By defeating Philadelphia on Saturday at Citi Field, the Mets elevated their win total to 86 while keeping their loss total at 69. Those are numbers a Mets fan likes to stare at as a playoff pursuit approaches its final turn. Invoking the two world championships in franchise history as a useful omen in the present carries a little extra power — à la Francisco Alvarez and Luisangel Acuña going deep off Ranger Suarez in the second inning — when the record of 86-69 is arrived at via victory. Twice before, a Mets team could claim 86-69, but got there after losing Game 155. Turned out falling to 86-69, as the 86-68 1998 Mets and 86-68 2008 Mets did, didn’t augur well for seasons on the brink.
By downing the Phils, 6-3, the 2024 Mets climbed to their set of magic numbers and continued to legitimize the idea that this year has a chance to be remembered in the same enchanted terms as 1969 and 1986. Is that getting too far ahead of ourselves when we’re only two games in front of the last Wild Card contender behind us with seven to play, three of them in Atlanta, where Met dreams in other hopeful late Septembers have gone to die or at least get badly battered? All my standard-issue omenizing and superstitioning aside, I don’t think so. What are we here for if not to keep rooting the Mets on? I can’t imagine this version of the Mets being done a week from today, and I refuse to imagine this version of the Mets simply tiptoeing in and out of October. Reality, as always, will tell the tale. Right now, the Mets are shaping reality to their needs quite nicely.
Listen, I’m a one-and-oh man. Go one-and-oh in our next one. That’s all I ever ask. A little boost from the out-of-town scoreboard is appreciated, but that lead of two games over the Braves allows for useful tunnel vision. We win, we’re good.
We won on Saturday. It was great. I’m tempted to call it a typical 2024 Mets win, though it feels as if wins in 2024 have thus far come in 86 different varieties. Given the time of the season and the caliber of the competition, this one might have been the most complete. The starting pitching of Sean Manaea was superb for seven innings before departing in the eighth. The closing of Edwin Diaz was on point for four essential outs. On defense, Brandon Nimmo reeled in a potentially troublesome Bryce Harper fly ball in the top of the seventh a half-step from the 358 sign in left. Nimmo was a two-way player, too, delivering the go-ahead-for-good RBI in the bottom of the inning and setting up always necessary insurance by stealing second before coming around to score on Alvarez’s second mighty blow of the game, a two-run double to put the Mets up, 6-2. The Phillies inched back — Potentially Troublesome should be stitched into their City Connect logo — but the Mets proved better all around, as they’ve been doing for so long against so many.
It might be time to trust the wins the Mets are putting in the books, posting in the standings, and injecting into our bloodstream. We’ve been too quick to trust losses as leading indicators. When the Mets don’t hit, there they are, being the Mets. They’ll never hit again. When the bullpen doesn’t shut down a rally, whaddaya expect? It’s the Met bullpen. Manaea, Diaz, Nimmo, and Alvarez have all stumbled through portions of 2024 to enough of an extent that we convinced ourselves their immediate failures defined them and their fortunes where this season was concerned. Same for almost every Met who swung and missed or turned around to watch a pitch sail over a fence once too often. Even as the wins began to outnumber the losses (we surpassed .500 to stay at 46-45), the losses leapt up and bit us right in the optimism. You Gotta Believe was a curio best observed wherever Citi Field hid the Mets Museum. You had to brace for something to eventually go wrong.
Yet here we are, with one Met after another picking up his teammates as needed, and the whole OMG bunch of them succeeding at a clip rendering invalid every playoff probability previously proffered. Mostly the team has just kept winning, as if that’s exactly what a capable bunch sets out to do every single day. The calendar declares it is officially autumn in New York, and you gotta love the ring of hearing it said the Mets of ’24 are 86 and 69.
Winning two out of four was critical so they would go into Atlanta at least tied. They have done one better and will have at least a one game lead. Tonight is a nice to have but not a must win game. However, it would be nice to beat them three out of four and get the Phillies fans a little worried. Nice but not essential.
Possibly the most optimistic post ever from this blog.
I’m with you, if they win today, basically all they have to do is win one of three in Atlanta. Piece of cake, right?
Oh, wait…
People tend to forget that the Mets actually lost a few games in ‘86. (I was at one of them, a shellacking of Sid Fernandez by the Dodgers.) The Mets have been the best team in baseball for months, and they’ve been playing meaningful, fun games deep into September. And with Fearless Leader Lindor on the shelf, others are stepping into his shoes. And as of today, they’ve played the mighty Phillies to at least a draw in the current series, with a chance to win. You can’t really ask much more of this team. I’m totally enjoying the ride.
This team has been punching well above its weight for some time now. Staff ace goes down? The rest of the pitching staff start competing to out-ace each other. The best player, the one guy who seemed irreplaceable, gets hurt? The team goes 5-1 with players taking turns at being heroes. And a rookie comes up and sets the world on fire.
No clue where they go from here. Wheeler tonight but even he has the occasional bad game.
As a special bonus, to me the Phillies didn’t seem 100% locked in yesterday. 7 walks and a HBP. Lack of focus in the field with the Alonso pop-up capping it. We were just better.
Shout-out to the entire pitching staff on zero walks.
