There is this scene in AMC”s decorated series, “Mad Men,” in which young copywriter Michael Ginsberg confronts Don Draper in an elevator over a decision his agency’s creative director had made.
“I feel bad for you,” an aggrieved Ginsberg says.
“I don’t think about you at all,” Draper says, striding out of the elevator without even a glance at his employee.
At Citi Field Friday night, the Mets played the Ginsberg role.
The Braves were Don Draper.
It was 7-0 with the score reflecting the ugliness of this matchup between division-leading Atlanta and the moribund Mets, who slipped to 21 ½ games behind Atlanta in the standings. Do you see why the Braves aren’t giving any thought at all to the team in Queens?
Are you old enough to remember when this was supposed to be a rivalry? It seemed as if it was last year, when the Mets built a lead over the Braves that stood at 6 ½ games on Aug. 7 after taking four of five from Atlanta. New Yorkers partied like it was 1969 when the Mets swept the Braves three straight in the first-ever NLCS before winning the World Series in five games against the Orioles.
But alas and alack and without Tommie Agee or Cleon Jones or Nolan Ryan or J.C. Martin, the Mets collapsed and were overtaken by the Braves for the division crown. The Mets have finished behind the Braves 16 times over the past 23 seasons, 11 times by more than an 11-game gap in the standings. Is that the stuff of a rivalry?
Ginsberg and Draper.
You’d be tempted to say that the Mets who took the field for this one had non-compete clauses in their contracts but that would not quite be fair. When Francisco Lindor became a last minute scratch with right-side soreness that developed after batting practice and thus ended the shortstop’s consecutive game streak at 223 (114-for-114 this year), the Mets sent out a lineup that featured four starting position players with fewer than 100 at-bats in the majors.
They grinded against Charlie Morton, who issued seven walks (and only three hits) in five innings. But the basepaths at Citi was the place where Mets were left to die, 14 of them overall while the club went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
It seemed a lot like the three-game sweep in Kansas City the team endured immediately following the deadline purge or maybe the three-game sweep sustained right after that in Baltimore. The Mets were outscored by an aggregate 39-14 through the six games.
But they took two of three from the Cubs this week after returning home. It seemed as if the Mets might have emerged from the malaise that followed the deadline. It seemed as if the players finally had been able to put the purge in the rearview.
“I think that might be valid. It’s not something you can rush,” manager Buck Showalter said before the game. “You can’t go, this is exactly how you should feel and when. Everybody’s got to have their space a little bit. You’ve got to let them have that.
“There was almost a period of mourning that you have to get over.”
The Braves, whose 73-41 record is the best in baseball, rang up six runs — five earned — in 5 ¹/₃ innings against Tylor Megill, who probably was a little bit better than he was during his interlude at Triple-A Syracuse, where the 28-year-old righty had a 8.67 ERA in six starts. His future in the organization is likely on the line over these next seven weeks.
So it will be worth monitoring his progress. The same goes for Mark Vientos, who had two hits and handled himself quite well at third-base. The at-bats for kids such as Francisco Alvarez will be important.
It is hard to understand, though, what value there is in giving Daniel Vogelbach even a single additional at-bat following the 30-year-old’s 0-for-5 in which he left seven men on base and struck out four times, the final one ending the game.
Vogelbach, somehow the lone survivor from general manager Billy Eppler’s failed 2022 deadline dealings, was jeered loudly after his fourth strikeout signaled the final out of the contest. He is slashing .214/.313/.348 with seven home runs and a .661 OPS. His numbers have gotten worse since the All-Star break.
Wouldn’t there be more value in finding a younger man — maybe a prospect — to take Vogelbach’s at-bats the rest of the way?
These are the Mets, still with 47 games to go and 28 at home.
And those are the Braves.
One is Ginsberg.
The other, Don Draper.
