THE 13-game home-can’t-stand-it-anymore finally ended yesterday with Randy Johnson pressing another stone to the Mets’ chest. Good Lord, hadn’t they already suffered enough?
Apparently not, before it closed at 5-8 with two messages clear: First, the four other wild-card contenders have already taken the Mets’ best shot, which was 12-7 to end July. Second, God has better things to worry about than baseball.
When you still can’t get out of town after losing three games on Saturday and Sunday and The Big Unit walks to the mound on a Monday afternoon with his cruel left-handed whip cracking an addendum to the weekend, this was a two-hitter that not only lived up to a premier pitcher’s billing on a marquee, but had to be choreographed by The Marquis.
Indeed, when Mike Piazza goes to his eternal reward and finds himself in a game with the heat index over 100, Johnson pitching for the other guys, and his team, sinking out of contention on a four-game losing streak, lining up without two of its best players, the slugger surely will understand he did not do enough good for mankind during his days on this earth.
Yes. This was Baseball Hell.
“That’s an interesting theory,” Piazza said, smiling wearily. “But I’m not going to give into it. Losing is never tolerable, but it’s a little easier to get out of the depression when you give it your best shot.”
Of course, a degree of resignation sets in when you know you really had almost no shot. Johnson, who lost his no-hitter on a Roger Cedeno sixth-inning infield chop, threw one bad pitch, a slider Mo Vaughn banged for a clean single in the seventh. The four-time Cy Young winner struck out the first six Mets, 11 for the game, and was still firing brimstone in the high 90s in the ninth, when he struck out Vaughn to complete a 114-pitch 2-0 shutout.
“What he did was unbelievable,” said Bob Brenly, which, even if a Met fan found it completely predictable at this point, doesn’t contradict the Diamondback manager’s grander point. If you went home not only hot, but also bothered, you were refusing to face the reality that the Mets aren’t good enough. And closing your eyes to one of baseball’s greatest-ever wonders.
“He throws a fastball from anywhere between 93 to 98 miles an hour,” said Al Leiter. “He has a slider that disappears. When it looks like it’s going to be thigh high, it ends up in the dirt.
“He is 6-10, throws across his body so the ball jumps on guys. He has two sliders, can throw a changeup, and believes in his stuff as much as anybody who has ever pitched. He and [Curt] Schilling, we are talking about guys who are a little freaky with the stuff they have. And that’s why they’re great.
“As I joke with [Greg] Maddux and [Tom] Glavine, ‘Don’t talk to me about Schilling and Johnson. Go out and try to do it with our stuff.’
“[Johnson] is one of the best pitchers of all time. But he is not a robot, so there is some small possibility that we could beat him today. We had to figure out a way to get lucky.”
At 55-56, what reason have the Mets given us to subscribe in their resourcefulness? It’s over, like this one was when The Big Unit reached the mound.