If you know me you know that the biggest reason I get so disappointed about the Mets is that I always raise my expectations a little too high.

I started doing that here with this 2024 edition.

A winnable stretch of the schedule was approaching, and even though they did nothing over the first two months of the season to prove they deserved high expectations…I set some pretty high expectations for this stretch of the schedule.

They are still a team with some flaws and I still would couch my optimism by describing it as ‘guarded’…

But I have to say through the first 11 games of this stretch, the Mets have exceeded my expectations.

I wrote last week about the upcoming schedule so I won’t repeat all that here.

But since the stretch started I’ve been tracking the Mets’ results against teams below .500 and teams at .500 or better, so I will share that part.

Against teams below .500 (Washington, Miami) the Mets are 5-1

Against teams above .500 (Philadelphia, San Diego) the Mets are 4-1.

So 9-2, and the sweep against San Diego was a real pleasant surprise.

The funny thing is, the Padres were a .500 or better team through the weekend, and the Mets swept them. (They are now a below .500 team.) So now the Mets face Texas, which not unlike the Mets, is five games under .500, so that series also seems winnable, for what that’s worth.

The problem is the last time the Mets started to get this hot, near the end of April, they immediately hit a slide that resulted in the hole they’re trying to dig themselves out of.

And there are situations like the top of the 8th inning on Sunday where the Mets give you pause - aided by an error, they give up 4 runs, and it makes you think how is this team deserving of a playoff spot?

But instead of totally giving away the lead, they stopped the bleeding Sunday. And then, as illustrated by the picture to the right, they answered with 4 runs of their own to put the game away.

That wasn’t happening at all in May.

The Mets are fun to watch when they’re all hitting the way they did right off the bat Sunday afternoon. The problem has been those innings have been few and far between this year.

But lately…well, there’s hope that there are more such fun times on the way.

Notes:

I’m sure you’re aware of Francisco Lindor’s success since he’s been moved to the leadoff spot. What you might not know is he also changed his walk-up music - it’s now “My Girl”. I think it would be great if the crowd at Citi Field sang along, and then continued singing when the music stopped. Imagine the whole ballpark belting out “What could make me feel this way….?” Could be a signature Mets thing. I tried to get it going on Sunday but it didn’t seem like people cared. (I just told my brother about it in a loud voice.) But maybe someone out there will read this and be less shy than me and get it going. As long as I get the credit.
The Padres were sitting pretty in wild card position before the Mets swept them. Now they’re tied with Washington, and the Mets are just a game-and-a-half back. The Cubs, Pirates, Reds, Giants, Diamondbacks, and Nats are the teams ahead of them…with the Cardinals in the second wild card position and Atlanta at the top. It’s a lot right now, so I’m not going to constantly update that yet. But hopefully as it settles the Mets are still there.
I don’t think I’m going to give those same series recaps I was doing but let’s note here the Mets stand at 33-37 right now. If you throw out that 0-5 to start the season (like we were doing early on and kind of can’t do anymore but it’s fun to show right now) they’re 33-32 since the 0-5 start.
There are all kinds of splits you can do with the Mets. I like the one I’m working on, at 9-2. Of course there’s the ‘undefeated since Grimace threw the first pitch’ one, which is fun. But what will likely be the biggest pivot point, in my opinion, is when Francisco Alvarez came back from the injured list. He handles the pitchers so much better than anyone else and just overall makes this team better.
Of course it doesn’t hurt that J.D. Martinez has been on fire too. If not for his walk-off homer on Thursday against Miami, when the Mets trailed 2-1 in the 9th, things feel very different today.
All right. I have to get to other work. This was sitting lodged in my brain, though, and I had to get it out before I moved on with my week.