High drama in Citi-Field unfolded Sunday night in front of an, unbelievably, not sold out crowd. Failing to sell out such a high leverage game added another level to the Mets Organization’s disgrace (they would continue to add on in spectacular fashion later in the evening). As for the Mets fans who took the leap of faith and supported their team, their demeanor was an almost resigned nervousness, and with good reason. Even their taunts of Padres fans were poorly conceived, and half-hearted. Example: Mets fan: I feel bad for you, you have to back to San Diego!
Response: No, we get to go back to San Diego!
It’s a very unusual state of affairs to say that the team who lost the previous game, forcing a high stakes sudden death elimination, has all the momentum. But that was exactly how Sunday night’s game felt. As we observed before, the Mets threw everything they had at the Padres on Saturday. With unsustainable good fortune in every aspect of the game, including a shockingly pro Mets performance from home plate umpire, Chris Guccione. In fact, out of all of the Wild Card games in 2022, Guccione’s Game 2 “performance” was by far the most one-sided, per Umpire Scorecards.
But after firing both barrels in Scherzer and DeGrom, the Mets were out of firepower. Their hitters, after putting in divinely inspired at bats in Game 2, looked physically and mentally exhausted in Game 3. The embarrassingly spendthrift Mets were running on fumes, and everyone knew it.
From the time the Mets took the field, they looked flat. Perhaps recalling, in back of his mind, the shellacking the Padres gave him earlier in the year, Mets starter, Chris Bassitt, like his canine homophone, cut a sad aspect. The Padres had already humiliated Scherzer and shown that DeGrom wasn’t invincible in October. With all this on Bassitt’s mind, there was no zip on his fastball and his breaking stuff lacked bite. Bassitt could not get comfortable. For their part, Padres hitters, perhaps knowing of Bassitt’s tendency to work quickly, were not shy about calling timeout when the crowd was at fever pitch. The din may also have affected Bassitt’s pitch com device, leading to further disruption of Bassit’s rhythm. Things would only go downhill from there.
Trent Grisham continued his torrid postseason. Ha-Seong Kim drew three walks and stole a base. Austin Nola delivered the first haymaker of the night in the second inning, which by itself would prove sufficient to win the game. But the game would take some bizarre turns running the gamut from sad to hilarious. It really wouldn’t be the Mets without a heavy dollop of hilarity.
Standing in stark contrast to his counterpart, Padres starter, and San Diegan, Joe Musgrove was, like Yu Darvish in Game 1, the coolest man in the building. Knowing that he was going to have to pitch the game of his life, lesser pitchers (like Bassitt) might have crumbled under the pressure, but Musgrove seemed to enjoy it. Musgrove, living out every Padres fan’s childhood fantasy, was amped like never before and was about go where no pitcher had ever gone in postseason history. It’s safe to say that before Musgrove even threw a pitch, the Mets hitters were already in trouble.
We said, in previewing Game 3, that it would be difficult to top throwing the first no-hitter in franchise history, but Musgrove did that, and then some. Musgrove’s fastballs blazed and his breaking stuff bit like a pitbull. Combined with excellent pitch calling from Nola, Mets hitters struggled to even make contact, let alone good contact. Musgrove was as sharp as he was economical, and gave all fans welcome respite from the 3-ball saxophone riff. It wasn’t until the fifth inning that Mets slugger Pete Alonso took advantage of a small mistake and rifled a single to right. The Mets, despite casting a baseless and classless aspersion on Musgrove’s integrity in the 6th (see below), wouldn’t get another hit.
In fact, Musgrove would become the only pitcher in postseason history to keep the opponent to 1 hit through 7 innings when facing elimination. This wasn’t against a team like the hapless Nationals or even the Texas Rangers. Musgrove did this against the heavily favored 101-win juggernaut Mets. That new $100M contract Musgrove just signed seems earned already.
Meanwhile, the Padres piled on the pressure scoring two more runs and taking all the air out of the stadium. Manny Machado continued his MVP form, and Juan Soto executed a surprising, but perfect sacrifice bunt (perhaps the the first of his career?). In the field, the Padres defense matched Musgrove’s virtuosity on the mound. Wil Myers showed the value of elite defense at first base, a position generally regarded as “easy.” In centerfield, Trent Grisham reminded us all of why he has a gold glove. Profar and Soto also made fine plays in critical situations. Any of those plays could have, had they not been made, started a rally for the Mets. But the Padres were not in a charitable mood, and continued playing immaculate defense until the end.
