The Mets survived everything thrown at them in 2016 and came up three bucks short. The Giants survived themselves and, at the 11th hour, punched their ticket to Chicago for a division series showdown with the Cubs.
And until Jeurys Familia threw the wrong pitch to a no-name number eight hitter named Conor Gillaspie, who had to step in for injured Eduardo Nunez late in the season, the National League wild card game threatened to go to extra innings and maybe beyond no matter who might be the last man standing on the mound.
"To be honest, I was trying to get something elevated, that's your only chance against that guy," said Gillaspie after he helped Madison Bumgarner send the Mets home for the winter with a 3-0 wild card game win.
Elevated? With Brandon Crawford (leadoff double) and Joe Panik (1-out walk) aboard, Familia needed to throw one of his patented low-to-the-floor services for the inning-ending double play. "I was trying to get something elevated, that's your only chance against that guy," Gillaspie would say when it was all over.
He got better than he bargained for. Familia's should-have-been sinker traveled toward the upper part of the zone, just a little in. And Gillaspie sent it traveling to the center field side of the right field bullpen. It also sent the Giants' elevator through the roof and the Mets' to the basement.
Not a soul in the park doubted when Sergio Romo sat back down in the Giants' beleaguered bullpen that Madison Bumgarner would be his own closer. Bumgarner doesn't mind being his own closer in elimination games in which the other guys — even teams as against-most-odds-surviving as these Mets.
After a season in which they defied medical science and the rest of the National League to regroup and recoup from August forward, this one's going to take more than benadryl to take the hurt from the Mets.
Last year, Familia was charged with three blown saves and two of them were blown by a porous defense. Wednesday night, with a much more together defense behind him, he wasn't in a save situation, but he threw the absolute wrong pitch.
"Middle-in sinker," Familia said after the game, taking every question like the stand-up man he's proven to be as a Met. "A little too much plate. A quality swing. And that's the game." Nobody had to tell him. He knew it. Which is why his teammates and manager remain loyal to a young man who became known as a classic escape artist while leading the majors with 51 saves.
The Mets had the opening matchup they wanted. They'd clinched the first wild card last Saturday in Philadelphia, letting them keep Noah Syndergaard for a showdown with Bumgarner Wednesday night. And in seven innings, Syndergaard — who had a no-hitter for five and two-thirds — was absolutely brilliant. Ten punch-outs, out-pitching Bumgarner until his 108th pitch meant his evening was done.
"He was really good tonight. He was as good as I've seen at this level," Gillaspie said of Syndergaard after the game. "It was a tough go-round for seven innings."
The Mets even looked for a time like their wasted run-production opportunities weren't half as drastic as the Giants'. They also looked like they were going to make the Giants work overtime for anything, especially in the sixth and the eighth.
With two outs and one on, Brandon Belt hit one to the back of the yard. Mets center fielder Curtis Granderson ran it down to the track and snared it a second or two before he hit the fence running with a thunk! the entire ballpark and maybe half of Queens felt.
And in the eighth, with the game in the hands of Mets setup man Addison Reed, Reed had to do some fancy arm-work to squirm out of a jam half his own making. A leadoff single to Gillaspie, a sacrifice bunt by Bumgarner, a pop out behind second, and a walk to Belt later, Reed threw a low pitch that catcher Rene Rivera turned into a passed ball, forcing Reed to put Buster Posey on the rest of the way.
Here was a grand opportunity for the Giants with Hunter Pence coming up. And Reed muscled Pence away with a three-pitch strikeout. Both sides must have been wondering by then what the price would be even to try bribing a run out of the other guys.
Neither manager made any tactical or strategic mistake. Giants manager Bruce Bochy had a bullpen he could trust about as far as he could throw it. Mets manager Terry Collins had one he could relax with, a bullpen that performed magnificently down the August and September stretch, in addition to reinforcements from barely tried rookies and a few of the others guys' discards. Neither man had reason to fear the worst as the game got later.
Syndergaard managed to keep his lone known weakness — his none-too-solid ability to hold baserunners — from getting in his way. Bumgarner, knowing he couldn't quite overpower the Mets, simply played for efficiency from himself and his defense. Almost everything went according to both teams' plans.
Almost. The Mets were unable to wear Bumgarner down and get near the Giants' shaky bullpen. "I really thought, hey look, if we can get to him early," said manager Terry Collins. "We probably need to do a little better job of working the count."
It doesn't hurt to remember that almost the only way to cool off Bumgarner seems to be with a shampoo of postseason champagne.
The Giants looked like they were cratering in the second half, after racking up baseball's best record in the first, and clawed their way to the second wild card. The Mets lost most of their starting rotation and no few position players to the disabled list, several for the remainder of the season after going down, and clawed their way to the first card.
Both teams went at it hammer, tongs, oven mitts, and spatulas Wednesday night. The Giants left seven men on base to the Mets' five. Only Span between the teams stole a base, in the top of the sixth, and he was stranded. He was also caught stealing in the fourth after a leadoff walk, and that call could have gone either way; a review called for by the Giants produced an upheld out call when the reviewers couldn't satisfy themselves that he'd hit the base safely without over-sliding it on a tight throw.
Then poor Familia threw the one pitch he didn't want to throw, where he didn't want to throw it, and that pitch disappeared in an instant, taking the scoreless tie with it. It was almost a formality when Bumgarner got three swift air outs to end the game and the Mets' unlikely season.
"I don't know what I was thinking," Gillaspie said, referring to his fist pumping around the bases. "Normally I'm not a fired-up guy. I let some frustration out from the first six innings with that swing."
He also put some winter-long frustration into the otherwise hearty Mets. They can't really be stung too badly since it took something approaching a miracle for them to be here at all. But once you get here, getting bumped to one side when your main man out of the pen throws the wrong slider tends to leave off-season-long lumps.
"Baseball," Syndergaard tweeted after the game, "has a way of ripping your [heart] out, stabbing it, putting it back in your chest, then healing itself just in time for Spring Training." Probably the most oddly poetic "wait 'till next year" in recent memory.
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