The TV setup, hopefully for a while to come.

It’s ironic that the Mets lost this series in San Francisco.

Or it’s just a coincidence, I don’t know.

Irony has always been confusing to me and people love to point out when it’s used wrong so I always second-guess whether I’m thinking about it correctly.

I think it’s correct here.

But I digress.

The Giants, at 10-13 when the Mets came to town, are the first team the Mets have faced this 2024 season with a losing record.

So of course the Giants are the team that snapped the Mets’ five-series winning streak.

See? Ironic.

I think.

The hits stopped coming for a couple of games in San Francisco there, and the Mets lost two out of three…but as I wrote on Sunday, a 3-3 west coast swing is not terrible. And, despite their losing record, this isn’t a bad Giants team. It’s not like the Mets are going out and losing to the 3-20 White Sox. (Yeesh. 3-20. I thought they’d be up to like 5 or 6 wins by now.)

Had the Mets been swept by the Giants that would have sucked a lot of the goodwill out of the Dodgers series…but they bounced back nicely Wednesday afternoon.

And as long as we’re still feeling some goodwill for a .500 west coast trip, I’ll be generous in explaining away the losses a little bit.

Jose Quintana just didn’t have it on Monday night. He’s allowed a clunker or two over the course of the season. This was one.

As for Tuesday night, there’s no shame in losing to Logan Webb. He’s tough. Luis Severino pitched well for the most part and kept the Mets in it.

Both games felt like the Mets could have been blown out, and they still had their chances - that’s the kind of season it’s going to be. The Mets will find a way to win some of those games when it seems like they have no business being in them.

And then in the third game of the road trip they looked like the Mets from the first two games of the road trip.

Francisco Lindor is a big reason why - he closed out the series by going 4-for-5, driving in 4 thanks to two 2-run homers. (Honorable mention goes to Tyrone Taylor who hit a big home run in the 4th inning.)

The only sour note from Wednesday’s game is that Sean Manaea was pulled with 2 outs in the 5th, having thrown 101 pitches, continuing the theme of the Mets’ starters not being able to go deep into games. Even though the Mets were up 6-0 and it probably wouldn’t have been terrible to take the chance of letting Manaea qualify for the win, I think it was a good move by Carlos Mendoza. Until he makes a wrong move I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt on everything.

So the Mets get a day off and get back to east coast time. I have to say, as much as they’ve used the bullpen - which is too much - they’ve had well-timed days off and it hasn’t felt crippling. That said, it’s still April and there’s a long season ahead…but it doesn’t feel like it did last year, that’s for sure.

Here’s what else I’m thinking about:

You know I’m watching the Rangers. I’ve been talking about that, and what you see above is the TV setup for the next month-plus so I don’t have to worry about conflicting game times. (That TV is usually what we use for our at-home workouts, but it is small enough to move around. It’s the one I take outside when I want to watch the Mets al fresco in the summer.) Anyway, I’ve also been watching the Knicks because they had such a good regular season. I don’t pay attention at all to the NBA these days, which the me of 30 years ago would be shocked to find out, but we’ll see if this can recapture some of the love I used to have for the game. (So far, so good. The end of Game 2 of the Knicks-76ers series was bonkers, reminiscent of some of those exciting 1990s playoff games. The Rangers are up 2 games to none, so that’s going according to plan.)
I talked about Francisco Alvarez hurting his thumb. He had surgery while the Mets were in San Francisco and is expected to be out 8 weeks, which has his return some time around June 24th. I did not mention that when Alvarez went on the IL, so did Brooks Raley. He’s not expected to be out longer than the 15 days.
And the Giants had a notable injury: Blake Snell went on the IL Wednesday - he was supposed to start against the Mets, and the fact that the Giants went instead with a bullpen game was certainly to the Mets’ benefit. But that stinks for the Giants, and for Snell after signing late. There are a lot of elements to the injury - Snell had not been good in his first three starts - and none of it is positive.
I will admit once Quintana looked shaky Monday night I turned in early rather than stay up late again. Tuesday night I made it deeper into the game but I still didn’t stay up very late. These west coast games got to me. The Mets make two more west coast trips - both are in August, and they’re a couple of weeks apart. Thankfully it won’t be in the teeth of school season, so I have a better chance at napping if I stay up…but I’m also glad I have more than 3 months before I have to worry about that.
During the series against the Mets, Wilmer Flores hit a milestone of sorts - he has now played more games with teams that are not the Mets than games he played with the Mets. The part I couldn’t believe is that he’s already played five seasons with the Giants. That comes after one year in Arizona, so he’s been away for six seasons. It does not feel like it’s been that long since he was a Met.
No live blog tomorrow. I’ll take the day to recover from west coast start times. (But you’d better believe I’ll be watching day baseball.) I didn’t realize the Mets were on Apple TV Friday night, which works out perfectly for me, because I was going to miss the game anyway - I’m going to the Red Sox game that night. (Could be a great pitching matchup: Kutter Crawford goes for the Sox and it should be Shota Imanaga’s turn in the Cubs’ rotation. Both are off to great starts.) My first Sox game of the season is the first of what should be 3 games in a week for me. 2 Mets trips coming next week.

The Series Against San Francisco: 1-2

Overall Record: 13-11

Standings: 4th place in NL East, 4 games behind Atlanta (Atlanta plays tonight)

Up Next: Another series against a team with a losing record which feels kind of like a trap because, not unlike the Giants, they’re still a good team: The Cardinals. Their record is 11-14, and they never really figured it out last year, but they still handled the Mets a year ago. We’ll see if the Mets can take advantage of the Cardinals’ struggles and get back to winning series again. I’ll be there on Sunday to hopefully see a good bounce back start from Quintana.

OH! I had to edit this to add that when the Mets do resume play on Friday night, they should have J.D. Martinez in the lineup. Pretty good late-April lineup addition.

Let’s Go Mets.