Patrick Mazeika lifts Mets over Mariners with dramatic go-ahead homer in his season debut
Patrick Mazeika #4 of the Mets celebrates his seventh inning home run against the Seattle Mariners at Citi Field on Saturday, May 14, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
On the other coast, in the other league, Jesse Winker has walked the finest of lines at Citi Field to become the rarest of opposing players: a likable villain.
Winker’s persona and history brought juice to the final innings — and especially the final moments — of the Mets’ 5-4 win over Seattle on Saturday night, when Edwin Diaz blew a 100.5-mph fastball by him to end an eight-pitch at-bat for the last out.
That made a hero out of Patrick Mazeika, whose go-ahead home run in the seventh stood as the difference, and prevented Winker from adding another episode to his years-long series of mostly playful gags with Mets fans.
“I was making sure,” Diaz said, “my pitches were nasty to him.”
The Queens crowd of an announced 37,140 — peppy throughout the game despite the clock ticking toward midnight, the first pitch being delayed 68 minutes by rain, and fog and mist remaining in the hours after — booed Winker all night, because Mets fans don’t forget. And neither does Winker, who thinks it is great.
“They are very passionate about their team and their city,” he said of Mets fans. “I can understand the passion and I respect it. This thing we’ve got going on is special.”
“This thing” began in 2019 when Winker, then the Reds’ leftfielder, made a sliding catch to end a Mets loss, then ran off the field waving to the nearby fans who had jeered him all night. In 2021, when stadiums filled up again after the fan-less 2020 season, Winker made a trade with an attendee sitting near left: a baseball signed by Winker in exchange for a handwritten sign that included Winker’s name and a vulgarity.
Fast-forward to Saturday, with the Mets up by three in the seventh inning and Chasen Shreve entering with two on and one out to face Winker. He got hold of a 3-and-1 fastball on the inner part of the plate and crushed it 417 feet to rightfield for a tying three-run home run.
He took a moment to enjoy it, walking halfway down the first-base line — including taking several slow steps even after the ball had landed. That drew Shreve’s attention. “I told him to run, basically,” Shreve said. “In a rude way.”
Upon reaching the plate, Winker waved to fans again during a walk to the dugout.
“I’m gonna be honest with you, I love them,” he said. “They are an amazing group of people.”
That momentum for the Mariners (15-19) lasted until the first pitch of the bottom of the seventh. Mazeika, a light-hitting backup catcher, homered against righthander Andres Munoz, hooking a first-pitch fastball just inside the rightfield foul pole to put the Mets (23-12) back on top.
One year and a few days after his two walk-off dribblers in one homestand turned him into a cult favorite, Mazeika provided the dramatics again — and this time it was no cheapie.
“I think we can say that one was over 60 miles an hour and over 6 feet,” said Mazeika, who a day earlier was a minor-leaguer until the Mets promoted him to help fill in for James McCann (fractured left wrist). “Big moment. Big team win. It was an electric crowd, too. So it was overall a great night.”
Buck Showalter said: “That’s why you get up in the morning and you never know what the game has in store for you. That was a great moment for him, let alone the team. He ambushed a guy throwing 100 [97] miles an hour. We needed it.”
Chris Bassitt held Seattle to one run in 5 2⁄3 innings, outpitching Mariners rookie righthander George Kirby, a Rye native appearing in his second major-league game. He lasted four innings and gave up three runs (one earned), betrayed repeatedly by his defense.
Diaz entered for the ninth, his first game against his former team, which traded him to the Mets alongside Robinson Cano before the 2019 season.
“That is about as fun a guy to catch as there is,” Mazeika said. “When he comes in with the trumpets and the crowd is going nuts, you know he’s going to strike some guys out, that’s honestly one of the most fun things in sports.”
Diaz added: “It was really, really fun, but at the same time, I gotta stay locked in because it’s a one-run game.”
He struck out all three of his batters, finishing with Winker.
“We still won the game,” Shreve said. “That is all that really matters.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
