I know you have seen, nay, lived Five Days in Flushing, but we might as well go over the prologue: After Clayton Kershaw was expected to, and almost no-hit the Mets, it became clear the team had to finally try and put together a decent offense to supplement the incredible pitching and take their shot at the division title. They called up Double-A phenom Michael Conforto, traded for Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe, and shored up their bullpen dealing for Tyler Clippard. Alderson swapped Flores and Wheeler for Carlos Gomez, but Gomez supposedly had a bad hip (still odd!). On July 30, the afternoon after their shortstop cried for what turned out to be no reason, the Mets blew a six run lead at home for the first time in 45 years. Alderson would have been burned alive by the fine folks in Panic City had he not tried again to acquire the big bat, so on July 31 he swung a deal with the Detroit Tigers to get Yoenis Cespedes, 10 minutes before the 4pm EST deadline. In part because of the big trade, Flores’ return to the field after his infamous crying session was not even mentioned during SNY’s cold open.

“It’s a huge acquisition,” Keith Hernandez said of Cespedes, who obviously is Santa Claus in this long metaphor. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud came off the disabled list to play in his first game since June 20, a spiritual distant cousin, but a cousin all the same, to Josh Thole coming off the DL to catch Johan Santana’s no-hitter three years earlier. “So you picked up two guys in Cespedes and d’Arnaud all at once in this very important series that add a lot of energy and focus to this ballpark.”

Before you knew it was time to focus on the pitching matchup. Ron Darling noted that Matt Harvey produced 16 swings and misses in his last start, and his slider from 2013, before his Tommy John surgery, was back. He said Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez “is 6–1 at Citi Field in his career with a 1.66 [ERA]. Gio loves pitching against the Stems.”

The Stems.

“The Stems?” Keith asked before SNY cut to commercial. Keith knew what Ron meant; he had told an SNY audience years before about his first day as a Met in 1983 when Tom Seaver’s greeting to him was “Welcome to the Stems!” (Stem is Mets backwards, of course. The Mets weren’t any good back then, you see.) Ron must have heard Keith tell the story, or Seaver told him the same thing when he was called up later that season. Either way, Ron was insulting the offense Gonzalez had faced over the last few years who wore Mets uniforms, and/or acknowledging that Gonzalez’s days facing a crummy Mets offense were over. After all, John Mayberry Jr. and his .164 batting average was released the day before.

Then again…

At least he hit 8th, not 4th. Screen: SNY/MLB

“Mr. Campbell, out in left! Must be a left hander out there today!” Keith exclaimed, not bothering to hide his surprise. Eric Campbell would stay in even after Gonzalez left in the 5th inning for a couple of right handers. Soup would go 0 for 4 with two strikeouts, despite Terry Collins’ group of pinch hitter possibilities at his disposal, such as Conforto, Johnson, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and Lucas Duda (the booth noted this multiple times). Duda was available off the bench because of his poor numbers against Gonzalez (he was one of the “Stems” I guess), necessitating Daniel Murphy’s first appearance at first base in two years. Keith’s old first baseman student did just fine, and the real story regarding an inexperienced first baseman would later feature a Washington National in a very satisfying way.

We got some naughty and nice from Hernandez. The nice: