The Mets spent the weekend getting clobbered by the Brewers. After an Opening Day rainout on Thursday, they managed to get just a single hit on Friday before demonstrating signs of life Saturday afternoon, only to get swept on Sunday. Then on Monday, they played the Tigers, and became the first team since 1944 to go through nine scoreless innings, then lose 5-0 in 10.
The Mets suck. We all knew they would. Kodai Senga, in perfect Mets fashion, is starting the season on the injured list, and the team did nothing to improve on an otherwise extremely meh starting rotation during the offseason. And yet, after Friday’s one-hit loss, Steve Cohen declared that he has a “simple” goal for the team this season: make the playoffs! Based on the first four games of the 2024 season, making the playoffs seems laughable.
Still, in a 162-game season, four games tell us nothing. As Annie Savoy cautions in Bull Durham (the greatest baseball movie ever made), “It’s a long season, and you gotta trust it.” This is not me being pollyanna-ish about the Mets, let me be clear. I think they’re going to lose, and lose a lot. We’ve talked a lot in our Casual Diehard circle (including on today’s podcast) about how much easier it is to be a fan of a bad team, what with the whole thing where it’s hope that kills you and and all that. When your expectations are low, it’s easier to shake off the losses, and also, in some ways, easier to delight in the victories.
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There is a level of Mets fan privilege here I should acknowledge: The Mets booth and broadcast are the absolute best in the business, and the start of the 2024 season has been no different. This weekend alone we got the return of the Lou Brock graphic and the introduction of a new Gary Cohen animation, a chaotic booth highlight when an audio panel was knocked off the wall, and letterbox treatment for Edwin Diaz’s first appearance since 2022. But perhaps the best SNY moment of the year so far came on Friday, when the booth immediately had footage ready from 2019 to remind everyone of the lore behind the Mets’ longstanding beef with Rhys Hoskins.
“The beautiful thing about baseball is it's a game played by humans and — for now — officiated by humans. And so every single night, you're inevitably going to get something where you say, ‘Wow, I've never seen that before,’ or ‘I've never seen a play turn out that way,’ or, you know, ‘I've never seen a fan in the stands with a sign like that or dressed that way,’” SNY broadcast director John DeMarsico told me last year. “There's always something there to find that I can bring to the viewer at home that’s going to enhance their experience as a viewer, even though they're watching a game that may be quote-unquote meaningless. I like to bring a little meaning to them at home.”
I’ve thought a lot about this quote from DeMarisco since we spoke late last season. It was part of the inspiration for my new year’s resolution this year, perhaps the highest expectation I’ve set for myself: to make peace with the New York Mets. I was at war with them all of last year. My hopes were too high, the vibes way off, the collapse little by little and then all at once. I abandoned them at the height of summer and then came slinking back as the weather started to cool. This year I’m along for the ride.
They’re probably going to lose a whole bunch, but at least it seems like they’re going to do it in interesting fashion. They’ve already had a bullpen-clearing incident, a suspended manager, multiple Baby Mets home runs, a fake comeback, a ghastly extra-inning loss — all before the first road trip. If all they do is lose, I’ll appreciate the broadcast, appreciate their angst. If they happen to win, I’ll be thrilled. If they manage to get my hopes up only to crush them in the most miserable way possible, I’ll know that this is what I signed up for. That it was more than I ever expected. It is, of course, a game designed to break your heart.
Human beings only learn from contrast. We only know happiness because we know sadness, only know delicious because we know disgusting. We only know the joy of having Mets baseball at all because of a long cold winter without it. To wake up each day this weekend and know the Mets would play baseball was such a treat, and who knows what could happen over the course of the next 158 games? It is indeed a long season, and this time I’m ready to trust it.
Also, fuck Rhys Hoskins.
