Exponential

Remember what I said when the Mets won their series against the Rangers on Sunday?

If they had lost the series against the Rangers? Those voices, that outside noise would have been turned up from 1980’s boom box level to jet airplane takeoffs at LaGuardia. But with the win? Hey, they’re still fine.

Multiply this by 10,000 for https://www.espn.com/mlb/game/_/gameId/401355457.

David Peterson was all over the place tonight. Understandable, having taken a round trip to Denver which had nothing to do with playing the Rockies, yet still having to come down from the thin air. Peterson struck out seven but walked five and gave up three runs in his short outing. Buck Showalter pulled him after three and 2/3’s because he knew that this was a game they had to have. Adonis Medina came in and pitched as though this was a big game that they had to have, throwing three scoreless innings while only giving up one hit and one walk while striking out four. The Mets absolutely do not pull this game out without him.

They almost didn’t pull the game out with him. The Mets got ten hits off of Graham Ashcraft, who sounds like he should be the fill-in host for Pat Robertson on The 700 Club. But somehow Ashcroft befuddled them by only giving up two runs, taking us back to a simpler time when Luis Rojas was doing ironic ads for “Smart” Water and Mickey Callaway was indulging in Village People fan fiction. Joel Kuhnel and Reiver Sanmartin also held the Mets at bay to send the game to the ninth inning.

While I was mapping out this entry for tonight, trying to figure out how the Mets could get Mike Rizzo to believe that a pair of Josh Satin’s game worn sanitary socks was adequate compensation for Josh Bell (as long as the Mets paid the rest of his salary), I did have one glimmer of hope. It was the glimmer that Hunter Strickland was in the game, and that there was no way on God’s fiery earth that Hunter f**king Strickland was going to get a win and a save for the worst team in baseball in the same series against a team with 50 wins. Even my cold, dark heart refused to believe that. Sure enough, after Brandon Nimmo worked out a base hit in an intense at-bat against Strickland, Starling Marte bounced one down the left field line and it went over the bag … okay, it might have been in the expanded airspace of third base … for a double which tied the game. (I’m hearing that the St. Louis Post Dispatch has already put an asterisk on this victory.)

In the 10th, Dom Smith grounded a one out double down the right field line to score Ender Inciarte, who pinch ran for Pete Alonso. Then something strange happened. Dauri Moreta came high and tight on Eduardo Escobar, and while I don’t know why anyone would want to hit someone or settle a score in a tenth inning, Escobar got angry. As far as I’m concerned, if you make a happy guy like Eduardo Escobar angry, you’ve done something wrong. If it was simply a product of someone getting angry at all of the hit by pitches the Mets have had this season? Oh well, sorry Dauri. But you picked the wrong day to poke the happy bear. Sucks to be you.

Escobar, predictably, tried to hit the next pitch 500 miles but instead hit a lazy fly ball to right field. But he was picked up. After the Reds intentionally walked Luis Guillorme, James McCann (yes, that James McCann) lined a single to left and Dom Smith slid around the tag at home plate to give the Mets the all important two run lead. Brandon Nimmo followed with a three run homer which prompted Francisco Lindor to curse in elation as the Mets went ahead 8-3 to end the Reds.

So everything is now as it was at the end of the Rangers series, except that instead of feeling like everything is fine, it feels more like the Mets got away with one. They may not be fine, but they’re at least closer to fine than they were entering the 9th inning tonight. Close enough that I can still try to figure out how a game used sock for Josh Bell trade would work in practice and not just in theory. Maybe deferred payments will be involved.

Today’s Hate List

1. Dauri Moreta
2. Paul Clemons
3. Angel Hernandez
4. Joel Kuhnel
5. Miles Mikolas