Mets fans are accustomed to disappointment.

It’s the one thing, if we were scoring teams against each other, that would rank the Mets at or near the top.

But one time we’re not used to being disappointed is on Opening Day.

As you’ll hear time and time again, I’m sure, when the Mets finally do play their first game, they have the best record (by winning percentage) on Opening Day in all of baseball.

And today, which was supposed to be Opening Day, started out promising enough.

Then things took a turn.

First, the numbers:

The Mets are 39-20 on Opening Day. And that’s even more impressive when you consider that they lost their first 8 Opening Day games.

So, since 1970, the Mets are 39-12 on Opening Day.

Since 1985, which we’ll call the season I first became aware of the Mets and probably counts as the birth of my Mets fandom, they’re 26-10 on Opening Day.

So, that definitely contributes to how much I love Opening Day. I can’t speak for all Mets fans, but it’s fun for me to see that stat every year. I would have to think it brings joy to most Mets fans.

And 2021 was shaping up to be a banner Opening Day. The first game back to a 162-game season following last year’s shortened season. A season filled with promise.

And this morning I woke to the news that they had reached an agreement with their new shortstop, Francisco Lindor, on a 10-year contract extension.

One less distraction heading into the season? Love it. An excellent player locked up long-term with the kind of character that you want on your team? Even better.

Really good news to hear before the season opener, which was supposed to be Thursday night.

And I say ‘supposed to be’ because not very long after I saw the news about Lindor…came the news that the game in Washington against the Nationals was postponed because of a COVID situation on the Nationals.

I’m writing this much later in the afternoon and there is still not a lot of information about the COVID outbreak….but we do know that the game won’t be played on Friday either.

Hopefully they’ll play as scheduled on Saturday afternoon and just have one game to make up…but the worst-case scenario I’m imagining is the they miss the entire weekend series. (And maybe, since the Mets have been in Washington, it’s spread and the Mets have their own cases to deal with.)

So here we are. Not how I wanted the first post to go, but if we’re going to document the 2021 season, this is where we have to start.

Hopefully we’ll have a game to react to soon.

What Else I Watched: So I think I’d like to make this a regular piece, since rarely does a baseball day go by that I’m only watching the Mets. Today it was the Blue Jays-Yankees game that I watched almost in its entirety. A few thoughts: The back end of the Blue Jays bullpen has been a high-wire act for the past few years. It looked like that might be the case again this year in the 9th inning, but they managed to force extras and then won the game in the 10th with an impressive closing performance by Julian Merryweather…Hyun-Jin Ryu must be so frustrating to hit against. At times it looked like he had Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton tied in knots…The extra innings game was a good reminder for me that they’re doing the ‘start with a runner on second in extra innings’ rule. I am having a hard time remembering which 2020 COVID rules are carrying over to 2021. I know there won’t be a DH in the National League this year, but I’m honestly not sure whether the doubleheader rule is 7 innings or not.

Notes: I think I’ll include a notes section for any other thoughts I have. There will also be a ‘How I Watched’ section for the Mets game, since there could be any number of ways I catch a game this year, between where I was physically watching the game or which station I watched it on….For what it’s worth, the Red Sox-Orioles Opening Day game was also postponed, but that was due to the weather, which is a lot different than the uncertainty of the Mets’ postponement…I also know I should probably make this more visual than just text-only. I’ll see what I can do. The one picture I took today I’m going to use in the Sunday Paper on Sunday where I let people know that this exists.