Spring Like Fall

Game 20 - Mets

Mets 5, Cardinals 4
Record: 13-7

Last night felt a whole lot like last fall. In all the best ways.

Cards go up a deuce on a mostly effective (mostly) David Peterson. Okay. Bottom 5, Baty doubles (!), Taylor triples (!), and Lindor singles. All square.

Oh.

Cards tack one on top 6. All right. Vientos (!) leads off bottom 6 with a blast to left. All square.

My.

That holds for a while, then in the bottom of the eighth, Vientos singled to lead off. Acuña pinch-ran for him and stole second. Here we go. Man on second, no out.

Then this happened. 

Nimmo grounds one to Nolan Arenado, whose work with the leather this series -- and always -- is just something to sit back and admire. It's a futile and unfun activity to hit it his way at any speed and location and hope for something to go Metward.

Acuña breaks for third. Gutsy, unwise. But he gets by Arenado and is there!

And then he overslides the base. Whoops. Challenge fails, as Acuña was out. Sigh... Man on first, one out.

But then last-year-Met Phil Maton throws it awry on a pickoff chuck, and we're back in scoring position. 

Up struts Luis Torrens, and yep, that dude should be strutting these days. He's gotten a fair bit of MLC hype in this young season, and everyone in Queens is thrilled that Alvarez is inching closer, but Luis... keep on truckin'. 

Torrens doubles to left, Nimmo scores.

What'd I tell you??

God!!!!

Speaking of OMG, we watched Iglesias play for San Diego a little last night. Glad he's getting some time there, and that he landed in a good spot. Ruthlessly shrewd David Stearns didn't see the wisdom of bringing him back, and we miss the jocularity and clutch hitting. But hey... have faith.

Worth discussing further, and I'm sure we will: on to pitch the 9th with a 1-run lead, here comes Huascar Brazoban. Whither Edwin Diaz, we all wondered. Hmmm. 

Well, Brazoban has been dominant thus far, and Diaz has been... submissive? Let's do this.

2 pitches in, Brendan Donovan mashes a ball over the right-field wall. Son of a. Well, that'll keep the Metfowl clucking for a while. Crap.

He mows down the next three batters on strikes, which helps ease that sting. But that's a heavyweight gut punch.

* * * * *

After a dinner on the eastern tip of the island of Spanish Wells, our gang retreated to the house for some cards and some Cards v Mets. Andrew, my stepson Luke, and I huddle around the laptop (authentic island life has no television, mon) as of the third inning, so we were locked in when this went down. Two of the three of us grabbed another Sands Light beer and hunkered down again for what could be a long night of Metball.

Luke notes, well, at least the top of the order is coming up. Ah, the naiveté of youth. 

Andrew throws out, Lindor ends it here.

I submit to the couch full of glass-half-full, predict that Pete hits one out.

Ball 1 to Lindor.
Strike 1 looking, right down the pike.
Cutter, 91 mph, inside part of the plate.
Lindor destroys the ball into the upper deck of right field. 

We've got sunshine on a cloudy day. Moonshine on a cloudy night, whatever. Flashback to October. Bedlam. Good night.

LFGM