One half of a season is behind the New York Mets and so is the rest of the National League East. You can’t ask for a much better situation following 81 games. The chips don’t settle that way very often.
The Mets have finished the statistical first half in first place six times previously. They’ve won their division six times previously as well, but the direct correlation measures only 50 percent. In half of the relevant sample size, the halfway lead held like hell: 1986, 1988 and 2006. All those seasons’ Mets teams were in first at the half by a lot and all of those seasons’ Mets teams won their title by a lot. In the other half of the sample size — 1970, 1984 and 2007 — the halfway lead was more tenuous and hellishly failed to hold, mostly because a scientific study has revealed you can’t win ’em all.
The 2021 Mets hold first place today by four games, same margin as in ’07 (no trigger intended). It’s a cushion, not a fortress. It’s also better to have in hand than aspire toward. The 1969, 1973 and 2015 Mets didn’t need to be in first place after 81 games to finish first after 162, but every other Mets team straining to reach the top probably could have used the boost.
Ultimately, all historical data of this nature is anecdotal. Fun to invoke in early July, of limited utility by early October. If the second 81 games live up to the first 81 games, then we’ve got ourselves a narrative. Otherwise, we’ve got a four-game lead off a 44-37 record, our least gaudy first-place record at this stage of a season, incidentally. Your elementary math skills tell you, correctly, that 44-37 multiplied twice equals 88-74. Your sense of baseball numbers tells you, intuitively, that a pace to win fewer than 90 games isn’t a pace that equals a glide path to the postseason, even in a division where the universally sub-.500 competition has yet to straighten itself out. If the Nationals, Braves, Phillies and Marlins continue to stumble, we have fairly few worries, no matter how anxiety-riddled we tend to be as a people. If any among our rivals suddenly surges, well, we’re gonna need to pick up the pace.
That’s why they make second halves: to write the rest of the story. We’d prefer the inks used be orange and blue, please and thank you.
At the end of the first half, the Mets of this year were both very much the Mets of this year and the Mets for whom we’ve wished this year. They won on Monday night, 4-2 [1]. They’ve won four separate times this season, 4-2. That’s a quintessential 2021 Mets score. Sound starting pitching that ferries you safely between Port Jefferson and Bridgeport. Hippocratic relieving that first does no harm. Just enough hitting. You’d like more hitting. You’d always like more hitting, yet you understand you only have so many five-run sixths and six-run sevenths stashed in your holiday-weekend kit bag. Four runs off your fellow first-place Milwaukee Brewers — 11-game winning streak recently completed and, when they dress in navy and yellow, 26 neckerchiefs shy of certification as the world’s most mature Cub Scout troop — was a veritable towerful of them, especially considering how few you seemed en route to gathering as the 81st game got underway.
None. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Bupkes. That’s more ways to say “zero” than runs the Mets wound up scoring. Versus Brandon Woodruff and his 1.87 ERA (about twice what Jacob deGrom has posted), you would have given an eye tooth for 1.87 runs after a few innings. We weren’t getting any runs. We weren’t getting any hits. Woodruff started out totally stifling the Mets and then grew tougher. Nine up, nine down, the last three on strikeouts. Tylor Megill [2] wasn’t as impenetrable, but he did match his opposing moundsman until the fourth, when Ghost Baby — Tylor’s family nickname, we were informed from Tylor’s mom during his parents’ charming interview with the charming Steve Gelbs — got nicked for a solo homer by Omar Narvaez. We were down, 1-0, which, in the moment, felt like the tallest terrain imaginable.
How do you scale such an imposing mountain? With as many steps as it takes. In the bottom of the fourth, Brandon Nimmo characteristically beamed [3] and melted Woodruff’s base camp by doubling down the left field line. Francisco Lindor [4] considered the challenge his team faced if the opportunity Nimmo represented was to be wasted and selflessly sacrificed one out for one base.
Our 21st-century sabermetric sensibilities may have been scandalized — DON’T BUNT! EVER!! OOH, BRIAN KENNY IS GOING TO BE SO MAD WHEN HE SEES THE TAPE!!! — but, son of a gun, the Met who is compensated more lavishly than any Met before him might have known what he was doing. Because Lindor, who doesn’t double at will (if he could, he probably would), moved Nimmo to third by any means necessary, it was going to take no more than one reasonably distanced fly ball to score Nimmo and tie the game against one of the best nondeGrominational pitchers in the league. Dom Smith came up next and delivered that exact fly ball.
It worked. I won’t complain about what worked.
Woodruff and Megill continued to work as well, Megill through five (two hits, two walks, no more runs on the board, a proud mom and dad in the stands), Woodruff into the seventh with no further incident…until The Third Time Through the Order. Act III was Woodruff’s undoing. It was where the mostly sleepy Met bats woke up and clattered. Lindor was satisfied to take ball four. Smith singled, however, and Pete Alonso — who still hasn’t homered more than once all year at Citi Field — lashed a double to score Francisco easily from second and Dom strenuously from first. Dom may not run fast, but he and his short strides, particularly between third and home, were to be neither deterred nor denied. The 3-1 lead Alonso provided was soon extended by Michael Conforto, busting out of his two-for-a-million slump with a solid single to bring in Pete.
Exit Mr. Woodruff, his ERA having ballooned over two. Don’t tell other NL managers, but only deGrom gets better the third time through a lineup.
The 4-1 lead was to be nurtured by the Met bullpen, a night care center you sometimes have no choice but to trust with your precious bundle of runs. After Aaron Loup in the sixth and Seth Lugo in the seventh had so beautifully handled the 1-1 tie, Trevor May looked after our bouncing, baby bulge in the eighth without dropping it on its head. In the ninth, the trumpets sounded for the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy [5] himself, Edwin Diaz [6]. The sound effects caused the Brewers to stir from their own slumber. Diaz gave up a single to Willy Adames, a walk to Narvaez and a single to Tyrone Taylor that scored Adames. Home viewers wavered between sticking pins in their Edwin Diaz dolls or extricating them from the last time he appeared on their screens. Again, whatever works.
A Potsdam Conference at the mound seemed to calm Edwin down. The closer proceeded to strike out Jace Peterson, strike out Keston Hiura, fly out Jackie Bradley, Jr., and snatch back our faltering faith in him. Yeah, Sugar, we knew you had ’em the whole time!
Same for our first-place Mets, comprised of names we haven’t seen in every lineup this year, but have ya noticed they’re almost all here again? The projected starters, save for reportedly nearly healed J.D. Davis, are starting. The valiant provisional starters who defended first place through May and June now constitute Depth City. You look to the bench, you see Villar, Pillar, Guillorme, Peraza, McKinney, Nido. In April, we considered them spare parts if we considered (or knew) them at all. Now we’ve learned for ourselves what they can do, and on the eve of the second half of a first-place season, they are a strength Luis Rojas can flex like they’re Donnie Stevenson’s biceps.
Conforto hinted at a personal comeback Monday night. Nimmo didn’t need one; he’s been “back” ever since he got back. McNeil is getting loose. Smith and Alonso may not be going deep, but they’re taking us far. Lindor may be leading us there. We’ll never fully embrace our bullpen when a game actively hangs in the balance, but I think relief pitchers understand they were born suspect (nothing personal, fellas). We’re down net-one starting pitcher from our rotation, but preternaturally poised Megill has kept us from being down two. He’s a big reason we won by two and still lead by four.
First-place Mets. Eighty-one games to go. At the risk of saying it out loud, this ain’t too bad.