The Mets started the season cold (losing five games in a row), but quickly recovered (winning 12 of 15 games) and essentially alternated between losing and winning streaks for the rest of the season. Now they’ve finally found a middle ground.
Since the loss in Seattle three weekends ago, Carlos Mendoza’s team has not won or lost three games in a row.
Against teams they could have beaten (the A’s and the Marlins), they came away with a 3-3 record.
Against teams they might have slipped up against (the Orioles and Padres), they held serve and finished 4-3.
What is clear is that Wilpon’s old goal of playing important games in September will be achieved.
It has also become clear that continued mediocrity would probably not be good enough.
Despite a number of serious injuries, the Braves entered Monday’s game with six wins in eight games and have the easier remaining schedule.
Atlanta, which was 2½ games ahead of the Mets in the battle for the final NL wild card, entered Monday’s action with the ninth-easiest schedule of the rest of the season, FanGraphs reported, and the website estimated the club had a 79.9 percent chance of making the playoffs.
The Mets, who begin another significant three-game series in Arizona on Tuesday, had the 17th-easiest schedule and a 20 percent chance of playing in October.
That means piling up respectable but not outstanding series, like the one they just tied in San Diego, probably wouldn’t lead to a postseason berth.
“It was a tough game. It was necessary,” said JD Martinez after the Mets blew a two-run lead in the final two innings of a walk-off loss to the Padres on Sunday. “Especially given the circumstances, the way the standings look and everything.”
“But there’s still a lot of baseball left.”
With about five weeks and 31 baseball games left, the team has plenty of time to catch up but will need to step up a gear, especially against top-tier competition.
First up is a series against the Diamondbacks, who hold the first wildcard spot and have won six games in a row and 26 of 34 in the second half.
No one in baseball has scored more runs than the powerful Diamondbacks, who are averaging 5.35 runs per game (even though their best hitter, Ketel Marte, is out with a sprained ankle).
Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and either David Peterson or Tylor Megill, who will replace the injured Paul Blackburn, are tasked with calming the offense.
And the Mets bullpen, which had to watch the normally reliable Jose Butto and Edwin Diaz falter on Sunday, finished the games.
“You just have to turn things around and be ready for a really good series again,” said Mendoza after the Mets failed to escape San Diego with a series win. “With the Diamondbacks, we have a good team here again.”
Martinez said he doesn’t pay much attention to the standings, but: “I just know we have these two guys in front of us, these two teams we’re going up against,” he said of the Padres and Diamondbacks. “Those are (games) we have to win.”
After this series, the Mets have only three games left against a competitor for the NL wild card: from September 24 to 26 in Atlanta, the place where their long lead in the NL East division was lost two years ago.
For the penultimate series of the season to have any significance, the Mets would have to put together another winning streak in a season that has already seen multiple wins.
More encouraging at-bats from guys like Brandon Nimmo and Francisco Alvarez would help.
But if this stretch of mediocre performance continues – with a 19-17 record since the All-Star break – it would likely mean another season that ends in disappointment.
“We have one month left,” Martinez said. “A lot of crazy stuff happens in September.”
