Reese Kaplan -- A Glorious Ending to Another Horrible Game

24 hours ago people who root for the Mets wouldn’t have thrown water on Javier Baez if he’d suddenly burst into flames.  The newspapers, Twitter, Facebook and the corner bars were filled with well deserved vitriol towards the late July acquired second baseman based upon his heartless, immature and disrespectful thumbs down gesture during the previous game.  His compatriots in this escapade, Francisco Lindor and Kevin Pillar, seemed to sound off on Mets fans as uninformed, undeserving and unappreciative of their talents.  Oddly, of the three of them, none really has had a season on which to hold his head high with Baez’s paltry .244 batting average the lofty echelon to which his two partners had not ascended.

Turn the page and move onto the Mets/Marlins game in which the club was toiling away in typical 2021 Mets fashion, trailing by a score of 5-1 going into the 9th inning. The only offense mounted was a solo home run by Jonathan Villar earlier in the game.  Given it was his 16th of the season during which he’s not been a day-in/day-out regular, it had to feel good for the man as he auditions for his 2022 employer. 

This Marlins mega-killer team included even worse hitting than the Mets have exhibited this season and they were led by the not-Cy-Young arm of one 26 year old Elieser Hernandez of a lifetime 7-13 record and a career ERA of 4.61.  Somehow this ragtag bunch of Marlins managed to tag Taijuan Walker for 3 runs and Heath Hembree for 2 more.  Obviously it was all over.  

Bear in mind that this loss was a particularly long term and grating one.  It was the follow up of a suspended game from much earlier in the season during which Marcus Stroman started and was put to rest for the night when the skies opened up and the umpires decided the game could never be resumed.  In response the Mets did what the Mets do...lots of at-bats, lots of squandered hits and the frustrating inability to push any of the baserunners across the plate.  

The highlights for the Mets’ NOffense were outfielder Brandon Nimmo who had 3 hits for the night and converted outfielder Dom Smith who had 2.  No other Mets players managed more than a single hit.  The total of 12 hits for the team included single tallies by 7 other players.  One of them was a pinch hit by the man without a position, J.D. Davis, and the other was a pinch hit by persona non grata, Javy Baez.  

Yes, going into the 9th inning while trailing 5-1, it seemed all was lost. After the other Mets relievers Miguel Castro and Jeurys Familia gave their team three scoreless innings, it just seemed like a drudgery of watching the team flail away helplessly to lose yet again. They're always unable to drive the ball against the likes of a guy named Dylan Florio with a Jeopardy game answer for a name, “This man has emerged to help the Marilns with a .500 record over 55 games under the Florida sun.”

With game one of the day-night doubleheader taking place during the workday, I happened to read the headline that Brandon Nimmo blasted a two-run homer that still left the Mets far behind what the scoreboard read in favor of the visiting Fish.  Some of us cynical types (me, Me, ME) even pondered how typical it was for Nimmo to do something when it didn’t matter one iota in the outcome of the game.

After getting back to work and abandoning the live updates on my phone, you couldn’t have envisioned the next few batters’ productivity had you written the script in Cooperstown or Hollywood.  We all know what happened when the Mets pushed across another run to get to a losing proposition of 5-4 instead of 5-1.  It was just the kind of frustrating but losing offensive push that would be long forgotten when the third out was registered.

This time the Mets got a few more runners on the bags, including that pinch hit from Baez.  The lead runner represented the guy whose trip across home plate would tie the game.  “Thumbs Down” Baez would be a winning baserunner, but those kind of things didn’t happen for the Mets, especially when they were depending on the not very robust pine weapon of the .217 hitting free-agent-to-be, Michael Conforto.

Every now and then a miracle does indeed occur.  For the Mets, this 9th inning rally was one of those rare times.  With Pete Alonso 90 feet away on third base after Baez’ infield single that drove home Smith, Michael Conforto strode to the plate.  He drove an opposite field base hit past the third baseman which easily plated Alonso to tie the game.  However, the miracle that happened was when Marlins’ left fielder Jorge Alfaro misplayed the ground ball single, Baez put on the afterburners and sprinted from first base all the way home to score the improbable come-from-behind 6-5 Mets 9th inning 5-run rally to win the game.  

For one day in thumbs-down land, all was forgiven.  It likely won’t mean anything as we welcome in September, but for one amazing day, it felt good to be a Mets fan.