Some days, it’s still hard to get used to the New Order of a baseball pennant race. The Mets bopped the Phillies in the first game of a three-game series last weekend in Citizens Bank Park. That nudged the Mets to within seven games of the Phils, with 15 to go. Then they lost bookend heartbreakers Saturday and Sunday. Nine out, 13 to play.
In the baseball arithmetic that prevailed for a hundred years, that translated to one word: over.
And yes, we have had wild card baseball in our lives for almost 30 years now. We are used to second-place teams making a run. We have had enough years now of three-wild-cards-get-in to the point even that has become a way of life. Still, if you talk to fans of a certain age, whenever you talk about wild cards in baseball, there is almost a sense of apology that goes along with it.
Well, we’re still alive … but it’s for the WILD CARD …
Eye roll follows.
As with most things, we hold baseball to a higher standard. It was that way with steroids; it was pretty clear football players used them for decades, but when PEDs elbowed their way into baseball, it was like eating popcorn in church. Every January, I brace for the inevitable slings and arrows from across the country when I reveal my Hall of Fame ballot.
(True story: Last winter, when I left Todd Helton off my ballot, I received a lot of hate mail from the Denver area, and much of it was so obscene that it even made my generally-not-offendable ears tingle. But the one I remember was a guy who said this in one simple, profanity-free sentence: “You should be arrested.”)
Does anyone act that way toward the folks who vote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Hoops? Hockey? No. Just baseball.
Same with playoffs. The NFL ushered in wild cards starting in 1970 — and they were late to the party compared to the NBA and the NHL, where second-place teams had always been welcome. But when you think about baseball, there are still many who bemoan wild cards. And that’s strange because, for a season in which there’s relatively little drama anywhere else, there’s this intriguing four-teams-for-three-spots race brewing in the National League.
Which yields crazy stretches of days like this, from Sunday, from the perspective of Mets fans, told in four parts.
1. The Mets lose an excruciating game, 2-1, after leading 1-0 into the bottom of the eighth. At this moment they are a half game behind the Braves, 1 ¹/₂ behind the Diamondbacks and three behind the Padres, with Francisco Lindor bound for an MRI tube (the results of which, Monday afternoon, offered a glimmer of hope that maybe Lindor will be back by the time the Phillies arrive this weekend).
2. The Padres are cruising against the Giants, 2-1 in the ninth, when the Giants’ Heliot Ramos hits the first-ever home run that a right-handed hitter has ever hit into McCovey Cove. Tie game! (Spoiler alert: The Padres scored two in the 10th and won, 4-3.)
3. The Diamondbacks are crushing the Brewers, 5-0 … and then the Brewers storm back to take an 8-5 lead … and the D’backs roar back to tie it, 8-8 … and Brewers phenom Jackson Chourio triples with two outs in the top of the 10th; 10-8 Brew Crew! Then Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy — with the luxury of a big lead in the Central — keeps Devin Williams in the bullpen in the bottom. The camera flashes to Williams, who looks plenty angry … and that doesn’t near compare to how angry Mets fans are, since Murph stays with lefty Jared Koenig and the inning goes like this: single, single, single, hit by pitch, single. Arizona 11, Milwaukee 10.
4. The Dodgers are on the verge of losing a third straight to the Braves, but Shohei Ohtani shores up his Mets-fan-bloc MVP vote by driving in the tying runs with a pair of doubles. In the ninth, it looks like Will Smith hits a go-ahead home run … but it bounces off the top of the fence, ’73 Mets-style, and when Andy Pages grounds back to the pitcher, it looks like another awful link in the chain strangling the Mets chances …
… But then Mookie Betts drives in Smith. And the Dodgers blow up for six more runs, including back-to-back-to-back blasts by Teoscar Hernandez, Tommy Edman and Max Muncy. The Mets live to see another day, tied for playoff position.
If that’s not a legit pennant race … honestly, I’m not sure what is.