say such-and-such was about to whiff or ground out to second. So, I was as quiet and drunk as a frisky church mouse. 

In the bottom of the seventh, the Brewers hit back-to-back home runs off consecutive pitches to give themselves a seemingly insurmountable 2-0 lead. After that, I determined the Gameday app was evil and bad luck, so I closed that window. When the Mets didn’t do anything in the 8th, I called it back up, since it was obvious that wasn’t the problem. I wish I could say I was confident about what would happen next. The truth is, I looked at all the clues the Mets have given us all year long and determined…meh, maybe? I had been burned many times before.

In the top of the ninth, Francisco Lindor drew a walk. Mark Vientos struck out. Brandon Nimmo singled, bringing Lindor to third. Pete Alonso was next. Pete, since hitting a home run to, as Gary Cohen put it, “return the Mets back on its axis” and finally put them in the win column after starting the season 0-5, had seemingly done absolutely nothing. An inning before he even dropped a relatively easy foul ball. The fans literally laughed at him. Earlier in the series he tripped on his own bat. The confidence levels weren’t very high. At least, they shouldn’t have been. Pete Alonso hitting a home run to shut everybody up, in what could have been his last at-bat as a New York Met was almost too obvious. Hack, really. And yet, during Pete’s at-bat Gameday read “In play, run(s)”. 

“No fucking way,” I thought to myself. “Please God, did he homer?!”

“Pete Alonso homers (1) to right. Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo score.”

I broke my silence. Had to. I turned to the gentleman on my left and said, “Pete is going to homer here.”

“Mhm.”

“No, seriously.”

He homered. The bar roared. The guy finally turned to look at me. 

“How?”

I told him. He didn’t seem to care. Maybe he wasn’t asking how I knew so much as he was asking how is this real life. I don’t blame him.

Then David Peterson sauntered in to close out the game in the bottom half of the ninth. David Peterson. DP, in all the years he’s been a Met, has definitely been…a pitcher. Technically. What can be said about him before this season other than he was mediocre at best. It always seemed like the team was way more bullish on him than seemed plausible, given the results. But maybe he was always dealing with hip trouble, because this season coming off hip surgery he has been really good. I did not see this coming, and I doubt you did either. 

So Peterson gives up a hit immediately. Of course, it’s David Peterson. Then he got a strikeout. Then came “In play, out(s).” I looked up to see Lindor fielding a grounder and running to second. “Gogogogogo,” I implored loudly. For once, I did not know exactly what was about to happen. Lindor stepped on second and fired to first just in time for the double play. The Mets won the damn thing, 4-2. I knew it all along.

A Text From Addy

By Addy Baird

Losing Attitude Wins Big

By Jesse Spector

Jorge López, the man whose glove toss sparked the team meeting and roster shakeup that jolted the 2024 Mets into contenders, did win a game for the Mets this year. So, too, did Adrian Houser, Paul Blackburn, Sean Reid-Foley, Ryne Stanek, Brooks Raley, and Michael Tonkin.

And also Kodai Senga, the man who will pitch Game 1 of the NLDS in Philadelphia.

The Mets had 22 pitchers credited with a victory this season, including the nine guys who each got one. Christian Scott was 0-3 in nine starts but deserved better as the Mets simply refused to score for the rookie.

It took all of those wins to get the Mets to the playoffs, every last one. The night Jake Diekman struck out Aaron Judge and got a save? That happened, and the Mets made the playoffs because of it.

The craziest of the wins before Pete Alonso’s first-in-MLB-history-go-ahead-homer-when-trailing-in-the-ninth-inning-of-a-winner-take-all-game three-run shot, at least to me, was September 10: the day the Mets got no-hit for eight innings in Toronto before Francisco Lindor homered off Bowden Francis and started a six-run rally.

I’d made peace with the idea of the Mets being no-hit that day, and there were multiple times both in September and during Game 3 in Milwaukee specifically, that I was mentally preparing for it to be the end. And each time, I’ve been okay with it: this was a year of tempered expectations, where making the playoffs would be nice but wasn’t really expected, and they gave us so much humor, whimsy, and joy.

It still is a longshot that the Mets pay it all the way off, winning their first World Series since 1986. There are seven other teams still in the playoffs, each with their own feeling that this season has been like a movie. Shohei Ohtani went 50/50, the Yankees might be in their only season with Juan Soto, Philadelphia always thinks Philadelphia should be the main character, the Padres have never won a World Series, and 60% of the AL Central is still here, all equally able to play the “nobody believed in us” card.

Seven of the eight teams still in this thing will go home with their dreams dashed. But the Mets have already had so many come true. It’s hard to square that with the notion that anything short of a championship is a failure. It might be true, as a failure to reach the ultimate goal is still a failure, but it’s not a fun way to be. It’s talk radio.

I’ve had a ton of fun this summer and this Mets season is a success whether they win the World Series or not. They probably won’t, and I can live with that. I sure hope they do.