The Mets may not be flawless, but so far this year they are perfect.
They’re undefeated through their first series [1], alone in first place in their division, alone in New York on the list of teams that have won at least one baseball game that counts this year.
That’s as close to flawless as they need to be right now.
If they were truly flawless, Ike Davis would have a hit, Jason Bay would record an RBI that doesn’t lead to two outs, Daniel Murphy would turn a clean double play, Lucas Duda would catch a relatively simple fly ball, Kirk Nieuwenhuis wouldn’t get in Lucas Duda’s way, Jon Niese would pitch hitless ball for nine innings rather than a paltry six and Terry Collins wouldn’t say silly things [2] about taking Niese out if his no-hit bid had continued.
When the Mets iron out those minor kinks, we can look forward to their having more assets to pile up alongside the starting pitching of Santana, Dickey and Niese; the power bats of Wright and Duda; the electric hitting of Tejada and Murphy; the clutch defense of Scott Hairston of all people and the airtight closing of Frank Francisco. When that happens, they will be flawless — and then imagine how perfect this season might be.
Though how it could get a whole lot more perfect than it has been across its first three games is hard to fathom.
By the way, the Mets have started 3-0 while the Yankees have started 0-3 twice before, in 1973 and 1985. Whatever else happens with this season, we can see 2012 knows how to keep pretty good precedential company.