Conventional wisdom used to be that the good teams knew how to win the close ones. And while it’s true that generally good teams have good records in one-run games, where they really shine is in blowouts, games decided by five or more runs. A team can “luck” its way to one-run wins. It’s a lot tougher to do that in five-run wins.
The 2024 Mets are good in both of these categories, with a 26-16 mark in one-run games and a 27-18 ledger in blowouts.
One thing that’s caught my eye here recently is how many blow-out wins the Mets have here in the second half along with how many of their losses are close games, either one or two runs.
Since the disaster series in Seattle August 9-11, the Mets are 10-2 in games decided by five or more runs. That’s, um, spectacular. And on the flip side of things, five of their last 11 losses have been by one or two runs. Both of those things speak to the good pitching the Mets have had for the most part here in the second half. Here’s how the SP have done since the Seattle series, listed in desdcending order of IP:
2.81 ERA – Sean Manaea
2.17 ERA – David Peterson
2.64 ERA – Luis Severino
2.63 ERA – Jose Quintana
1.69 ERA – Tylor Megill
You know things are good when in a stretch of 35 games, your starter with the worst ERA has a 2.81 mark. And now the offense has scored 30 runs in the past three games.
It’s a fun time to be a Mets fan.
3rd in the NL, 4th in MLB in runs scored after leapfrogging the Phillies last night (we have 1 more run scored than they do). 5th most doubles in MLB. 5th most HR (tied with Arizona, 1 behind Atlanta). 6th best ERA in NL, 3rd most strikeouts. Lowest batting average against.
This is a really good team top to bottom.