Now They Just Have To Do It 94 More Times

The Mets opened the season yesterday with the kind of game that might end up being a microcosm for their season, and which both believers and skeptics can look at as evidence for their views. Six good innings from Tom Glavine, effective relief work, some flashy defense, a bit of luck, and a big home run from David Wright would seem to auger success; a combined 1-for-8 from middle infielders Jose Reyes and Anderson Hernandez, continued failure by Carlos Beltran, and some boneheaded fielding would seem to confirm the dark suspicions of some.The story of the game was the defense, which is going to be an issue for the team all season long. In the second inning, Hernandez made an absolutely incredible play that made you see why he made the team in spring training.When Washington’s Nick Johnson knocked one up the middle, Hernandez – who was shading Johnson to pull the ball to left field – grabbed the ball backhanded just to the left of the bag, turned, and while flying backwards towards left field fired a strike into Carlos Delgado’s mitt to get the out. That’s not the kind of thing that can be taught. The other, more important, big play in the game was a relay throw from Floyd to Reyes to Paul Lo Duca that nailed Alfonso Soriano, who represented the tying run, at home plate.This is where we run into some problems. Soriano wasn’t out; Lo Duca didn’t do a great job of blocking the plate and didn’t hold onto the ball. This was simply a badly blown call, the kind of luck that wins one-run games. Chalking up the Mets’ win to heady defense is a nice storyline, but it isn’t really accurate.And this wasn’t the only problematic play. In the fourth, Reyes looked awful moving to his left and got no outs out of what should have been a double play ball, leaving the bases loaded with no one out. Royce Clayton, the next batter, lofted a lazy fly into center field; with the sloth like Johnson tagging at third, Beltran looped the ball two-thirds of the way up the third base line, which easily could have led to a second run crossing the plate.These kinds of things aren’t that big a deal in their own right, but when they persist over a season, they can be absolute killers. Reyes’s inability to turn the kind of physical talent that wins Gold Gloves into results and Beltran’s bad decisions were leitmotifs of last season, and among the reasons the Mets won fewer games than they should have. Winning teams play consistent, disciplined ball, and the Mets need to do so.That’s the criticism, but there was good news, too. Glavine looked absolutely tremendous, particularly in getting out of a second-and-third, one-out spot in the fifth by striking out Johnson and Soriano looking with fastballs. A bit much has been made of the curveball Glavine started tossing last year; the big difference in his game has been his willingness to go inside, which makes his usual painting of the outside corner a lot more effective and liable to draw weak swings. At 40, there’s no reason he can’t be as effective this year as he was last year, and if he is he could well stun the world and win 20 for the sixth time.Then there was Xavier Nady’s day. In his first game as a Met, the right fielder went 4-for-4 with two doubles – the kind of first impression that can buy a questionable signing a lot of slack. Nady took one double the other way and pulled the other down the left field line, but most impressive was that each of his hits was distinctly different – the pulled double was just below eye level and inside, for instance, and the opposite-field shot came on a pitch that was middle-away.Nady is an odd case, in that in San Diego his reputation was as a hitter who handled the inside pitch well but chased the outside pitch too much, which is quite a bit different than the usual rep disappointing young hitters get for not being able to handle hard stuff inside. It’s best not to get too excited by one game, but it is worth remembering that Nady was a very highly touted prospect a few years ago, and it’s possible that he has a great year or two in him.For Mets fans, this was a game worth getting excited about, in a lot of ways and for a lot of different reasons. Momentum, as they say, is only as good as the next game’s starter, but you have to like what the team did yesterday, and figure that the mistakes were the correctable kind. Now they only have to do this another 94 or so times. Let’s see if they can keep it up.tmarchman@nysun.com

Now They Just Have To Do It 94 More Times

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