Justin

It’s Oct. 9 at approximately 10:13 p.m. and I am sitting in my room crying. I am crying because I am laughing so incredibly hard at the New York Mets. After winning 101 games in the regular season, it was all for nothing as they lost in the Wild Card round of the playoffs to the San Diego Padres. As a Washington Nationals fan, I didn’t have a lot to cheer for this season, because the Nationals were probably the worst team in all of baseball. However, I definitely was cheering against the Mets in this game and not because they are one of the Nationals’ biggest rivals. It’s because the Mets created this whole storyline this season that made their downfall so funny. 

It started in the 2021-2022 Major League Baseball offseason. After finishing 77-85 and third in the division, new owner Steve Cohen was ready for a change. Cohen made it very clear that he would do whatever it took to get the Mets to the World Series. He hired Buck Showalter as the new manager. Showalter is known for being one of the best managers for the past 20 years, so it was a very safe hire. Then Cohen did exactly what he said he was going to do. He went out and spent a ton of money. He first signed one of the best third basemen in the free agent market, Eduardo Escobar. Escobar signed a two-year $20 million contract. Cohen quickly followed by signing the best center fielder in the free agent market, Starling Marte. That deal was for four years and worth $78 million. When I saw these two signings, I immediately knew that Cohen was completely serious. He was not messing around. Then he did the impossible and signed starting pitcher Max Scherzer to a three-year $130 million contract. Scherzer was by far the best starting pitcher in the free agent market and had plenty of teams interested. But Cohen refused to be outbid. He gave Scherzer the largest annual salary of all time, at $43.3 million. The Mets also traded for starting pitcher Chris Bassitt from the Oakland Athletics to boost the team’s starting rotation. There were other signings such as Mark Canha and Adam Ottavino that were big signings, but not as crazy as the other ones. Overall, it showed that Cohen really believed that he could literally buy wins. According to Spotrac, the Mets went from a total payroll of $207 million in 2021 to $282 million in 2022. They were the highest-spending team in all of baseball by $7 million. When the regular season started, I was ready to see this plan blow up in Cohen’s face. You can’t buy wins. That’s not how baseball works. As the regular season started, it seemed like I was going to be proven wrong. 

The Mets started out the regular season incredibly strong. They were so good that on June 1, the Mets tied the record for biggest division lead in National League history at 10.5 games. The reigning World Series champions Atlanta Braves were in second place. I was in complete shock. Were the Mets actually good? Then I realized something: they are the Mets, of course they aren’t good. Amid this great start, Sportsnet New York (SNY) baseball host Sal Licata famously said, “The NL East is over.” This statement has been referenced many times over the last month because the National League (NL) East was in fact not over. The Mets went 13-12 in June and that division lead got smaller. Atlanta inched closer but never took the lead. That was until Sept. 9, when the Mets lost to the Miami Marlins and the Braves took their first lead of the division since early April. What the heck happened? How did the Mets blow that big of a lead? As soon as I saw the Braves take over the division lead, I knew it was over. The Mets always find a way to mess up. Mets fans will likely argue that some of their best players were injured. Starting pitcher Jacob deGrom and Scherzer were still recovering from injury. Marte injured his finger at the start of September. All I hear are excuses. No team that well built should have blown that big of a division lead. After having a rough September that saw them get swept by the Chicago Cubs and lose two of three games to the Nationals, the Mets were still in position to win the division. All they had to do was win one to two games against the Braves in their last matchup. It was by far the biggest series of the entire season. What did the Mets do? Did they compete and take two games to make sure they didn’t have to play in the Wild Card round? I think you already know the answer. They are the Mets; they got swept in three games and ended up losing the tiebreaker to the Braves for the lead of the division. So now they ended up having to play in the Wild Card round. 

Even after their absolutely ridiculous collapse in the regular season, for some reason people were still optimistic about the Mets and their chance to win the World Series. Yes, they had deGrom and Scherzer, who are two of the best pitchers in baseball. Yes, they were fifth in all of baseball in runs scored. But momentum is so important going into the postseason and the Mets had negative momentum, if that’s possible. Game 1 was an absolute massacre. Scherzer got lit up for seven runs in 4.2 innings of work. This great Mets offense mustered one run on seven hits in response. There you go, Steve Cohen: as you can see, you cannot buy wins. Scherzer cost you $43.3 million and although he was great in the regular season, in his lone postseason appearance he was absolutely terrible. Most Mets fans are probably blaming Scherzer for that loss, but what about the offense? This offense averaged 4.73 runs per game and scored just one run in one of the biggest games of the entire year. That wouldn’t be the only time the Mets offense disappeared. 

So, Game 2 happened, and the Mets won, but nobody cared about that win. Let’s talk about the fateful Game 3. San Diego took an early two run lead off of Bassitt, but that shouldn’t matter right? The Mets have one of the best offenses in all of baseball, two runs are nothing. First inning, no base runners. Second inning, no base runners. Third inning, no base runners. Fourth inning, no base runners and the Padres scored another run. It wasn’t until the fifth inning of an elimination game before the Mets got a single base runner on a hit by Pete Alonso. After he got on base, there was a strikeout, fly out and one more strike out. It wasn’t looking too good for the Mets. Then possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen on live television happened. Multiple fans noticed that there was something shiny on Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove’s ear and there was a noticeable uptick in the spin rate of his pitches. So, people thought maybe he was cheating and had some “sticky stuff” on his ear. The Mets also noticed this and could not believe that Musgrove was naturally just beating the crap out of them. He had to be cheating. Showalter appeared to agree so he asked the umpires to check on Musgrove’s ear. The umpires proceeded to check Musgrove’s hand, glove and hat, but found nothing. They then went and started rubbing his ears. It was absolutely ridiculous. I suggest you watch Jomboy Media’s breakdown if you haven’t seen it yet. Obviously, this was about to become super embarrassing for the Mets if he didn’t have anything on his ear. It was almost a sign of defeat. I am guessing you know how this story ends. The umpires didn’t find anything. Musgrove pitched two more innings without allowing another hit and the Mets lost to the Padres 0-6. He wasn’t cheating, the Mets just suck. Mets fans might blame Bassitt for the loss. He did allow three runs in four innings, but come on, offense, what are you doing? They had only two baserunners in the entire game. Only one of them was a hit. Once again one of the best offenses in all of baseball disappeared when they were needed most. 

I think one more event during the game of the Padres sums up their season. Mets closer Edwin Diaz pitched extremely well this season and he became even more popular when he started being introduced by a trumpet solo in the song Narco by Blasterjaxx & Timmy Trumpet. I have to admit, even though I don’t like the Mets, it was a really cool walkout song. The fans loved the walkout, and it was super exciting to see him jog out from the bullpen with trumpets blaring. Mets fans got to hear it one more time in their last game of the series. This time it was when they were down four runs in the bottom of the eighth inning. You could see the Mets fans were completely distraught because they knew they were going to lose the game. It was the saddest trumpet entrance I have ever seen. The broadcast was panning around the stadium looking for people that were excited and you could see all the Padres fans jumping around cheering. To put the icing on the cake, Diaz ended up allowing a hit that scored two more runs which definitely put the game out of reach.

That Mets season was fun. I can’t wait to see this again next year. 

–

Victoria

So it happened. The Mets did what we all knew they would inevitably do and they blew it. Remember when I wrote an article about this two months ago saying that the Mets aren’t a second-half team. Well, it’s come to fruition. No, I’m not clairvoyant, I was just raised a Mets fan. 

Out of the 180 days of the regular season, the Mets spent 175 days in first place for the NL East. 175 days. This is a pretty convincing statistic to think that maybe they could see things through in the postseason. Yet they did not come in first and instead fell to the Braves who won the NL East after only eight days of being in or tied for first. Is that upsetting? Yes. But we had entered the second half (dun dun dun). Yes, we could think about how large the lead was that the Mets held. We can talk about how they were up 10.5 games—a stat which tied the team for the biggest division lead in NL East history on June 1—and then slowly but surely watched that gap get closed by the Braves. But June 1 was in the first half, and the Mets hadn’t entered the second half curse.

Yes, we could talk about how they blew this, or we can look at this as consistency. You can always count on the Mets to not be a second-half team—even though this year they tried to fool us with over 100 regular season wins. They really were pulling our leg with that one. Remember 2016? Yeah, we do too. We. are. not. a. second. half. team.

Think about it though: the Mets were good enough to get a 10.5 game lead. The Mets were able to piss people off with how good they were doing. Let’s put the last three weeks aside and look at it from that perspective. People were mad because we were doing well, people were mad because they couldn’t make the easy joke that the Mets suck because they weren’t sucking.

We disrupted the order of the MLB, by not being the team people could look at and say “Well, at least I’m not a Mets fan.” Because we were having a great time during the regular season. We had the trumpet man, we were winning games left and right, we were having a good time with some good old fashioned baseball. People were mad because we were doing things we normally don’t get to do. I wore a Mets hat to work this summer and didn’t feel shame. Do you know how great that was? No one made any jokes, the Yankees fans kept their mouths shut (this is back when they weren’t doing so hot)—it was a beautiful time. Sadly that didn’t last and now that we have successfully fulfilled our duty of being the guy people laugh at, order has been restored. And the vultures can now attack the fans who had hope.

There is nothing to really blame this collapse on. We didn’t have a slew of our top guys on the injured list; in fact, our starting lineup was perfectly intact. A typical problem with the franchise is that halfway through the season half the team is either actively getting surgery or is injured. Why did we blow it? Well, I’ll just blame the second-half curse. But I will say this team reminded me most of the 2016 Mets. It’s a team that I actually liked to follow; I liked the team dynamic and the fact that they made baseball fun. Sure winning is nice too, but the team dynamic plays a huge part of it. The trades that came after 2016 with Flores and Granderson and Duda, it kinda killed the vibe because the team dynamic was being altered. But I guess it is easier to have a positive team dynamic when you’re playing well and not getting constantly shit on.

I would like to point out though that sometimes the Mets aren’t a first-half or a second-half team, so at least we got something this season. We got that spark of hope, that maybe, just maybe, we could be a second-half team. That’s why you’ve gotta enjoy it while it lasts. But if you’re a true Mets fan you know the truth about what will happen, and sure it can be nice to hope, but there is always a part of you that knows it’s not gonna last. 

For right now we will continue to be the guy that everyone who follows the MLB laughs at. It’s okay. It’ll make winning the World Series one day all the better. Who wants to win the World Series when people respect your team? No, it is much more fun to prove people wrong and make them angry about it. 

Until next year.