I’m kind of into everything about the eclipse.

First of all, I guess it’s worth noting that it takes place on April 8, which is Gary Carter’s birthday.

But beyond that, the actual event is cool, obviously.

That 2017 one wasn’t as big a deal as this one, if I’m remembering correctly, but we were sitting in my sister’s yard at the time and it got a little weird - there were like crickets and the animals (birds, particularly) kind of got tricked into thinking it was night during the day.

So being in the path of totality-ish this year should be fun. (I admit I could stand to learn more about it all.)

But I also love the different ways the eclipse is overlapping with Major League Baseball teams in the path of totality.

The Yankees moved their game from the afternoon to evening so that it didn’t happen during the game.

Apparently Cleveland has been working on how to host a game on eclipse day for years…and Cleveland officials are working out how to handle the crowds for the Guardians’ home opener and the amount of people who will be gathering downtown for the eclipse, because Cleveland is right in the path.

The Mets?

They’ll be looking to do something they only do seemingly as often as a total eclipse - win a game in Atlanta.

But before we get to that, let’s look back at their weekend in Cincinnati.

I think there’s more positives than negatives to come out of the weekend.

The Mets won two out of three, which is good. But it could have been even better - they blew a 5-2 lead in Saturday’s game and lost.

Here’s a fun fact: When the Mets score fewer than 6 runs they are now 3-4. When they score 6 or more they are 0-2.

What does that mean? Well, overall it means they’ve gotten very good pitching - because they aren’t allowing a lot of runs at all…when they lose they just aren’t scoring enough.

It just so happens that the two times they’ve put some runs on the board, things have kind of snowballed - and they were both Luis Severino starts, which I just now realized. The first time the snowball started with sloppy play, the second time the bullpen fell apart. (And, I guess it wouldn’t be wrong to say there was more sloppy play.)

So, the Mets could have come out of Cincinnati with a four-game winning streak…but any time you get two out of three on the road it’s a good thing.

More positives:

Adam Ottavino had a very good 8th inning Sunday after giving up the game-tying homer in the first game of the doubleheader/live blog on Thursday.
The Mets’ starting pitching continues to be great. Sean Manaea couldn’t go deep into Sunday’s game but he still pitched well.
Edwin Diaz is back to his old self.
There’s not a ton of offensive highlights, but there are signs things are turning around. Jeff McNeil homered on Friday, Brandon Nimmo is back to getting on base consistently, Starling Marte is stealing some bases, and Francisco Lindor is finally getting the hits to fall (or leave the park).
Brett Baty is slowly but surely turning into a star. Feels like more than just a couple of good weeks, defensively and offensively.
Before things fell apart on Saturday Omar Narvaez got a big hit, driving in a couple of runs to tie the game at 2. The Mets are still struggling to capitalize with the bases loaded, and they’re not getting a lot out of the backups. For both to happen on that swing, that seemed big. It got buried in the loss, but hopefully that carries over too.

The weekend in Cincinnati: 2-1

Overall Record: 3-6

Up Next: 4 games in Atlanta. Games in Atlanta are back to being a nightmare. We’ll see how the next four days shake out. Things are not perfect in Atlanta - Spencer Strider was just forced to go on the IL with arm troubles, Max Fried has struggled in his two starts…but none of that seems to matter when the Mets pay Atlanta.

I’ll probably be writing about the series (and everything else) live as the fourth game unfolds on Thursday.

In Other News:

*South Carolina-Iowa is the way this season should have ended for the women’s championship. A much closer game than I expected this afternoon but the best team is celebrating a championship right now. 37-0 bench scoring advantage for South Carolina - I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before. Now I’m looking forward to Caitlin Clark and Aaliyah Boston playing together in Indiana. Hoping to get to Mohegan Sun or Madison Square Garden next season to see them play live.

*Kind of wild that between LASIK and the eclipse there have been so many ways I could permanently damage my eyes these past couple of weeks.

*I should add: If you think I had the foresight to buy eclipse-viewing glasses, well, you got that one wrong. This is Kathy’s bailiwick - it never even occurred to me. But I get it now - I always wondered why there were special glasses. They are very dark.

*I’m about to schedule a haircut for Monday and I’ll be shaving the beard. The Mets have played much better since I made the announcement Thursday that was going to happen. I spent Saturday’s game watching the Mets on my phone as I reorganized our bedroom closet and built a shelving unit. That is clearly an unlucky place to be but I have another one to do this week, so maybe I’ll just make Kathy do it.

*It’s so important to get that first win, especially in the way the Mets did it on Thursday in the second game of the doubleheader/live blog. If you don’t get that win, you start pressing, and instead of winning Friday night’s game who knows what happens. Momentum is a thing, whether good or bad - look no further than Miami. The Marlins started 0-9 before finally winning Sunday. That’s not fun.

*For the Mets, though, things are looking a lot less bleak, and I think we’re figuring out a system for writing about the Mets. Thursday live blogs feel very right, Sunday recaps seem appropriate…maybe one other post per week depending on how I’m feeling. I like summarizing the record at the bottom there too.

OK. That’s it for now.

Let’s Go Mets.