Saturday Seasons: 2020 Season, Pandemic Pandemonium

The most unusual season in the history of the New York Mets and the sport of baseball took place in 2020.

On March 13th, 2020, President Trump declared a national emergency because of a pandemic that became known as Covid-19 or the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Quarantines, entry bans and other restrictions were implemented as thousands of cases were being reported.

On March 16th, the White House advised against any gatherings of more than ten people. Three days later, U.S. citizens were being advised to avoid all international travel.

Suffice to say, the pandemic caused disruptions and cancellations to professional and collegiate sports throughout the United States and Canada.

Baseball had begun spring training with the hope of beginning the season on March 26th but on March 12th, Major League Baseball suspended all spring training activities.

MLB and the Players Association eventually agreed to play an abridged 60-game season that would begin on July 23rd. Spring training returned on July 1st and was called “Summer Camp.”

With travel restrictions in place, it was the decided that teams would play 40 games against divisional opponents. The remaining 20 games would be interleague contests against their corresponding divisions so the NL East played the AL East.

A number of rule changes were implemented including the use of the DH in both leagues, and each half inning of extra inning games would begin with a runner on second base. As of August 1st, doubleheader games would be seven innings each. In some of the twin bills, the home team in the first game became the road team in the second game, and vice versa.

The post season was going to consist of eight teams from each league. The top two teams from each division along with two teams from each league with the next two best records would make up the post season field.

The Mets had missed the playoffs in the three previous seasons so they were looking at this expanded post season as a chance to end that drought.

The Mets had already been embroiled in some controversy before the nominal spring training began in February.

In November, 2019, the Mets hired Carlos Beltran as their new manager, replacing the fired Mickey Calloway. Beltran never managed a game for the Mets after he was the only player named in MLB’s investigation into the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal from 2017.

In January, 2020, Beltran and the Mets mutually agreed to part ways. On January 22nd, Luis Rojas, who was the Mets quality control coach in 2019, was promoted to be the next manager.

A strict mandatory monitoring and testing plan was put in place to protect the players and staff members. In the first round of testing, 31 players tested positive causing disruptions in the schedule.

A number of players did not want to risk their health so they opted out of playing the 2020 season. Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman was one of the players who elected to opt out.

On July 24th, the Mets opened the regular season at Citifield with a 1-0 win against the Atlanta Braves at Citifield with no fans in the stands. Cardboard cutouts of fans littered the lower stands but it was no substitute for real people.

Jacob deGrom, who famously never received much run support, tossed five scoreless innings. A solo home run from Yoenis Cespedes (who served as the first home DH in Mets history) in the home half of the seventh provided the lone run of the game. (Note: After playing in the first eight games, Cespedes opted out and missed the rest of the season)

The second game saw the Mets and Braves experience the extra inning rule for the first time.

Entering the tenth inning, the teams were tied at three and Adam Duvall became the Braves’ first ever “ghost runner.” Atlanta scored three times to take a 5-2 lead.

Jeff McNeil was the Mets first ever “ghost runner” and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Dominic Smith but the Braves held on for a 5-3 win.

Politics played a role on the field in this unusual season.

On August 27th, the Mets and Miami Marlins staged a boycott of their game at Citifield following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. The shooting led to widespread protests and a renewed debate over police brutality.

Both teams took the field and held a 42-second moment of silence as a tribute to Jackie Robinson Day which was scheduled for the next day. A “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt was placed on home plate and the teams left the field.

Afterwards, the Mets entire organization expressed their support for the players’ stand. The game was made up on August 31st and the Marlins beat the Mets, 5-3.

The bizarre nature of the season was never more evident than it was on Friday, August 28th when the Mets swept a doubleheader (both games were seven innings) and walked off a win at Yankee Stadium on Jackie Robinson Day.

In the opener, the Mets trailed the Yankees 4-1 in the sixth but Pete Alonso hit a three run home run off of Chad Green to to tie the game. Dominic Smith and Jake Marisnick added back to back home runs later in the inning to give the Mets a 6-4 win.

In the second game the Mets were the designated home team and trailed the Yankees 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh.

Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman walked Jeff McNeil to start the inning. Pinch runner Billy Hamilton stole second and then pinch-hitter Amed Rosario jumped on a 2-0 fastball and drove it into the empty left field stands for a walk off, 4-3 win.

The Mets were spending the entire weekend at Yankee Stadium and lost the next three. On Saturday, August 29th, the Yankees walked off a 2-1 win.

There was a Sunday doubleheader on August 30th. The opener was a make up from an earlier postponement due to Covid. The Mets lost both ends to fall to 15-19.

The Mets played one more Covid make up against the Yankees at Citifield on September 3rd and won it 9-7 in ten innings on a two run, walk off home run by Pete Alonso.

On the 19th anniversary of 9/11, the Mets traveled to Buffalo’s Sahlen Field to play the Toronto Blue Jays. Due to travel restrictions, Canada did not allow the Blue Jays to play their home games at Rogers Centre so they played in Buffalo.

The Mets used a ten run inning to score an 18-1 win over the Jays. The Mets pounded out 19 hits and finally provided some run support for Jacob deGrom who went six innings and improved to 4-1 with a 1.67 ERA.

On September 26th, the penultimate day of the season, the Mets lost a doubleheader to the Nationals in Washington and were eliminated from playoff competition.

The Mets finished the season with a 26-34 record and since they lost the tiebreaker to the Nationals who had the same record, they were last in the NL East for the first time since 2003.

The Mets actually led the Major Leagues with a team batting average of .272 but they also tied the Milwaukee Brewers by grounding into the most double plays (53), while leading the majors in runners left on base (445).

Michael Conforto led the team with a .322 batting average while Pete Alonso led in home runs (16) and Dominic Smith led in RBI (42).

When the season ended, the Mets had new ownership as hedge fund manager and billionaire Steve Cohen bought controlling interest in the team.