By Marvin A Azrak
Roses are red, violets are blue, and rooting for the New York Mets still brings you a roller coaster of emotions from day to day, game to game, inning to inning, pitch to pitch, and even batter to batter. Their latest campaign has been no exception, with Metsville having high hopes coming into the year, and yes the team delivered early on but has once again faltered in the Summer months losing what once seemed like a comfortable lead in the dreadful National League Eastern division.
This type of collapse is something Mets fans have been through before, like in 2007 when they blew a 10 game lead to the Phillies, missing out on the playoffs altogether, or in 2018 when they began the season an MLB-beat 11-1, only to falter and finish the season a dismal 77-85. Or in 2019, when they won 16 of 17 in August, only to falter down the stretch, finishing 86-76, and once again miss the dance. However, after another year in the league’s basement, the Mets “Cleaned house” making billionaire Steve Cohen their new owner, and Sandy Alderson their new general manager. What followed was what Mets fans thought at the time was a “Franchise-changing” deal in the acquisitions of superstar Fransisco Lindor and all-star Carlos Carrasco from the Cleveland Indians this past offseason. Combine that with the signing of an all-star reliever in Trevor May, among other veteran acquisitions, and you not only have a team that’s talented but a team that can handle the grind of a 162 game marathon with the depth they possessed. Entering the season, Mets fans had a lot to smile about with a rotation of Jacob Degrom(Undoubtedly the best pitcher in baseball when healthy), Carlos Carrasco, Marcus Stroman(All-star starter), Tajuan Walker( About to hit the prime in his pitching career), and proven rookie David Pederson, with Noah Syndergaard (AKA “Thor”) due back from Tommy John surgery at some point in the Summer months. It prompted some MLB experts to place the Mets in the postseason picture, with a few even going as far to say they would make it to the NLCS(Yours truly included). But that’s why the games are played on the field right? So we could truly see what would happen, and what we have seen instead this Summer, is a reminder of just how hard it is to sustain success in a dream Baseball trek to the dance.
Initially, the Mets began the season 7-4, but what followed was a 2-7 slide that saw them finish April 9-11, in a month that also saw seven games postponed due to inclement weather or COVID issues regarding the opponent. However, the Mets found their” Groove” right out of the gate in the month of May, winning the next nine of eleven to move to 18-13. Jacob Dergom was on his way to another CY Young, closer Edwin Diaz was having an all-star season, Tajuan Walker was finally pitching the way the Mets expected him to pitch when they signed him in the offseason, and the offense was firing on all cylinders. Having just routed the woeful Baltimore Orioles 7-1 completing a series sweep, it would’ve been easy to look at the standings, see the first-place Mets and say “This is going to be one incredible year”, and nobody would have blamed you. But then came… “The Trop Drop”.
The Mets left for Tampa Bay, Florida on May 12th and were never the same again. Injuries to sluggers in Jeff Mcneil and Brandon Nimmo matched the team’s mood headed home, as they were outclassed in a Rays weekend sweep(3-2, 12-5, 7-1), and when you added that onto the news Degrom would be out for two weeks due to injury, the Mets were quickly becoming the “Classic Mets” of old. It was in fact at this early point in the season where one Mets fan told me he saw the writing on the wall, and that the free-fall would begin shortly, and while he wasn’t wrong, it didn’t exactly take place right, then, and there. Degrom would return on May 31st, and once again change the team’s fortunes with his brilliance, but only to go back on the shelf weeks later, thus putting a damper on a 14-5 stretch for the Amazin’s that had them at a season-high 10 games over .500(35-25), in the middle of June and five games clear of the second-place Philadelphia Phillies. This started a parade of injuries to starters such as Joey Luchesi, Robert Gsellman, and Sean-Reid Foley, and relievers such as Jeurys Familia. The performance level dropped to finish the month, as they finished the month with a 41-35 record, luckily still in the first place because they were just one of two teams in the division(Nationals being 40-38) with a winning record. The Summertime rolled around, and while there would be no Noah Syendegard due to a setback, the Mets did see their almost full team return, and provide Mets fans with the greatest series win of all on independence day aside from the World Series, which is a victory over the despised -Yankees. In-game one in the Bronx, Tajaun Walker carried a no-hitter into the sixth, and the Mets bats (mainly Fransisco Lindor) came alive, in statement 8-3 win to begin the weekend. Then in game two, the Mets chased Gerrit Cole after just 3.1 innings and rallied against Aroldis Chapman and the Yankees bullpen later in the game with six runs in their final turn at-bat for a 10-5 series-clinching victory that had Metsville partying the night away. At that moment, New York was 43-37, and despite everything that they had been through were first in the NL East, and the only team with a winning record in addition to reinforcements being on the horizon. Following the “Bronx takeover”, the team then took a series from the red-hot Milwaukee Brewers(Who entered Citi Field at the time having won 10 of 11) and looked at seven straight games with the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates as an opportunity to (As baseball fans say) “get fat”, and increase their division lead.
If you took the ”Room Temperature” of a Mets fan on the morning of July 11th, their anxiety level would be significantly calmer than at the time of this writing. The team was 47-39, the lone winning team in the NL East, had the best pitcher in baseball leading the rotation in a healthy Jacob Degrom, they had fan-favorite in Pete Alonso competing in HR Derby on July 13th, they had Carlos Carrasco making progress towards his Mets debut shortly after the All-star pause recovering from an injury he sustained a couple of days prior to the season getting started, and had just smoked the Pittsburgh 13-4 a couple of days earlier, in a contest that featured a 10- run 6th inning, which capped by a Fransisco Lindor grand slam. Once again, if you were “Mets’d up, nobody would think differently than you did. However, it was then that the engine started up again, and the emotional roller-coaster that is the New York Mets season kicked itself into full gear.
