The best part of Carlos Mendoza’s 120-game tenure as a big-league manager has been the way he conducted himself in April and May, the inherent skill with which he seemed to understand the long season, the highs and lows that affect every team, winning streaks and losing streaks, the calm with which he kept his players from sliding too deeply into the weeds even as they slid 11 games under .500 a couple of times.
The second-best part of Carlos Mendoza’s 120-game tenure as a big-league manager has been the way he conducted himself in June and July, the inherent skill with which he seemed to understand the long season, the highs and lows that affect every team, winning streaks and losing streaks, the calm with which he kept his players from scaling too high into the clouds even as they crawled seven games over .500 a couple of times.
The third-best part will be what happens now, in the coming weeks, if the Mets can figure out a way to untangle themselves from a slump that seized them suddenly in Seattle and apparently followed them 3,000 miles east, flying wing to wing with the team charter.
They took the first step at doing that Wednesday night at Citi Field, throttling the Athletics 9-1 and ending a four-game long streak.
“We know where we’re at,” Mendoza said a few hours before, while his team was still processing a 9-4 loss Tuesday that inspired reliever and winning pitcher Austin Adams to an extended spasm of sheer V-J Day-level bliss (more on A-squared later).
“I don’t thing there’s a soft spot on the schedule,” Mendoza said. “Look at the A’s record the last five, six weeks, look at the pitching they’ve gotten. Any team can beat you. You’ve got to bring your ‘A’ game every day, regardless whether we’re facing the A’s or the Yankees.”
Both of the locals did a masterful job the previous two nights underlining the growing realities that a) while there are more good and very good teams than most years there isn’t a singular fearsome power and b) even the teams that seem to be playing out the string don’t always play that way when they’re playing you.
And so the Yankees got blasted by the bound-for-120-losses White Sox Monday night and then had to slither and slide their way through a treacherous ninth inning to avoid an unthinkable repeat, and the Mets got good and thumped by the A’s Tuesday.
Who was it that used to say, “That’s baseball, Suzyn?”
Well, this is baseball in 2024 — unless, at the moment, you happen to play for the Diamondbacks and the Padres, the first which won Wednesday for the 14th time in 16 games, the second which won for the 19th time in their last 23.
Fifteen minutes ago the Mets were engaged with those two teams in what seemed bound to be a raucous four-teams-for-three-spots struggle in the NL wild card; now those two have left the Braves and the Mets in their dust — and the Mets entered Wednesday night in the familiar position of looking up at the Braves by two games after Atlanta righted itself for now in San Francisco.
The baseball season can be crazy sometimes, and sometimes it can drag you under like an unexpected patch of quicksand. There was no better story than the tiny-market Pirates, who just two weeks ago were right there with the D’backs, Padres, Braves and Mets and lost Wednesday for the 10th straight game and 12th in their last 14.
It can go sideways on you quick.
And so it is Mendoza’s task to keep this what it still is — a modest but ill-timed slide — and prevent it from what it could be with a few more days of carelessness: a calamity.
“Our guys know we need to get as many wins as possible,” Mendoza said. “They know where we’re at.”
Where they were at prior to the feel-good win was not only losing but looking bad while doing it, and getting mocked by a pitcher whom they DFA’d a few months ago. A few of the Mets were rankled by that. It would be more helpful to do something about it. Like winning 9-1. That’s a preferable response.
“They’ve been there before [this season] and gotten through, found a way,” Mendoza said. “We’ve got to embrace it and keep going. We’ll get hot.”
Now would be a good time for that. And now would be a good time for Mendoza to replicate what he did between mid-May and mid-June, when he stayed calm amid rough waters and helped steer the Mets back on course. There was a lot of season left back then. There’s a lot less runway now.
