Just as pundits predicted before the season started, the Mets and Padres opened a series against each other and ended the first half of the season as two of the hottest teams in baseball.
A win in Arizona gave the Mets their fifth straight win, their season-high. As the last three days of summer arrived before the All-Star break on Friday, the Mets’ winning streak was tied with the Cincinnati’s winning streak for the majors’ best players.
After Thursday’s day off, the Padres started the weekend sprinting after beating the Los Angeles Angels in a three-game win. When Yu Darvish faced Justin Verlander and had a fascinating start to a baseball weekend in San Diego – in front of a crowd of 42,712 on Friday – it was the Padres’ 37th sellout this season – both teams put in a lot of passion and drive.
“They’re just another team in our way,” Pete Alonso, the Mets’ lone All-Star this season, said coolly Friday as the series began.
And that’s exactly what the Padres proved on the first night of a three-game streak when the Mets won 7-5 in 10 innings and extended their winning streak to six games. It’s now their longest streak in the majors – Cincinnati lost to Milwaukee on Friday – and it’s the second-longest streak at the start of July in club history, after a 10-0 start in 1991.
“We have to do a series,” said Verlander after the victory on Friday. “Some games are like yesterday and some games are like today – some things go your way.
“It seems like a lot of things didn’t go that way, so it’s nice to see”
The tension at stake for a season not to end was evident in Ha-Seong Kim’s reaction when he was knocked out in the seventh inning of a 3-3 game while attempting to double-in from a double to make a triple with an out. Angry at his mistake, he kicked a water cooler in the dugout, injuring his big right toe and the Padres cited his status as fit for everyday use. His absence would be a blow: Kim has taken the lead and is one of San Diego’s best players. With 4 wins over substitutes, he ranks second in the National League among position players behind Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. on the Baseball Reference formula and leads all major league players in defensive WAR.
In many ways, early in the series it felt like teams were picking up where they left off last October, when deafening noise, kaleidoscopic color and tense tension were the hallmarks of a memorable three-game wildcard series in which the Padres played along swept the Mets at Citi Field.
The future of both teams seemed limitless at the time.
Well, maybe not so much.
Instead, these star-studded teams with horrendous payrolls and outsized expectations still remain mirror images of each other. But the images are distorted as if through a fun house mirror.
Despite their recent winning streak, the Mets and Padres have very little to show for the 2023 season with combined salary totals of more than half a billion. The Mets’ total payroll is estimated at more than $340 million, according to Spotrac, while the Padres have to pay more than $240 million. For all that money, both teams started the weekend 41-46, 6.5 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for third wildcard spot in the National League.
The Mets’ desperation to improve their season was epitomized by shortstop Francisco Lindor in the win over Arizona. He was so ill that he almost had to miss Wednesday’s game and only recovered after receiving intravenous fluids for dehydration. He then hit two triples and a home run for a 5-5 as the Mets defeated the first-ranked Diamondbacks 9-0 on Thursday.
Goodbye virus; Hello optimism?
“We’ll make something of it,” promised Lindor after the game. “Now the question is how deep are we going to go.”
The Padres’ own desperation was evident the night before. They had come back from a 5-1 win over Pittsburgh and Cincinnati that manager Bob Melvin described as a “miserable ride.” With two wins against the Angels, they had a chance to wrap up their first straight win of the season. San Diego All-Star closeer Josh Hader had worked Monday and Tuesday and had not pitched for three straight days since 2021. Sensitive to overwork after his years in Milwaukee, he turned down an opportunity in San Francisco last month.
But when the Padres led 5-3 in the ninth inning on Wednesday, strife ensued.
“He has a sense of where we are as a team,” Melvin explained afterwards. “So tonight he wanted to have the ball in a safe situation.”
desperate times.
“It was the right situation and I was able to do it,” said Hader on Friday. “It’s about making sure you’re healthy. If I can no longer take care of the team later due to an injury, that won’t do me any good in the long run.”
Though the Padres’ rotation led the NL with 39 top-flight starts through Thursday, they went into the series with the Mets with the more modest goal of extending their modest winning streak to four straight wins that would set the highest season record.
Winning was difficult due to their .219 batting average with runners in the points position, which was the worst of any major on Friday. A team featuring sluggers like Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Xander Bogaerts and Fernando Tatis Jr. stared at terrible clubs like Oakland (29th, .229), Kansas City (28th, .233) and Detroit (27th, .236) .
The Padres’ .194 batting average in “late/close” situations — defined by Baseball Reference as “any plate appearance beginning in the seventh inning in which the batting team is either in a tie, has a run lead, or is potentially a tie run on.” deck” – was ranked 29th in the majors through Thursday.
With those numbers unsurprisingly, the Padres were trailing 1:36 after seven innings. They’re not the Cardiac Kids.
Still looking for a combination that clicks, San Diego parted ways with struggling designated hitter Nelson Cruz on Tuesday and fielded him. There was no reason to have him and Matt Carpenter both on the bench as veterans to pinch hit even if one was hitting right and the other left.
It wasn’t the kind of move one would expect from a team that sprinted all the way to the NL Championship Series last October before losing to Philadelphia. And it showed how much the Padres would have to change if they were to compete again.
“We have to come out every day and play like it’s our last,” Bogaerts said.
The Mets and the Padres have been such an enigma this summer that the owners of each team delivered what amounts to a mini State of the Union address over the course of four days.
On June 28 at Citi Field, Steven A. Cohen offered public support for manager Buck Showalter and general manager Billy Eppler. He reiterated that he still plans to hire a president for baseball operations. The game’s worst-kept secret, of course, is that David Stearns, the former Brewers president, is likely to take on that role once his contract with Milwaukee expires.
On July 1, in an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Padres owner Peter Seidler showed his support for AJ Preller, the team’s president of baseball operations, who is under contract until 2026. Like Cohen, Seidler said he values ”stability.” He added: “I am for excellence. And to me, AJ is excellence.”
In his speech on Friday, Machado, like Seidler, opted for an optimistic, long-term view.
“It makes everything special when you’re struggling,” Machado said. “If you look back, you can see that I went through it all and damn it how positive things turned out.”
Now, arguably the two most disappointing sides of the game have what may be their last chance to quell the gloom by prolonging the little rays of sunshine they caught in early July. Trading closes on August 1st and Eppler and Preller will soon have to decide whether they want to be buyers or sellers.
After playing 7-19 in June, the Mets hit 17 hits Thursday night and amassed 32 bases overall. The Mets played a clean, well-rounded series against a sneakily good team. Manager Buck Showalter said Arizona is as athletic as any the Mets have faced that year.
During their six-game winning streak, the Mets’ starting players compiled a 1.80 ERA. Carlos Carrasco threw his best game of the season on Thursday, and Verlander and Max Scherzer are both in the rotation after rounds including injuries and, for Scherzer, a 10-game suspension for violating the league’s ban on the use of foreign materials in a baseball.
Despite faltering at times on his San Diego start, giving up two earned runs and running three in six innings, Verlander has now gone six or more innings in seven of 12 starts this season.
“Every day is a separate unit and we just want to build on solid performances,” said Alonso, who did early hitting practice on his first day in San Diego in preparation for Monday’s Home Run Derby in Seattle. “You can’t think too much about the future. You just want to focus on winning today.”