For the Mets, Opening Day has its own rewards

We are fans. We forget.

Sometimes we forget that — in the cold of early spring or late autumn – this isn’t football. Small sample sizes and the freshness of the 17-game NFL season recently concluded often fool us into thinking how it is right now will be how it is in perpetuity. That’s a dangerous folly when it comes to baseball. The sport is unique in that there is literally a game every day for six months. It is a constant companion, not a short weekly burst like football or an uneven schedule of visits, like basketball or hockey. No, because there are so many games over such a long time, there is a natural ebb and flow to things. This past week, the Mets definitely experienced an ebb, deep enough that many fans on social media – not to mention radio sportstalk show hosts looking to drive calls and ratings – were ready to abandon ship after seven games. We were ready to impose sentence on a team whose trial had not yet begun.

Were the three games against the Brewers in Milwaukee this week gruesome? Did Carlos Carrasco, Max Scherzer, and David Peterson get horribly cuffed about? Was the offense absent? Yes, yes and yes. Did the three games feel like an eternity? Absolutely. Were the flaws in this Mets team exposed? No doubt. And is it still the first week of April? Well, today is April 8, so technically… And that’s the thing, the saving grace of a long baseball season. There is time to stumble, yet still recover. As a commenter on a Facebook post of mine, when I pointed out that there was a silver lining to game three in Milwaukee – that Starling Marte, Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor seemed to have started hitting again – moaned “There’s no reason to watch another game this year. What a waste of time.” To which I replied “Tossing it in after seven whole games? That’s the spirit! Aren’t we the team of ‘Ya Gotta Believe!’ ?” My commenter friend quickly forgot that the 2019 Washington Nationals started that season 19-31, then rode a hot month of June all the way to a World Series championship. He also forgot – though I am not sure how he could have, since we were reminded of it practically every inning of the late season/postseason – that last year’s Atlanta Braves were 10.5 games behind the Mets on June 1, then went on a ridiculous run that saw them take the NL East in the next-to-last week of the season. Likewise, last year’s Philadelphia Phillies team was stuck in such mire that they fired their manager, replaced him with a neophyte and ended up winning the NL Pennant. Just as a reminder, today is April 8.

But let’s talk about April 6 & 7, though. While the team was crawling home from Wisconsin, dire weather reports were being delivered to the New York Metropolitan Area. Yes, it was going to be 83 degrees on Thursday, April 6, but soaking rains and high winds would accompany the balmy temperature and were supposed to hit right around the end of the game. The Mets’ front office swung into action, swiftly cancelling the home Opening Day festivities and pushing the game to the off-day created specifically for such circumstances. Not a bad idea, considering the bullpen wear and mental fatigue that accompanied the Milwaukee disaster. The problem is that the horrid weather never arrived and by 2:00 PM, the sun was shining brightly on a populace that cheerfully shed its winter coats. There were howls of derision, especially seeing as Friday’s temp wouldn’t approach Thursday’s. Unfortunately, the weather people got that one right. It was cloudy, chilly, and windy as my wife and I made our way to Citi Field for the first time in 2023. We’d arrived a little early, so we took a nice stroll about the concourse and saw what was new and what was missing in the less-than-venerable ballyard. We got closeup pictures of Mr. & Mrs. Met in their snazzy Opening Day outfits. The weather and the frolics masked a mild murmuring of apprehension among the crowd. There was an undercurrent of “What if they don’t hit again? There are an awful lot of injuries to the pitching staff; we were supposed to get Justin Verlander today, and instead, we get Tylor Megill. That can’t be good. This might be a lost season after all.”

Somehow, though, that all got blown away when Howie Rose, at the end of the pre-game player introductions, announced the name we’ll be missing all year. Amid a blare of trumpets, closer Edwin Diaz hobbled up the dugout steps to put his crutches aside for a couple of moments and wave to us all. The moment electrified the stands, and we all had a quiet confidence that this might be our day after all. Miami Marlins starter Edward Cabrera helped out, delivering seven walks in two-and-two-thirds innings. At first, the Mets seemed reluctant to accept this largesse, leaving a runner on in the first and two on in the second. In the third, though, the Mets sent eight men to the plate, scoring two of them. They added a run on a wormy base hit in the fourth. Marte homered in the sixth to make it 4-0. They scored two more in the seventh, on a force play and a sacrifice fly. After a Garrett Cooper home run cut the lead in half in the eighth, Lindor and Alonso put the game away with back-to-back home runs. A very satisfying 9-3 Opening Day win in the books, we fans could now all exhale a little.

And perhaps remember that the season is a little bit longer than seven games.