Building And Saving Legacies

Sunday’s game really started with Francisco Lindor’s second home run of the night.

His first home run was a three run shot off Clarke Schmidt in the second that gave the Mets a 4-2 lead, which would eventually be extended to a 5-2 lead on a James McCann sac fly. In the top of the 6th, Gleyber Torres hit a two run shot to make the score 5-4 to set up the beginning of the fun in the bottom of the 6th. After Lindor made it 6-4, he gave a little whistle towards his friend Gio Urshela, That’s when it came out on the broadcasts that after the Yankees found the tip in Taijuan Walker’s pitches on Saturday, that they were whistling to relay the pitches to their hitters before Jonathan Villar told Walker about the tip.

So Lindor, sensing that technology was the only difference between what the Yankees did and what the Astros did, he stuck it to the Yankees. Now if we know anything about the Yankees is that when you throw their bullshit back at ’em, they take on a bit of a “how dare you” attitude. So when Giancarlo Stanton tied the game at 6-6 in the 7th with a massive two run home run off of Jake Hand, he gave Lindor a little “how dare you” when he was going around the bases, and a little bit of hell broke loose as the benches emptied. (Although for Lindor’s part, he said that Stanton didn’t want to fight and the whole thing was a misunderstanding … yeah, sure.)

Now it’s important to note, in advance of the 30 for 30 documentary about the Mets coming up this week, that if this was the 80’s, there might have been bloodshed. And I can’t vouch for there not having been bloodshed in the stands after that. But we did get the 20’s version of bloodshed, which was this:

https://twitter.com/_jonvasquez/status/1437258556584210439

https://twitter.com/PlayoffTanaka_/status/1437258416532201472

It’s not often I get charged up over something like this. A lot of times this stuff is hilarious. But seeing as if this was the Yankees, and at the very least this was the Mets’ last chance to screw with the Yankees’ playoff hopes amidst the looming embarrassment if the Mets had lost this game, I absolutely wanted this one. I was jacked. So jacked that when Lindor hit his third home run of the game to right field, I got so excited that I tried to lay the narrative down that he hit it right over Stanton’s head.

Umm, one problem, stupid. Joey Gallo was in right. Stanton was in left. This game would have enough narrative that it didn’t need me to make up any. Many thanks to all my friends on Twitter that let that one slide.

My dudes up on the dugout with the flag this is HUGE winter ball energy I absolutely love it pandemonium at Citi Field it's a party long live Lindor what a game pic.twitter.com/rbBqxvXrWu

— Céspedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) September 13, 2021

Holy hell, Francisco Lindor hit his third home run of the game. It gave the Mets a 7-6 leadAnd that was with everything swirling around. Lindor proved that he wasn’t too big for that moment. It took him until September in a game that will probably wind up meaning nothing in the tangible, but everyone is sure as hell going to remember this one for a long time … as they should. I was roaring. I mean … really feeling myself. That is, until I realized that Edwin Diaz was coming in to close it out. The next three outs are going to wind up being our World Series, and it’s up to Edwin Diaz. I haven’t been this nervous since the Conor Gillaspie was batting against Jeurys Familia in 2016.

Rougned Odor led off the inning and all I could think of was Odor punching Jose Bautista’s lights out and thinking “well shit if he hits a home run and goes mental, he’s going to go through the whole team like a hot knife through butter until he gets to the final boss: Pete Alonso. The Mets have enough injuries to deal with, please don’t risk this by giving up a home run to Odor.” Thankfully, Diaz struck out Odor and that crisis was averted.

D.J. LeMahieu then singled and all of a sudden Diaz loses the plate and walks Anthony Rizzo on four pitches. (Dammit, not this Edwin Diaz.) With runners on first and second, and the specter of past failures palpable, Diaz struck out Brett Gardner, which was great because if the 95 year old whiny brat Gardner had tied the game or given the Yankees the lead I don’t think I would have handled it well. But the problem was that it sent Stanton to the plate for the ultimate showdown, because of course.

Stanton fouled off two straight fastballs to put the Mets on the brink of victory. Curiously, Diaz kept throwing fastballs when everybody and their bullpen catchers were expecting a slider down and away. But Diaz even stayed with the fastball for ball one. Hell, even James McCann was expecting something else because he got crossed up on ball two (which was actually strike three but no umpire is going to call a cross up pitch a strike), as the ball popped out of his glove and sent the runners to first and second. Now with first base open, there was really no reason to give Stanton another fastball right? RIGHT???

Diaz went back to the fastball. With eveybody’s heart skipping a beat as the heat was riding high and inside, Stanton took a mighty cut …

… and popped out to Lindor to end it. If that fastball was just a bit lower and a bit more to the left and Stanton had hit it to the moon, Diaz would have been completely finished here. Some blown saves you can come back from. Even the ones against Washington last week. But not this one. Not ever. (Ask Luis Castillo if it was “only a pop-up”.) Thankfully, as Lindor had started to carve out a legacy here on New York on Sunday night, Diaz was able to save and polish up the legacy that he had started to rebuild this season.

If the Mets, as we all expect, go down in flames the rest of the way, we’ll always have this.

Today’s Hate List

1. Roger Clemens
2. Chase Utley
3. Brett Gardner
4. Gerrit Cole
5. Giancarlo Stanton