When you’re scrapping for a playoff spot in your last regular-season home game, it’s particularly humiliating to lose because of the No. 9 hitter on a last-place team. But if it’s a tiny consolation for the New York Mets, Washington’s Jacob Young is a very special No. 9 hitter. He’s only managed one home run this year, and if his OPS were a credit score, the bank would sic security on him. But Young blooms among the weeds of a 64-92 squad thanks to his glove in center field, which keeps his WAR above water and his butt in the lineup. The Mets learned all about his ability—more than they ever wanted to know, frankly—in their 3-2 defeat on Sunday afternoon, which dropped them into a tie with the Reds and has them, for the first time since April 5, outside of playoff position.
A big story of this game is that Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker, who each nurse an ERA of around 5.70, joined forces to shut down the Mets’ offense. Irvin, who leads MLB in earned runs allowed, gave up just one flukey RBI and a Francisco Lindor solo shot, while Parker, who’s tied for the MLB lead in losses, came in for 3.2 shutout innings that protected the Nats’ slim lead. Each pitcher benefited from Young’s spectacular glove; one profited from his foot.
Young’s first victim was Brett Baty, the 25-year-old infielder who’s walloped 17 dingers on the year. In the fifth, Baty smashed a straight shot way back to the wall in center—a ball that looked quite obviously like trouble from my own seat out in left. I leaned forward and turned to see Young sort of desperately flailing at the ball, the way you’d expect an overmatched outfielder to do. I couldn’t process exactly what was happening—it’s not a sequence anyone’s mentally prepared for—but I did quickly realize, to my chagrin, that I never saw the ball hit the ground or the wall. As Young jogged away calmly from the scene, I still didn’t understand how he had made a catch that seemed to take so long. Then we got the replay: Young bounced off the wall as the ball fell out of his glove, he kicked it back up, and then he recovered to pick it out of the air.
The crowd—a mix of Sunday families and adult men who showed up ready to get pissed off—couldn’t help but respect the move. It was refreshing, in this ugly late-summer stretch in Flushing, to not be able to blame the home team for its woes. But Young made it that much harder to think kindly of him when he singlehandedly saved the Nationals lead in the ninth with another devastating snag. The would-be homer from Francisco Alvarez wasn’t exactly crushed, but it would have kept the Mets alive all the same had Young not hustled back, tracked its flight, and launched himself for a solid smack up against the padding as he made the catch.
New York would go quietly in its ensuing at-bats, allowing the lowly Nats to play spoiler by taking two out of three. Queens fans will have to watch from a distance as the Mets try to play their way back into shape against the Cubs and then the Marlins this week. You could hear the attempts to cope on the trek out of the ballpark—”I don’t even know if I want to make the playoffs right now.” And if the trends of the last couple months continue, Jacob Young’s catches will in fact be a lot of folks’ last memory of the 2025 Mets.
If that sounds pessimistic, take into account that it’s informed by what happened to the Mets’ spiritual sporting siblings on Sunday. Toward the end of the game, the video board showed the New York Jets block a field goal and return it for a touchdown to take an improbable late lead. The Citi Field crowd went nuts. It was only on the train home that I heard the Jets ended up losing anyway.