The old tired saying, “Everything is bigger in New York” seems to apply especially to cringe inducing moments in Mets history, and this game would raise the bar. The first major cringe move of this game will remain part of postseason lore forever. From early on, Mets manager Buck Showalter thought there was something off about Musgrove. He was too good. Buck was seen looking at a discarded baseball to see if he could detect a foreign substance. True, Musgrove’s spin rate on his pitches was elevated compared to his regular season averages… but those ears…they were just so… shiny! Ignoring the fact that coating one’s ears with an extremely shiny and obvious illegal substance during the most closely scrutinized game of the year is approaching Tatis level indefensible decision making, and also that a few of his own pitchers’ spin rates were up, Buck made a fateful and fatal decision.
Based only on scant and extremely circumstantial “evidence,” Buck Showalter, on live television in front of millions of viewers, stopped the game to openly accuse Musgrove, and by extension, the Padres, of cheating. Bemused, Musgrove was subject to a demeaning TSA style search and found clean. Buck’s sad gambit had failed bringing more disgrace and dishonor to the Mets organization. Not to be outdone, Mets fans seized on the erroneous cheating allegation, and let loose with a loud chorus of “Cheaters!! Cheaters!!! Cheaters!!!” all while ignoring Musgrove’s exoneration. The Mets may have virtually unlimited financial resources but, as they say, you can’t buy class. The desperate gambit backfired spectacularly.
Like a true champion, Musgrove brushed the intentional humiliation aside, and actually got stronger. Musgrove even channeled I’m his inner Kenny Powers to tell the Mets what he thought of their cheap chicanery.
In the postgame, the press were obliged to ask Buck about the Shiny Ear Incident. Buck downplayed it as genuine concern for the integrity of the game and said he was being fed a lot of data in the dugout that led him to take that extraordinary step. Apparently the Mets analytics team ignored that spin rates were up across the board in the playoffs, including on their own team. They also ignored that when spin rates dropped as umpires were obliged to clamp down on sticky stuff, Musgrove’s spin rate slightly increased. None of that inconvenient data apparently made its way to Buck in the dugout. Even the New York media harshly critiqued Buck’s actions:
The next cringe worthy move by the Mets involved one last roll of the dice to prevent the Padres from delivering a knockout blow. Showalter elected to bring in his super-elite closer, Edwin Diaz to pitch in the eighth even though Diaz was likely quite depleted from his efforts the night before. For some reason, the Mets production crew, perhaps in one last desperate attempt to revive a crowd that had gone deathly quiet from the 2nd inning on, chose to give Diaz the full closer intro and subjected Padres fans to a gratuitous rendition of Timmy Trumpet. “Don’t they know we’re f- - - -n’ losing?” Came a gruff nearby voice dripping with the contemptuous inflection of a native New Yorker. But not even Timmy Trumpet could rescue the Mets.
With runners on second and third, Juan Soto came to the plate with a chance to break the game open by moving the padres out of the dreaded slam range late in the game. Problem: there were already 2 outs and Diaz, even depleted, was a formidable pitcher. This precise situation is why Preller traded for Juan Soto, and with one swing, Soto validated the trade. Soto smashed ground ball down the third base line and past the helpless Mets third baseman scoring two critical insurance runs. For the first time, Mets players’ heads noticeably dropped. Their season was over and they knew it. By contrast, even the most guarded Padres fan in the stands exploded with joy.
The Mets' antics never ceased but also never got the Mets back on track.
The rest of the game was academic. Robert Suarez worked a dominant eighth. Distraught Mets fans abandoned their team and their season by the thousands, the never quite full stadium starting to empty before the final inning was even underway. Padres fans meanwhile flooded to the lower sections in anticipation of seeing the final out up close. Josh Hader, despite the 6 run lead and clearly demoralized opponent, was brought in to definitively slam the door. Hader’s form was vintage, throwing 3 triple digit fastballs during the inninger which were the highest clocked speeds of his season. Buck didn’t even bother to have the umps search him for sticky stuff as he overpowered the Mets final attempts. With two outs Starling Marte managed to make weak contact on a chopper towards third base which the most valuable player in the National League smoothly fielded and made the throw to first to send the Padres to the NLDS for the first time in 16 years. The Padres all saluted the friar faithful who’d traveled across the country in hopes of seeing their dreams for the season come true.
Some dead-end Mets fans tried one last gambit to spoil our moment. “Hey Padres fans! Where’s Tatis?”
Our response: “Who knows? We didn’t need him! Enjoy the winter…see you in April!”
Then, in the middle of all the revelry, a large bald man wearing a bright pink city connect t-shirt made his way to the front of the ecstatic Padres fans. This man had been providing entertaining taunts toward the Mets all night in Spanish. Now, he climbed up on the Padres dugout, and with all the exuberance of a proud father, led the crowd of Padres fans in thundering chants of “Let’s Go Padres!” “LFGSD!” And “Beat LA!!!” That man had good reason to be proud— for his son is no other than Juan Soto.
This game was a loud statement and the national media took note.
Bring on the D*dgers.
LFGSD!