ATLANTA — Francisco Lindor’s tranquility belied the magnitude of the moment. As the Mets’ MVP calmly trotted around the bases, Starling Marte had raised his arms triumphantly. The dugout could barely contain his teammates.
Except one, who went straight to manager Carlos Mendoza.
“I’m going back out there,” Edwin Díaz told the manager. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going back out there.”
Díaz had thrown 26 pitches on Sunday and 21 more in the eighth inning. He’d lost his command after forgetting to cover first base for what should have been the last out of the inning. He’d surrendered Ozzie Albies’ go-ahead three-run double, and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner had already told him his day was over.
Trifles. Díaz leaned into Mendoza: “I got this s—.”
Ninth-inning pleas to the manager don’t always end well in these parts. But perhaps that’s part of the sweeping change happening in Queens. Mendoza trusted Díaz, even through a one-out single and a managerial mound visit, and Díaz repaid that trust.
When Travis d’Arnaud grounded to short, Díaz slammed his glove and the Mets slammed the door: They had clinched the 11th playoff berth in franchise history with an 8-7 win in the first game of Monday’s season-ending doubleheader.
“We’re one step closer,” said Lindor. “We kept climbing and kept climbing and kept climbing. We never believed we were drowning.”
In the moment, that accomplishment in and of itself was subsumed by arguably the greatest regular-season game in franchise history — a dizzying series of late-game twists and a win probability graph that would have intimidated Edmund Hillary.
Monday promised to be unorthodox. Each team showed up to the ballpark needing one win to pop champagne, but both knew the benefits of winning the first game in particular. Mendoza wondered how hard to push his team if it fell behind in the opener, weighing whether to hold something back for the nightcap.
And then for seven innings, New York’s bats had again been disarmed by rookie Spencer Schwellenbach. When the right-hander took the mound for that eighth inning, he’d thrown 21 innings this season against the Mets and allowed one run on eight hits. Even when he departed after Tyrone Taylor’s leadoff double, the Truist Park crowd gave him a raucous standing ovation; there was little reason to fret.
But Taylor’s two-bagger sparked that slumbering New York offense. Francisco Alvarez followed with his own double to get the Mets on the board, and consecutive singles from pinch hitter Marte and Lindor plated another run. Sparkplug José Iglesias delivered a two-strike single to right to tie the game, and Mark Vientos’ sacrifice fly chased Lindor home from third with the go-ahead run. Brandon Nimmo capped that rally with a mammoth two-run homer to right, and the veteran outfielder enjoyed every moment.
But one does not simply walk into Mordor, and one comeback would not suffice for the Mets to exorcise a generation’s worth of demons in Atlanta. They couldn’t hold on to their own three-run lead in the bottom of the inning, with Atlanta putting two on against Phil Maton to summon Díaz from the pen.
He appeared to get out of the inning when Pete Alonso made as good a diving stop as he’d made all season, snagging Jarred Kelenic’s sharp groundball down the right-field line. There was only one problem: Díaz was still standing on the pitcher’s mound.
Díaz forgot to cover first base, allowing Kelenic to reach, a run to score and Atlanta to extend the inning. It took full advantage. After Michael Harris II walked to load the bases, Albies uncorked a bases-clearing double on a 3-1 Díaz fastball to send Truist Park into a state of bedlam.
That set the stage for Lindor to deliver once again.
“Embrace the moment,” he’d told his teammates before that ninth inning. “Fight.”
The team’s best player all season, Lindor returned from his back issues to once again tote a load on his shoulders. He turned on Pierce Johnson’s first-pitch curveball and lofted it to deep right-center. He knew right away.
“Thank you, Jesus,” he thought. And as for the muted celebration? “I’ve got to save my energy.”
Indeed, there are more games to play. The Mets will fly out late Monday to either San Diego (if they win the second game) or Milwaukee (if they lose). Their best-of-three Wild Card Series starts Tuesday.
“It’s going to be hard,” Lindor said. “And it’s even going to get harder. We’ve just got to keep on going.”
(Top photo of Francisco Alvarez and Edwin Díaz: Brett Davis / Imagn Images)
