If you were at Citi Field on Sunday night, or perhaps even just watching the game on TV, you may have been a bit confused. The calendar might have read August 2nd, but it sure felt a lot like mid-October in Queens.
Since Citi Field’s inaugural season in 2009, there have been a few note-worthy games that have taken place there, but perhaps none bigger than the one on Sunday night. Most of those previous note-worthy games were for the most part for an individual, but not for the whole team.
There was R.A. Dickey’s 20th victory of the 2012 season, which took an otherwise sub-par season and turned it into a fun last couple Dickey starts that gave Mets fans some reason to cheer. A year prior to that on the final day of the 2011 season, Jose Reyes became the first Met ever to win the NL batting title.
Oh yes, and let us not forget about that one magical night on June 1, 2012 when Johan Santana gave the Mets organization and fans something it’s never had before, a no-hitter.
There was just something special about last night, the atmosphere, the electricity, the literal rocking of Citi Field that would send chills through the body of any Mets fan. Or maybe it was the fact that last night, on a national stage, the Mets felt like America’s team, the underdog who finally resurrected himself from the grave.
You could make the claim the energy from the crowd was carried over from the Mets thrilling win on Saturday night, but the third inning last night, was one that could not have been scripted any better. It started out with a Kevin Plawecki walk, which was followed up by a sacrifice bunt by Noah Syndergaard. Tejada then hit a rope right back to the pitcher Zimmermann, leaving them with two outs and a man on second.
Now stop right there. At this point if you’re a Mets fan, even though Curtis Granderson has been very solid, you’re probably thinking he rolls over to second, and they leave Plawecki stranded, inning over. Instead what ensued next was something most Mets fans couldn’t have even dreamt about. Granderson deposited one over the right field wall to give the Mets a 2-1 lead. Then, on the very next pitch, before the Citi Field crowd could even sit down, Daniel Murphy hits a home run into the Pepsi Porch, further than I can remember him ever hitting one.
After Cespedes got his first hit as a Met, and before the fans could climb down from Cloud 9, Lucas Duda continued his torrent stretch by hitting one a mile high and off the RF foul pole that blew the top off of Citi Field. How about that for a third inning?
It was obvious that there was a different feel to last night. Something that I think is not only good for the Mets and their fan base, but also something that is good for the game of baseball. Before the game even started, Dan Shulman of ESPN commented on how much it felt like a playoff game. I can’t remember the last time there was a Mets game played at Citi Field in August that felt like a playoff game.
So I ask Mets fans, would you put last night’s game at the top of the list of games ever played at Citi Field? I myself believe it was, and hopefully there will be many more to come. It may still be summertime, but it sure felt like October baseball in Queens last night.
