Mets closer Edwin Diaz enters NL Wild Card Series Game 2 in . . . the seventh?!
Edwin Diaz #39 of the Mets pitches during the seventh inning against the San Diego Padres in game two of their Wild Card Series at Citi Field on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Edwin Diaz’s trumpets sounded in the seventh inning, while the grounds crew was still raking the infield dirt — the whole thing making the diamond look like a stage whose curtain rose too early. The crowd wasn’t as raucous as it usually is when “Narco” comes on, mostly because a lot of people were a little bit confused.
The Mets were up by one run in a do-or-die Game 2, and they were about to use their heaviest bullpen arm against the eighth, ninth and first hitters in the Padres’ order, knowing that someone other than Diaz likely would have to close it out. It was unorthodox, to say the least, and became even more so when the Mets scored four runs in the seventh and Diaz, after having sat for 45 minutes, came back out.
But fortune can favor the brave in the playoffs, and on this night at least, weird is what it took to win — 7-3 over the Padres at Citi Field, forcing a deciding Game 3 Sunday night.
It was so weird that Diaz did something basically unheard of for a closer — he went to the mound set up in the batting cage and threw about five or six more pitches while the Mets were batting, just to stay warm.
“I think I was making my paycheck,” Diaz cracked. “I was ready. They let me know before the game what the plan was with me and I went to the bullpen early . . . We had to win this game. If they asked me for more, I was ready, I was feeling great, but they took me out because they need me for tomorrow and we’ve got to win tomorrow’s game.”
Diaz threw a scoreless 1 2⁄3 innings, with a walk, a hit and a strikeout — a total of 28 pitches, not including the six fake ones he threw to James McCann while the Mets were breaking the game open. He can pitch in Sunday’s deciding game, he said, and before Saturday, he had thrown only one inning since Sept. 28 as his workload was carefully monitored down the stretch.
Once the Mets were leading by five, he came back out in the eighth to face Manny Machado, who grounded out. After a walk, Diaz struck out Jake Cronenworth before being replaced by Adam Ottavino.
By the time Buck Showalter went to the mound to retrieve the ball, Diaz had gotten comfortable. “I asked him to stay in the game because I was feeling great,” he said. “I think I could get [Brandon] Drury out, but he said, we need you for tomorrow and I think this is enough for today and I said OK, that’s fine.”
More than that, the move pointed to a manager who’s intent on being aggressive — perhaps learning from past mistakes, such as when Showalter, then the Orioles’ manager, lost the 2016 AL wild-card game without using closer Zack Britton.
Using Diaz in the seventh barely merited discussion, Showalter said. They thought that’s where they needed him most. There was a temptation to not use him in the eighth, but it wasn’t strong enough.
“They had [Trent] Grisham there [in the seventh], which had been hurting us, and top of their order, which had been hurting us,” Showalter said. “I’m going to take my best pitcher and face their order, hope they don’t come up again. I think it was pretty obvious, by what went on in the ninth inning, why we did it that way.”
It was, eventually. And with everything on the line, all that matters is that you play another day, not that everyone understands how you got there.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
