(Editor’s Note: I wrote this as the game was happening, and not all at the end. This usually isn’t an important detail to highlight but considering what happened to Kevin Pillar, I felt the need to point this out. You’ll understand this distinction as you go.)

Steven A. Cohen just got his first lesson in the dark arts of dealing with the baseball gods: “Don’t tempt them. They will take every opportunity to stick it to you.” You tell them that it could be 12? They tell you that it will be 12. “Let’s have a look here … oooooooh! Taijuan Walker has a 2.20 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP. Let’s add him to the list.”

Oh, and your money is no good in their world, Steve.

Ron Darling had warned everyone in the third inning. Walker looked shaky out there. He had faced nine batters and only given up a hit to opposing pitcher Max Fried. But to Acuña he was yanking pitches outside, and was looking “queasy” as Darling put it. We probably should have realized it when Taijuan basically stopped swinging the bat last Wednesday.

Walker struck out Acuña, but that was it for him for the game. “Left side tightness” was the diagnosis, to complete the matching set with Jacob deGrom’s right side tightness. Between that and the right hamstring that Conforto pulled pairing up with the left hanstring pull that befell Jeff McNeil, the Mets only option at this point is to take the remaining parts of the four players and create one healthy player named Jeffjuan deForto.

Now to be fair, and I know that there is a sizeable portion of people that read this or follow me that think that the other 29 rosters in the league exist exclusively to torture the Mets. I mean, it’s their primary function, just not exclusive. And the injuries are hitting them too. Max Fried was also pulled from the game after he pitched to Tomas Nido in the 7th.

Sean Reid-Foley (from Guam) pitched three scoreless innings for the Mets while featuring a mustache direct from the Randy Myers 1988 collection to get the Mets to the 7th. After Tomas Nido doubled and Fried was pulled, James McCann had an at-bat that didn’t come with a parental advisory as he doubled down the line to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

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