Every now and again it’s good to sneak a whisper of October into the teeth of July. Every so often it’s good to feel the cool breeze of an autumn night cut through summer’s unforgiving humidity.
Every once in a while, it’s not such a terrible thing to get lost inside a baseball game.
And if ever the Mets needed a night like that, and if ever Mets fans needed one, it was this one, this night, the news slamming down about Matt Harvey in the afternoon, the Nationals on the field with them in the evening, first of four, the All-Star break beckoning.
If ever the Mets needed a feel-good night, a feel-good win, it was on a day like this, when they trailed 4-1 and trailed 6-4 and kept swinging from their heels, kept swinging for the fences, kept dodging raindrops and Nats rallies. This 9-7 win doesn’t mean everything. But it didn’t mean nothing, either.
“We have to do what we can to get as close as we can by the end of the weekend,” Terry Collins said. “This is a big weekend for us.”
There was Wilmer Flores, once again bringing a loud, large crowd — this time 37,569 — to its feet with a three-run shot off old friend Ollie Perez in the fifth inning. There was Jose Reyes hitting a home run. There was Yoenis Cespedes having one of the video-game workdays he has occasionally.
There was a moment in the ninth inning when Jayson Werth went barreling into second base to break up a double play and was ruled out for a late slide, and if there’s one opponent Mets fans could possibly ask to stand proxy for Chase Utley it’s probably Werth …
And yes: A week after being left for dead in Washington, a week after the Nats swept them and looked like a varsity team pummeling the JV in so doing, the Mets won for a seventh time in eight games, they crawled to within three games of the Nats (two in the loss column), and they filled the Flushing night with the kind of energy you just can’t generate when the Marlins are in town, or the Braves.
Didn’t mean everything, this one win.
But didn’t mean nothing, either.
“We’re ready,” Flores said after hitting his fifth homer in five days and conjuring the blast he hit against the Nats 342 days earlier, despite starting the day on the bench. “We’re not going to keep our heads down. It’s definitely a good feeling. An amazing feeling.”
There was trepidation early, the Nats treating Bartolo Colon like a batting-practice pitcher, especially in the fourth, three of them taking him deep. There was Daniel Murphy doing his usual assortment of mean things to his former mates, driving in three, taking Antonio Bastardo out in the seventh.
Not a perfect night.
But they didn’t need a perfect night. They just needed a good night. Needed a feel-good night. The Nats still look better thanks to the standing and the eye test. There’s plenty of season left for them to prove it, plenty of baseball left this weekend for both clubs.
But for one night? For one night October slipped into Citi Field, offered a cooling breath of sweetness and wonder. Didn’t mean everything, no.
But didn’t mean nothing, either.