Beyond the record: signs the Mets are having a good year

Sometimes, you just…know, y’know?

A long baseball season is always fraught with signals and portents about what type of season it will be. We all try and read the tea leaves, especially in April and May. A baseball season is long, of course, and this week’s harbinger is next week’s dashed hope. Even a flying start is no guarantee of season-long success – see 2018, when the Mets started out 12-2 and were on the verge of seemingly running away with the division on April 16 when they welcomed the Washington Nationals to Citi Field. With Jacob deGrom on the mound and a 6-1 lead in the top of the eighth, it looked as though they’d easily run that record to 13-2. The crowd took to serenading Washington superstar Bryce Harper with less than endearing melodies, in that charming way that only New York fans can deliver them. deGrom – cruising for seven innings – gave up a single and a walk sandwiched around a strikeout. Having thrown 103 pitches by that point, he was replaced by Seth Lugo, who walked the lone batter he faced to load the bases. For Harper. Jerry Blevins was called in to face the powerful lefty, who pulled a base knock between first and second, good for two runs. So much for Mr. Blevins. AJ Ramos came on to pitch and got a strikeout, but then surrendered another base hit to reload the bases. He walked the next hitter for another run. On came closer Jeurys Familia, who promptly gave up the game-tying single, hit the next batter and walked the one after that to finally turn a 6-1 lead into a 7-6 deficit. The final score was 8-6. After that, fans had very few illusions about how the rest of the season would go: after that, the Mets lost twelve of their next nineteen, en route to going 64-82 the rest of the way. Even last year, when the Mets took up a summer residence atop the standings, we could all tell it was a structure built on sand – held together by deGrom and a cast of irregulars putting up a bushel of unsustainable stats. Once deGrom went down with an elbow injury around the All-Star break – taking all the steam out of the Mets’ season with him – was anybody really that surprised when their final record turned out the same as that doomed 2018 campaign, 77-85?

Well, there are portents abounding this season, too, but far far different than the two dud years mentioned above. In fact, you could say that the intangibles have begun to point in the opposite direction. As this is written, the Mets are 11 games over the .500 mark – highwater so far in this young season. They find themselves leading the National League East, with a six-and-a-half-game pace over their closest pursuers, the World Champion Atlanta Braves and their arch-nemesis, the Philadelphia Phillies. For illustration, after 33 games last year, the Mets were five games over .500, one game up on the Phils and three-and-a-half ahead of Atlanta. In 2022, they’ve yet to lose a series, winning nine and splitting one. But besides all this, there’s some other stuff in the air.

One thing that’s striking is the good starting pitching the Mets are getting, despite deGrom remaining on the shelf. Unlikely heroes like Tylor Megill, David Peterson, Carlos Carrasco, and Taijuan Walker have ably propped up Max Scherzer so far in this young year, making deGrom’s absence slightly less painful. Also, for the first time in a long, long time, an emphasis is being put on defense. So far this year, the Mets look crisp and alert. Besides making the play they’re expected to, they’ve also appeared heads-up and fundamentally sound and have made some spectacular highlight reel fodder. For once, there doesn’t seem to be anyone playing out of position. Furthermore, there’s an intangible: an “attitude,” if you will. In the Mets’ 4-1 win on Thursday afternoon in Washington, for example, almost all their big hitters were held hitless: Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor, Starling Marte and J.D. Davis all took oh-fers. Newcomer Mark Canha was the star of the show, notching three of the Mets’ five hits, including a home run and three of the RBIs. That the Mets could win a game like that speaks volumes about the tenor of the clubhouse, a “pick-me-up” ethos. And this isn’t even mentioning that twice so far this year, the Mets have overcome five and six-run deficits in the ninth inning in two games! New manager Buck Showalter should take the lion’s share of the credit for that. That’s on him, that’s what a modern manager does.

If I may take a detour from Queens to the Bronx for a moment, it needs mentioning that the Yankees are off to a remarkable start of their own. To wit: if they were in the same division, they’d be a game-and-a-half ahead of the Mets. They’re getting late-inning magic as Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are finally pairing up as their most ardent fans have imagined ever since Stanton arrived in 2018. In what had shaped up to be an ultra-competitive American League East, they’ve opened up a four-and-a-half game bulge on the Tampa Bay Rays and a six-and-a-half game lead on the Toronto Blue Jays, the pre-season favorites in the Division. The New York media, of course, anticipating some intra-City, inter-league fireworks, have started running comparisons of the two lineups and running their usual “can-the Mets-take-the City-away-from- the Yankees” clickbait articles. For the most part, Yankees fans are going nuts, throwing every past Metsian transgression – from Nolan Ryan, to Tom Seaver, to Bobby Bonilla, to Robinson Cano – into the face of their opposite numbers. For their part, the Mets’ fans seem to be enjoying the by-play. Many on each side are predicting a Subway Series at this early point and that prospect is as exciting as it is daunting. The Battle for the Back Pages is on, but you know one thing for sure:

Whenever the Yankees fans start trashing the Mets’ accomplishments, you know the boys from Queens must have something going.

Author’s note: this was written before the news of catcher James McCann’s broken wrist came out. This could be a portent of a different kind, of course…