'Trust in me': Díaz perseveres to deliver Mets' playoff clinch

ATLANTA -- The first conversation took place in the dugout, moments after Francisco Lindor hit a dramatic, two-run, ninth-inning homer to put the Mets back in front of the Braves. Closer Edwin Díaz, who was standing near Carlos Mendoza, spoke firmly.

“I’m going back out no matter what,” Díaz told his manager. “I don’t care what you say. I’m going back out.”

For most anyone watching the Mets’ playoff-clinching, 8-7 win over the Braves, this did not seem like a guarantee. Only minutes earlier, Díaz had failed to cover first base on a would-be groundout and then served up a go-ahead, three-run double to Ozzie Albies, reigniting all the fatalist narratives Truist Park could conjure. At that point, Díaz had thrown 50 pitches in a little more than 24 hours. Rarely in his career had he worked so hard.

When he approached pitching coach Jeremy Hefner between innings to ask if he would continue pitching, Hefner told him no. Ryne Stanek was warming in the bullpen, ready to enter.

So Díaz went over Hefner’s head to the boss, telling Mendoza: “Trust in me. I’ve got this [thing].” And Mendoza relented. His closer returned to the field, retired the first batter but allowed a one-out hit, which led to the second conversation. As Mendoza came to the mound in lieu of Hefner, all four infielders gathered around Díaz, circling him, their arms slung over each other’s shoulders.

Inside that huddle, Díaz once again implored his manager to leave him in the game. Mendoza once again relented.

Díaz struck out the next batter, Ramón Laureano. Then he set down the Final Boss, longtime Met-turned-Met-killer Travis d’Arnaud, on a groundout to clinch a playoff spot.

“Edwin Díaz is one of the best players in the game,” Lindor said. “He delivered.”

What Díaz has accomplished over the past two weeks, hoisting the Mets onto his 165-pound frame and lugging them into the playoffs, has opened new possibilities for him. All summer, Mendoza spoke about treating Díaz carefully, limiting his exposure in his first season back from knee surgery. The Mets never used him on three consecutive nights. They rarely used him back-to-back or for more than three outs at a time.

That changed abruptly during the final fortnight of the season, beginning with a four-out save against the Phillies on Sept. 21. One night later, the Mets turned back to Díaz for what remains, at least anecdotally, the most significant save of his career: a six-out effort that put his team on the precipice of a playoff berth.

Following six days of rest, Díaz threw 26 pitches Sunday in Milwaukee, which brought him to Monday -- a little tired, his velocity flagging, but his resolve strong.

“This team gave me so much and they trust in me,” Díaz said. “If we were going to lose the game, I wanted to be the guy who lost it.”

What Díaz can give the Mets in the Wild Card Series, which begins Tuesday, remains to be seen. He has thrown 66 pitches since Sunday, a career-high total over any two-day stretch. Díaz still hasn’t pitched in three consecutive games this season; breaking that streak in Wild Card Series Game 1 would mean stretching himself in ways he never previously has.

If Díaz can’t go, Stanek would be the Mets’ best-rested alternative. Like so many of their current problems, it’s a good one to have. The Mets are a playoff team, with Díaz anchoring their roster.

Upon locking down the final out Monday, the closer embraced catcher Francisco Alvarez in a hug, but he refused to jump around. One day earlier, Díaz had told his wife, Nashaly, that if the Mets clinched the playoffs, he would not celebrate as intensely as he did during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, when he tore his right patellar tendon in a dogpile near the pitcher’s mound. True to his word, Díaz grinned and shouted and hugged and laughed at Truist Park, but kept both feet firmly on the ground.

“It was a lot of things [running through my head], because last year I lost the whole season, and it was tough to me,” Díaz said. “This year, I didn’t start the way I wanted to. Being able to battle back and get the last out for our team to make the playoffs was big.”