At Citi Field, the best show is in the stands
A Mets fan reacts during the ninth inning against Atlanta in the first game of a doubleheader on Saturday at Citi Field. Credit: AP/Adam Hunger
Here’s to the two fans who donned their rally caps and upside-down sunglasses during the Mets’ 21-3 drubbing by Atlanta on Saturday, cheering as if they’d won the World Series after Daniel Vogelbach’s eighth-inning home run.
Here’s to the guy wearing his “Scherlander” jersey to Game 2 of the world’s most depressing doubleheader, and to another man a few sections over who used tape to doctor a Scherzer jersey until it just read “SAD.”
These are the fans who sat through the rain in Game 1 and who likely had very different expectations when they bought tickets to a game against Atlanta in mid-August. They’re the same ones who haven’t seen a championship in 37 years and who, this season, were promised the moon and given a pebble.
You all deserved better.
Look, this could be 700 words detailing the two games the Mets lost to Atlanta on Saturday, but what’s the point?
They trotted out a lineup peppered with major league-adjacent players and got walloped by the best team in the National League. During the late innings of Game 1, Atlanta fans began their (offensive) Tomahawk Chop behind the visitors’ dugout.
Infielder Danny Mendick pitched 1 1⁄3 innings of relief and gave up eight runs. Atlanta’s starter, Allan Winans, shut them out for seven innings, and I’d be remiss not to note that the Mets actually lost Winans in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 draft two years ago.
With a stronger lineup in Game 2, the Mets got five hits and lost, 6-0.
It was, in a word, miserable.
Spectators were miserable, players looked miserable and Buck Showalter faced the SNY camera with the grim efficiency of a man tired of trotting out platitudes to cover for a team that hasn’t been given the tools to attempt respectability.
It’s one thing to bail on the season, but the first three games of this series were demoralizing in a way that leaves a stain. How else would you describe being outscored 34-3?
According to OptaSTATS, on Friday, the Mets became the only team in the modern era to collect at least seven hits and nine walks in a nine-inning game and not score.
Saturday’s Game 1 was fully non-competitive, and it made the chasm between these two franchises feel insurmountable. After all, when Atlanta edged out the Mets last year, that was a season in which nearly everything went right. The Mets now have lost 14 of their last 16 games against their division rival.
What does this say about 2024, a year Billy Eppler promises will be competitive despite a more restrained approach to free agency?
At what point do you begin to worry about creating a culture in which embarrassing losses become acceptable? Because, really, what chance did the Mets have with their lineup Saturday afternoon?
With Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo nursing injuries that made them incapable of playing both games, the Mets in Game 1 fielded a team with only one player batting over .226 (that would be Jeff McNeil, who came into the day hitting .253). Abraham Almonte was their starting leftfielder and batted sixth in Game 1, then was designated for assignment before Game 2.
You can’t really put this on Showalter, either. Thanks to who was present and available, they were going to have to punt at least one game. And if you’re going to choose one, it might as well be the one using a fill-in starter, Denyi Reyes. It was apropos, then, that they gave up three touchdowns worth of runs.
“It’s hard but we’re trying,” Showalter said. “Obviously, it got away from us.”
Oh, did it ever.
After the trade deadline, everyone knew the final stretch of the season was going to be a slog, but maybe few people understood how bad things could get. Now it’s not even about winning the games but about losing them in a way that won’t inure young players to failure.
Maybe that means bringing up Ronny Mauricio and finally giving him a crack at this major-league thing.
It definitely means looking toward the veterans to show a spark of . . . something. Anything.
Until then, here’s to the fans who keep showing up. There were times Saturday when they were the only ones who did.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.