The New York Mets are in the midst of their first nice winning streak in months. After today's ugly but ultimately successful game in Washington, they have won 7 straight games they have played. Technically their streak is 6 in a row, as the first of those wins was the final 8 2/3 innings of a game suspended on April 11. Even though only one single out of the game was recorded in April, it goes in the books as a win on that day. Go figure.
The Mets' modest streak against the two bottom-dwelling teams in their division has made their path back into contention a little less improbable, but, at least for the moment, they're still 3.5 games out of first with two teams in front of them. There is a second game to be played and the Braves and Phillies have games tonight. Still, the Mets have made things a little more interesting after wandering in the wilderness for most of July and August, and that's a good thing.
It would be easy to get a little sarcastic here about how this run is too little and too late and comes against fairly weak opposition. I am not doing that, however. While I am still disappointed in the Mets' failure to win more than a couple of games in that stretch against the Dodgers and Giants, despite playing so many close and very winnable contests, the biggest failure of the Mets in 2021 was not taking care of business against teams that they should beat. To me, it's not insignificant that the Mets accomplished that over the last few days when not doing so would have finished burying them.
The Mets are still quite a long shot to truly get back into this race. Rustin Dodd summed it up very well in a piece in The Athletic Thursday:
The schedule, of course, is not exactly an asset. The Mets have 12 more games against the Nationals and Marlins and six more against the Phillies and Braves — including a season-ending series in Atlanta. But they also have 11 total against the Yankees, Cardinals, Red Sox and Brewers. The Braves, meanwhile, have 17 remaining games against the Rockies, Nationals, Marlins and Diamondbacks — four teams near, or at, the bottom of their respective divisions; the Phillies have 20 of their final 29 games against the Marlins, Rockies, Cubs, Orioles and Pirates.
The Mets have no one except themselves to blame for the dilemma in which they find themselves. I think back to how poorly they played against the Pirates in July when they had the chance to give themselves some breathing room. Before they were swept by the Phillies in early August, they lost 3 of 4 to the Marlins. But that's all water under the bridge now. I still believe that it's important for the Mets to have a good enough September to make things a bit more interesting. The idea of playing "meaningful games in September" may have a negative connotation in Mets history. Still, the simple truth is hanging around on the fringes of a pennant race beats dropping completely out of things every time.
Of course, the way that the Mets season has gone, combined with some of the negative happenings around the periphery of the club, has revived all of the old criticism about Mets' dysfunction. Some of it's just, some of it's grossly unfair, while some of it is just blatant clickbait. Since the recent circumstances of my life have precluded me from commenting on all of it as it happened, let's hit some of the highlights.
A couple of weeks ago, Ken Davidoff had a piece in the New York Post that belonged squarely in the clickbait category. Ken's premise seemed to be that the Mets should try to emulate what the Braves are doing before they try to be an east coast version of the Dodgers. Somehow in talking about trying to do what the Dodgers have done, the Mets were disrespecting the Braves — at least in Ken's mind.
Look, no doubt that Atlanta has been a much better run club than the Mets over most of the last 3 decades. The Mets could and should learn a lot from the success that the Braves have enjoyed. Among other things, the Braves have far exceeded the Mets in taking advantage of the international market while outdoing New York in most areas of scouting and development, period. However, the Braves don't operate as a large-market club. Just look at some of their short-sighted decisions last winter, including not re-signing closer Mark Melancon. Melancon signed with the Padres for $3 million — chump change in MLB — while Atlanta struggled with their bullpen for much of the year.
Atlanta will tear their team down and rebuild when they need to. They most recently did this in 2014-2017. They're a well-run team, but the Dodgers are a better example of what a large-market team must do to remain successful season after season without taking a 4-year break from contending. It's not disrespectful to the Braves that the Mets want to emulate Los Angeles. Frankly, it's quite silly to infer otherwise.
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