If you read along with the live blog on Monday night you might have caught on to the fact that I haven’t been super confident in the Mets offense lately.

In the series against the Reds and in the win over the Blue Jays on Monday, runs have been hard to come by.

The end of the winning streak felt like there was more than a little luck mixed in. (A couple of runs scoring on wild pitches certainly carries a little of that luck mystique.)

Which is fine - in a long baseball season you need the right combination of luck and skill.

And right up through the eighth inning Wednesday afternoon, it was feeling like the Mets luck was running out.

The problem with this time of year is the margin for error shrinks to a thin, thin margin.

And after Tuesday, what was 9 wins in 10 games suddenly became two losses in three games…which pretty much erases the 9 wins from memory.

It’s not fair, but with less than 20 games to go, everything gets magnified.

So, facing that 2 out of 3 becoming 3 losses in 4 games, the Mets needed to show their playoff chops…and they needed their stars to do it.

And boy did they deliver.

Francisco Lindor, the man who the whole offense revolves around, got it started with a leadoff home run, breaking up the no-hitter and more importantly tying the game at 1. (Though I’m focusing on the offense here let’s not overlook another stellar outing by Sean Manaea. Kind of wild based on how things started that it goes without saying now that the Mets got another great start.)

That got things rolling - Chad Green came in, couldn’t find the plate, and the Mets loaded the bases for Pete Alonso.

Alonso quickly fell behind 0 and 2 and this was a pretty important at-bat. Here’s how I’m going to rationalize Alonso’s season - again, on Monday I talked about how rough it’s been to watch him. It’s just seemed like he’s slumped the entire year.

I think other teams are approaching Alonso the way the Mets approached Aaron Judge - they’re not giving him much good to hit. The problem is, unlike other years where Alonso has had the patience and plate discipline to not swing at garbage, this year he’s chasing a lot. So he’s allowing teams to continue this strategy. It’s actually a credit to Alonso, I think, that he’s done what he’s done this year, and lately has been getting on base so much anyway, without swinging at many good pitches.

So, back to Wednesday - it didn’t even look like Alonso put a great swing on the Chad Green pitch, but he still managed to drive it to deep right field and bring home the go-ahead run. Similarly struggling Starling Marte also hit a sacrifice fly to make it 3-1, before Francisco Alvarez put the game away with a 3-run home run.

A strikeout by Alonso or even by Marte is the worst possible outcome there. And that’s been happening way too much all season with this team. It was a great sign that maybe they’re through their little offensive dip the past five or six days.

And the best part is it wasn’t lucky - that was the players playing good baseball.

It was also the continuation of another theme of this season, which is that even when this team looks at its worst, you can’t give up on them, because they’re not giving up.

So the Mets head into their off day before a series in Philadelphia in the best possible way: off of a win. Arizona won early Wednesday, so they’re off the hook…but with their win the Mets have taken the pressure off themselves for the day and made the margin of error for Atlanta and San Diego that much slimmer.

Let’s Go Mets.