It all began in the top of the ninth inning that very Sunday, Edwin Diaz entered to close out a game his team once led 5-0 but had shrunk to 5-4. Diaz up to that point had been stellar in save opportunities(16/17) for the Amazins, and credited his turnaround to the fact he had his “Pump-up Song” once again, in the trumpet-blaring edition of “Narco” by Blasterjax& Timmy Trumpet” that had quickly become Mets nation’s new favorite song, ones that fans rose to their feet every time they heard it. So you can imagine the nostalgia that fans felt on that Sunny Sunday at Citi Field. When the music began, out came Edwin Diaz, and the crowd went ballistic. At that moment, all was right with the 2021 New York Mets.
However, it only took a matter of minutes, before all you could see was defeated, exhausted, and drained Mets fans, because their hero had just done the unthinkable… he had blown a save in the worst way you could imagine up to that point in the season. With two outs, and two strikes, he served up a game-tying RBI single to John Nogowski, before a Wilmer Difo RBI knock gave Pittsburgh the lead, with an official 6-5 NY loss coming shortly thereafter; but the worst was yet to come.
There’s a saying out there that states “Things come in threes”, and that’s what happened following the All-Star break for this team, who fell 4-1 to the Pirates in PNC Park but seemed to have game two locked up with a 6-0 lead entering the bottom of the eighth inning. But suddenly, a five-run frame by Pittsburg, led to Diaz making another appearance in the ninth and a chance at redemption. Leading 7-5, Diaz had two runs to work with so it wasn’t worrisome when the first man he faced was awarded first, via an HBP. Later in the frame though, it was “Win or Go home” time for all parties involved, as the Pirates had the bases loaded with two outs, and a .235 hitter in Jacob Stallings at the dish. Moments later, Diaz was a strike away once again from a save, before a line drive to left field cleared the wall for a “Gut-punch” walk-off grand slam, handing Pittsburgh the series. “When that happened, I knew we wouldn’t be in the first place much longer,” one Mets fan told me, while another remarked,” We’ve had many tough ones, but that was on a different level”. It wasn’t just because of how it ended, but also because fans learned on that same day that their ace in Degrom would miss even more time due to a shoulder injury, essentially taking him out of the CY Young conversation. To add to the misery, Fransisco Lindor was placed on the Injured List with an oblique strain, and at the time of this writing still hasn’t recovered as of yet.
As expected the Mets struggled to maintain consistent play from there, and although they still found themselves in first place a week later at 52-44, you could feel an inevitable collapse on the way which opened the door for underwhelming teams such as the Phillies and Braves to make a push; which they very did at the Mets expense. First, the Braves took three of five from the Mets on the road, with the Amazins offense only mustering 11 runs combined( Just two per game) in the series. It didn’t get any better at the trade deadline, because on a day where their division rivals addressed their glaring weaknesses, all the Mets did was acquire a below-average Shortstop in Javy Baez to replace Lindor, but not addressing the lack of pitching, had many Mets fans in an outrage. “I like Baez, but he’s a liability more than a necessity, and the deadline I thought the Mets were going to have didn’t happen, and we’re swimming in the pool of consequences because of it.” Mets fan said.
The hits kept on coming(Not the good kind), as stunning regressions by starting pitchers such as guys like Tajaun Walker, and hitters Pete Alonso(Back to back HR Derby champ), Micheal Conforto, Jeff Mcneil, and the Mets offensive unit overall saw this sagging bunch drop three of four to the last-place Miami Marlins.
That shocker brought us to this past weekend thus prompting this project, as the New York horror show was swept by the suddenly surging Phillies at Citizens Bank Park(2-1, 5-4, 3-0), and in a span of three days went from first to third place in the NL East, which the revamped Atlanta Braves leapfrogging them as well. Zach Wheeler notching a complete game shutout in the series finale for the Phils’ was a fitting end to what has been a downward spiral for the ages over a 29-day span, which saw the Mets go 9-15, and 4-11 in their last 15 games.
To make matters even worse, the Mets will now embark on a 13 game stretch where they will face National League powerhouses in the reigning- World Series champion 69-46 Los Angeles Dodgers(7X), and the 73-41 MLB-leading San Francisco Giants(6X). But in between the events that took place last weekend, and the gauntlet awaiting Metsville in the next tunnel, this roller coaster took yet another turn towards the light, with the Mets sweeping the from the Washington Nationals(Albeit a last-place team) in epic fashion off of a walk-off bomb from Pete Alonso for a 5-4 victory, instilling some hope & confidence into this postseason push for a division that is the equivalent of the NFC East in the NFL this past year. It’s nauseating, yet intriguing nonetheless, and something the Mets desperately need to keep the dream alive and end their title drought 35 years and counting. As we embark on the “Home stretch” of this marathon, the big question is “Do the Mets have enough magic to pull themselves out of the fire?”
While the correct answer to that question is “Only time will tell”, yours truly personally thinks that it can definitely happen, considering New York(59-55) now have the same amount of losses as the Phillies(60-55) and lead the Braves(59-56)in the standings once more. They also have three games left against each of their rivals in September, when the Mets may look a bit healthier, and stronger with the “X-factors” in Jacob Dergom and Fransisco Lindor supposedly due back from injury. But for now, if you ask Metsville, to describe their season in a nutshell, the unanimous response would be
“A roller-coaster”, because indeed it has been one crazy ride of emotions for Mets fans everywhere; one that isn’t stopping anytime soon.
Marvin Azrak is a member of the Jewish Voice student journalists initiative program. He specializes in sports writing
