Record in May: 17-9

This has been a weird season.

I mean - the Mets are in first place on June 1st, and that’s great.

But nothing this year - including the amount of times I’ve had the desire to write about the Mets - has shaken out the way I was expecting.

But had you told me the Mets would be missing almost literally half of the team in May due to injury (Pete Alonso, Jacob deGrom, Taijuan Walker, and Kevin Pillar [shockingly] for a short while, and Jeff McNeil, Brandon Nimmo, J.D. Davis, and Michael Conforto for a longer while, not to mention suffering setbacks in the comebacks of Carlos Carrasco and Noah Syndergaard), that Dominic Smith, Francisco Lindor, and James McCann would all struggle at the plate, and the team would have consistent rainouts and disruptions to their schedule and routine….and still have a hold on first place through Memorial Day?

Yeah, I would have signed up for that.

Because you have to think, as guys get healthy and the team starts to come together the way it was in early April, it will only get better, right?

And, when you look at those National League East standings…who else is going to compete with the Mets?

Divisional games are always tough - goodness knows the Mets have had their hands full with the Marlins on more than one occasion, while Atlanta is a nightmare for Mets fans and the Nationals and Phillies have each given them fits over the years - but the Mets have shown an ability to beat those teams this year…and they all seem to be struggling through the season on an opposite trajectory than the Mets, who are playing better as time goes by. (The 3.5 game lead for the Mets is now tied with the White Sox as the largest division lead in all of baseball - over the weekend the Mets actually owned the largest division lead by themselves.)

The Mets have certainly beaten up on weaker teams - the Diamondbacks are struggling right now, the Rockies are not good - and they’ve had their issues against teams like the Rays. (But in fairness, so have the other teams in the division.)

June is shaping up to be important because not only do the Mets have 15 division games (against Atlanta, Washington, and Philadelphia), but they face other good teams in the National League - 11 games against the Padres and Cubs.

Those will be a huge measuring stick for the Mets.

It can also show how far the team has come since April, when they played that listless series in Chicago where they were swept. And with both teams coming to New York, it can help establish the Mets as a dominant home team - right now they are 15-5 at Citi Field.

I honestly don’t know that I’ll be able to stay awake for the west coast games this weekend…but I want to.

I enjoy watching this team.

Jacob deGrom is having an insanely good year - even better than I would have imagined, and I imagine big.

The constant contributions from the bench players are the kind that championship teams get.

Pete Alonso isn’t mashing monster home runs but he’s fun to watch at the plate.

You have to figure the other guys will start hitting better - Francisco Lindor can’t hit below .200 all season, right?

The end of May is a pretty significant milestone in a baseball season.

It would be nice to see the Mets with an even bigger lead in the division by the end of June.