By the end of last season, 0-70 had become as much of an indictment of the 2025 Mets as an ugly statistic. Steve Cohen even made a point of referencing it in his press session at spring training in February, as if still finding it hard to believe his ballclub had gone the entire year without winning a game in which they’d trailed after eight innings.
Such futility demanded some examination: was the absence of dramatic comebacks fluky or did it hint at some lack of esprit de corps on the '25 Mets?
David Stearns and Cohen clearly decided on the latter, overhauling the roster and, as Cohen noted on that day in February, bringing in proven clutch hitters in part so 0-70 didn’t happen again.
And so as the Mets pulled off the unlikeliest of comeback wins on Saturday night at Citi Field, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-2 on Luis Robert Jr.'s 11th-inning three-run home run, both the owner and president of baseball operations had to feel as warm and fuzzy, wherever they were watching, as the players were bitterly cold on the ballfield.
As it turned out, the win wouldn’t have changed the 0-70 stat last year, as the Mets were tied 0-0 after eight innings on this day.
But suffice it to say that coming back not once but twice in extra innings, on a day when they couldn’t get a big hit for nine innings, made for a memorable comeback and perhaps reason to believe this indeed will be a team with more grit, more toughness than whatever happened to last year’s ballclub.
Especially considering it seemed the Mets had blown their opportunity to win the game in the 10th, when their best hitters, Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Bo Bichette all failed to get the winning run in from third base after Mark Vientos and Luis Torrens had delivered clutch singles to get the game tied.
All Lindor and Soto needed were fly balls to get the run in, but couldn’t deliver. And Bichette, who has been hailed as something of a clutch-hitting savant with the numbers to prove it, lifted a routine fly ball to right for the third out, three innings after striking out in the eighth with the go-ahead run on third.
But that’s baseball, of course. Everybody fails. It’s the good teams, or perhaps the best ones, that find ways to overcome it, find a way to win games late when the money is on the table, even on days when there’s not a hint of a win in the air.
That’s what Saturday felt like for the Mets. After all the praise heaped on them on Opening Day regarding their new-look, high-contact lineup, they couldn’t do much of anything at the plate, especially against Mitch Keller, who has been tough on them historically.
They had three hits through nine innings, all singles, and four walks. They were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
Maybe it was just too freezing cold for anybody to hit. Yet when it counted most, Robert changed everything with his three-run home run, making him the early favorite for X-factor of the year and making for a feel-good Mets’ clubhouse as well.
David Peterson, who got big outs when needed to pitch out of trouble and deliver 5.1 scoreless innings, kept changing the subject from his own performance to the nature of the victory as he talked to reporters.
“Awesome win,” he said. “A total team win. We needed everybody to win this game and everybody played a role. Just awesome.”
Ok, ok, I can hear the skeptics, or even many reasoned fans out there saying this is making too much of one win, improbable or not, against the less-than-imposing Pirates in the second game of this new season.
And that’s fair.
Certainly, there is plenty we don’t know about this team, and probably won’t for weeks, even months.
But there was also plenty to like on this day, even with such an absence of offense.
Peterson’s start offered reason to believe, as the Mets do, that he simply hit a wall in September related to his career-high innings-pitched total last season, and will bounce back and be a solid starter, perhaps even the guy who made the NL All-Star Game in 2025.
In addition, Devin Williams made his debut as the guy taking over for Edwin Diaz, and put up a zero in the ninth. It wasn’t routine, as the go-ahead run got to third base, but he struck out Bryan Reynolds to end the inning, blowing a fastball by him after setting that up with his signature change-up, the ballyhooed air-bender. It felt significant.
For that matter, all of the high-leverage relievers were sharp, producing 3.2 scoreless innings before Luis Garcia and Richard Lovelady each allowed runs in the 10th and 11th innings, albeit partly because of the free runner at second base.
Also, Vientos’ pinch-hit single in the 10th, loading the bases and setting up Torrens’ game-tying hit, felt significant as well, as the Mets are hoping he recaptures his 2024 form and becomes a difference-maker again.
On the other hand, Bichette and Jorge Polanco are off to shaky starts in their transitions to new positions at first and third base. Bichette made a throwing error on a routine play and has been wide to the first base side with at least a few throws, going back to spring training.
He also fielded a grounded ball in unconventional fashion, positioning himself as he moved to his left so he could backhand the ball, which looked awkward but did put himself in a strong position to throw.
On the SNY telecast, Keith Hernandez called it “interesting.”
Meanwhile, Polanco has had a couple of balls bounce off him, and while his athleticism allowed him to recover to make the plays, he hasn’t looked comfortable getting in front of hard-hit balls, and couldn’t handle a bad hop that was ruled a hit in Saturday’s game.
It doesn’t mean the two ex-shortstops won’t make the transitions successfully. But it does look like they’re going to need some time.
So we’ll see. In the end, the win mattered most, of course, especially because of that dreaded 0-70 that came to define the disaster of 2025.
Last season, the Mets weren’t as good as their individual talent. On Saturday, the result was better than they actually played.
It felt like a good omen.
