#Mets defense stunningly looked like ‘The Best Infield Ever’

For a night, anyway, the Mets paid homage to a mostly overlooked chapter in their history. It’s coming up on 21 years ago when Sports Illustrated put the four regular Mets infielders — John Olerud, Edgardo Alfonzo, Rey Ordonez and Robin Ventura — on its Sept. 6, 1999 cover, and asked in the accompanying headline:

“The Best Infield Ever?”

They were a show that summer, four slick-fielding glove men at the tops of their games, Ventura and Ordonez winning Gold Gloves, the other two in the conversation. It was right around that time when Al Leiter, after observing and admiring his infielders one hot summer night at Shea, smiled and shook his head.

“They make pitching fun,” he said.

Rick Porcello hadn’t had a lot of fun in his first two starts as a Met, lugging a 13.50 ERA into Nationals Park. But when Porcello is on, he induces contact, much of it on the ground. And he was on Wednesday night. He was on, and the Mets — more out of necessity than choice — had an infield that, for a night at least, was all he could have asked for.

“I guess there’s a little momentum when you’re grinding, when the guys are making great plays keep behind you, you keep the pace going put a lot of balls in play,” Porcello said after win No. 150 for his career and win No. 1 as a Met, 3-1 over the defending-champ Nats. “They made all the plays. It’s a great feeling seeing the results. You get into that rhythm and figure, lets keep making contact, hitting it on the ground and the guys are just unbelievable behind you.”

The Mets have made little secret that they favor offense over defense, a choice made with so many intriguing offensive-minded players on the roster. But with three-quarters of the infield down with various injuries it meant the Mets had to improvise Wednesday.

That meant automatic defensive upgrades at second (Luis Guillorme for Robinson Cano), short (Andres Giminez over Amed Rosario) and third (J.D. Davis may never be confused for Graig Nettles, but he’s a better third baseman than a left fielder, and probably a tick better than Jeff McNeil). Against Max Scherzer, that could’ve been especially problematic without the three regulars’ bats in there.

But the Mets scratched a run off Scherzer, then saw him depart the game after only one inning, then nudged in a couple of runs to support Porcello. And then the gloves took over.

It was a team-wide effort all night, but it was in the bottom of the fourth that things got truly interesting. With one out and one on, the Mets having just inched ahead 2-1 in the top of the inning, Asdrubal Cabrera shot a ground-ball single into right field. Juan Soto, playing his first game of the year after his false-positive COVID test, motored around second.

“It looked like a sure-thing first-to-third,” Mets manager Luis Rojas said.

Except Michael Conforto threw a perfect rocket from right field. Soto might still have beaten it — third base umpire Laz Diaz was poised to extend his arms and yell “safe!” — but then Soto overslid the bag. And Gimenez — who has only done everything right since his surprising Opening Day call-up, especially in the field — kept the tag on him.

“A game-changer,” Rojas called the play.

“A momentum-changer,” is how Porcello put it.

As an encore, one batter later Eric Thames slapped a ball that seemed destined for the left-field corner but Davis made a brilliant diving stop to his right and from his knees threw a seed across the diamond for the out. On that play, he really could’ve been confused for Nettles. The Nats never got another baserunner: 16 up, 16 down. That’s a game-changer, indeed.

“I was so happy for him,” said Dom Smith, who drove in two runs as the DH Wednesday night and happily watched his teammates do the heavy lifting with their leather. “He’s worked so hard.”

It was, in many ways, an odd way to squeeze a feel-good win out of an eight-day stretch that was haunted by a couple of dreadful bullpen outings and a thousand men left in scoring position. But it is also something Rojas may need to think about more intently going forward. Gimenez has been a revelation already, and every day he does something positive with his glove.

But the Mets, outside of Jacob deGrom, are filled with pitchers right now who are at their best when they induce contact. This isn’t the old days when four nights out of every five the starter was cruising toward double-digit strikeouts. And the Mets have suffered many nights because of their desire to maximize the offense.

Maybe they can’t think defense-first every night. But it sure helped this night. And it sure did conjure memories of the fun summer of 1999, when the Mets caught everything in sight.