This has been a fun, occasionally agonizing, season, no matter what happens the last week.
Our entire outlook on the season would be different if not for the multiple WCs, so we need to keep 1969, 1973, and 1986 in their own compartments, with only newly created similarities to this team, if any.
We played all of April and May without our Fearless Leader Lindor, as he and the team were terrible. Big Difference is, we changed our entire roster since then, hence the vast improvement. We can now easily win without him, as we are doing.
If we can go into Atlanta up 2, only a gigantic collapse the last 6 games will do us in.
Wish SNY would do a better job with the OMG celebrations/posings in the dugout, as that is a lot of fun, and we ought to be able to see it. They try to show them, but generally from a field angle from the side.
Thank goodness no Gary Cohen clown show today, as boring friend ESPN takes the reigns. We would have needed to endure the joys of people eating ice cream cones in September, with riotous laughter included.
And hope we clinch our WC next Saturday night on FOX, just to stick it to them further.
As long as the postgames are all on SNY.
Agree with all the comments here — this is an almost uncharacteristically optimistic post, but absolutely deserved. There IS something different about this group; it absolutely does NOT feel like we are headed for collapse. But then again, we’ll believe it when we see it. Tonight a great chance for a low-pressure surprise shellacking of our old pal..
Getting ahead of myself, but there’s a good chance we will play 6 straight games in Milwaukee. Has this sort of thing happened before? 3 games that don’t mean much to the Brewers and then 3 sudden death ones? A wild week in Wisconsin looms.
I like the SNY postgames, even though Gary Apple and Zeile can be very boring at times.
Hopefully, the ratings do not say:
An Apple a day keeps the viewer away.
Yesterday was one of those super-rare occasions that the Mets and my beloved Wolverines were on at the very same time – both starts in the 3:30-4:15 window. Michigan was playing USC in the Big House, an event that had not happened since the year I was born, so I soaked up the pre-game pageantry and the first quarter and then hopped over to SNY to be rewarded with a gem of a baseball game while checking the score in Ann Arbor during breaks. It was looking a little ominous after half-time on my phone, but I decided that the Mets must take precedence (Michigan football not owing this fan a damn thing after the epic that was last year’s national championship).
The situation in both games could be summed up when my husband wandered into the living room and asked how the games were going; I responded that both my teams were leading but the Mets needed more runs (it was 2-1 good guys at the time) and the Wolverines definitely needed more points (leading 20-17 but having gained only six yards in the second half!). Nimmo, Alvarez and Diaz soon completed a great Mets win and I skipped right over to the football game just as USC scored the go-ahead touchdown. It looked like a sure loss, but the Mets and the way they have been playing made me Believe (ya Gotta) enough to watch a thrilling two-minute drive, featuring some brilliant Michigan old school football (what’s a pass?) ending in the end zone with 20 or so seconds left on the game clock. When time ran out on USC, I was left shaking my head, as my usually trying to follow two teams at once almost guarantees both will lose.
The last time both these teams were great at once was, ahem, 1969 ( Michigan was pretty good but not great in 1986, capping their season with a win over Ohio State guaranteed by their senior QB, one Jim Harbaugh), and it tickles me immensely that 2024 has the potential to repeat that feat 55 years later. At the very least, I’m hoping for Saturdays in October that will repeat yesterday’s daily double. Had I realized that the Mets win yesterday brought their record to 86-69, I would not have been surprised; there’s something in the air.
yes this team has befn masterfullg rebuilt in-flight. where *would this team be w/o iglesias and vientos? if the latter can get *his* swing back we’ll be in even bettef shape.
luusangel reminds me of mets who stepped in and stepped up before him. ollie snd john maine when we lost nearly our entire rotation in ’06, lugo and gsellman in ’16.
hopefully soon we have both luisangel and lindor out there.
imagine if cohen had somehow encouraged scherzer to stay!
sorry. for the typos…was correcting on small when a new post came in!
agree with seth…this one carries the high-wire suspense of ’99, a team that was also a late-bloomer, but rocked hard to the finish!
feels pretty recent for a quarter century ago!
“…there they are, being the Mets. They’ll never hit again…”
But as you’ve rightly pointed out, we fans LOVE being wrong about that stuff. This is the most interesting September in a very long time.
Cool part of yesterday and being in the thick of this wildcard race was watching the Cubs be eliminated yesterday and seeing all the NL teams that have been eliminated from playoff contention in the standings, and knowing that the Mets aren’t one of the also-runs. They’re in it.
How’s that Craig Counsell contract looking now?
It’s been fun, but it looks like they’ll need to do whatever they do without Lindor. The gentleman can’t even tie his shoes at the moment, so I can’t imagine him suddenly being 100% anytime in the next month.
Ouch. I guess everyone else (except J.D. Martinez) has been stepping up – they’ll have to keep doing so. And Luisangel Acuna is going to complete his trial by fire. Looks like he’s thriving under the pressure – hope that will continue.
As for Lindor, I would rather that he take it easy rather than rush back. Remember, before David Wright was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, he played a half a season with a literal broken back. Now that clowns aren’t running the team anymore, it looks like they’re treating back ailments a little more seriously. That’s a good thing.