Here we are, October 2022, and for just the 6th time in my life the New York Metropolitans are headed to the Playoffs. Now the Mets heading to the playoffs is really cool and I am very excited for it, but something even better that will happen this month is that I will become a Dad for the very first time. So I thought with the rarity of the Mets making the playoffs and the amount of times you become a Dad for the first time (that would be one time if you're keeping score at home) I decided to blog this Mets playoff run for my son to re-read and re-live when he's older. With my luck as a Mets fan, and probably his luck as well (unless Mom turns him into a Yankees fan), this series may not last past this weekend and he may not have to read all that much but if by some miracle the Amazin's pull off a World Series run, this will be one of the coolest things I decide to do. Maybe, he can be the good luck charm that the Mets have needed all my life.
Here is a little recap of what has happened so far this year, kid. The New York Mets, who now have one of the richest owners in baseball as of 2020, won over 100 games for just the 4th time in franchise history. A very historic year. But as you will learn as a Mets fan, even when we have an historic season, the Atlanta Braves won't let us have nice things. So although we won the 2nd most games in franchise history this year, we tied the Braves for the division BUT lost the tie breaker because we got absolutely smoked in our final series in Atlanta last week, not great. Dad took a lot of abuse on Twitter.
Now you may read that the Mets blew a 10.5 game lead since June 1st to lose the division in 2022. Although they did have a 10.5 game lead, June 1st is only 2 months into the season and the Braves just wouldn't lose a game from June 1st on. Also note that the New York Yankees (who only won 99 games) would have blown a 12.5 game lead from June 1st 2022, if they were in the NL East. So anyways, because of this we now have to play in this new 3 game Wild Card series against a very good Padres team, which is why this blog series may be short. Their Ace pitcher is Yu Darvish and he owns us, which is not ideal.
The good news is that rich owner I talked about has made some huge splashes over the past 2 years that have completely changed the trajectory of the franchise and put us in a good spot to make a run this year. We signed Francisco Lindor, one of the best Shortstops in baseball (who will likely be your favorite player), until 2030. He is perfect.
We also signed key pieces such as Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha, Starling Marte (currently hurt because the Mets led the league in hit by pitches this year and he broke his finger getting hit by one) and Chris Bassitt. All these signings were huge but the biggest signing of them all was Max Scherzer, one of the best pitchers in the league and our Game 1 starter this weekend.
Scherzer is awesome and is an incredible competitor but we also have this other ace who has won 2 Cy Youngs (best pitcher in baseball) and Rookie of the year, his name is Jacob deGrom. People are asking "Why would you start Max over deGrom?" and there are a few reasons. If we can beat the Padres in 2 games we will have deGrom to pitch twice against a 110+ win Dodgers team. But if we were to split the first two games, we got deGrom to close the series out and get us to the NLDS. He is also dealing with a blood blister on his finger so this should give him an extra few days to take care of that. No one wants to have to face deGrom and Scherzer in the playoffs which is why some people are picking us to win the world series. But you'll learn as a Mets fan, never get your hopes up. Enjoy all the good moments that you can, which we are going to do here for the next few weeks.
So we got good pitching, got a really good shortstop and some other key pieces. We also have the best closer in the game, Edwin Diaz, that has the most electric walkout song of all time. The song is Narco and you will hear early and often. He wasn't always great though. At first he struggled so bad that people called him EdLOSE instead of EdWin, which wasn't very nice. With this, don't bully people when you get older because you never know who will be successful one day, just like Edwin (Lesson #1). We have the batting champ, Jeff McNeil. He gets really angry when he gets out, which is not something you should do if you play baseball in the future, but he also get a lot of hits, which is something you should definitely try to do if you play. We also have Brandon Nimmo, a guy who sprints to first base on a walk and is a bit quirky, but has had a very good season. The guy didn't even play high school baseball and some how the Mets drafted him out of high school from the state of Wyoming in the first round! Go figure. Usually those type of moves don't pan out, especially when you're the Mets, but he has been great. He is a free agent after this year so you may not know much about him as a Met when you read this. Lastly, we have Pete Alonso, some call him the Polar Bear, and he is awesome. Hits absolute bombs and hopefully will be a Met for most of your young life.
So I think I laid the ground work for you on what's going on. Got to hope that Max deals in game 1 or else we may be in trouble and this blog may not last until you're due date but hoping you either come soon or the Mets can make a run for another week so you get to see it and I get to continue doing this.
Oh and one last thing, no matter what, Ya Gotta Believe.
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