You may remember a month ago I skipped the monthly recap because the Mets were in a bad spot.

They weren’t fun to watch.

They didn’t look like they were having any fun. (They hadn’t looked like they were having any fun since at least April of 2023. Maybe even August of 2022.)

They had a terrible month on the field, and there was no indication anything was going to change.

But still - because even in my most pessimistic moments I try to find a shred of optimism - if everything went right over a certain stretch of games there was a chance things could get better.

And so they have.

This works out nicely because we have the month ending on a Sunday and it’s the halfway point of the Mets season, and I have plenty of time today to write and catch up on some of what we’ve missed.

And while I certainly would much rather be writing after a Mets win, in the grand scheme of things a 3-2 record this week against the Yankees and the Astros is fine. It stinks because they were 3-0 to start it…but it’s not earth-shattering.

Let’s focus on June as a whole.

This won’t be an “I told you so.” (I’ll save that for the All Star break mid-season check-in.)

It can’t be an “I told you so,” because I didn’t tell you this was going to happen.

I kind of outlined how it could happen.

Even at their worst, the Mets were in games. They blew a lot of late-inning leads…and the fact that they had late-inning leads was encouraging.

What June showed us was the Mets playing the way they could have been playing all season.

The runs they didn’t get in the 0-5 start? They got those runs this month.

Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso have their batting averages back up near .250. That’s an amazing stretch when you consider how long they were in the low .200s.

The performance of the team in June showed us why it was right to be surprised that they were struggling up to that point.

I won’t get into “Imagine how good they could have been if they won some of those games where they blew leads late!” But you can go ahead and imagine that.

For me, the actual record is good enough.

Here’s the breakdown I’ve been tracking since the series with Washington right before the Mets went to London (June 3) - the Mets overall record and their record against teams with records below .500 and teams at .500 or better. (This weekend’s series against Houston is the only tricky one where the Mets played them twice when they were .500 or better and in Saturday’s game Houston was below .500, so I split their record there.) Amazingly, the Mets have a better record against teams with records of .500 or better in this time span, which was not how I drew it up:

Record since June 3:16-6

Record against teams >.500: 7-2

Record against teams <.500: 9-4

You can go look at your other sources for information about the record since Grimace threw out the first pitch. I’ll stick with my markers. (See below for important Francisco Alvarez splits.)

Overall the Mets are at 40-41, and they are 2 games back of the final wild card spot.

Let’s do the quick Monthly Recap: (If you want to re-familiarize yourself with this format you can see the April recap here.)

March: 0-3

April: 15-11

May: 9-19

June: 16-8

Player of the Month: You may remember I named Reed Garrett Player of the Month for April because he was a major factor in so many games. (And perhaps that has affected his recent performance. He played a season in a month.) I skipped the award in May because no one deserved it. The award returns in June and although a lot of players have had great months I’m going with Francisco Alvarez. His offensive numbers are right there with everyone else but what tips the scales in his favor for me is the fact that when he has played, since his return from injury, the Mets’ record is 12-3. He is so valuable to this team.

The Month Ahead: Spoiler alert about August: It is a tough travel month for the Mets. We’ll talk more about that at the end of July. But I bring that up because the Mets really need to make hay while they can, and July is where that has to happen. July has its own challenges - 14 straight (of 17 total with the 3 to end June), but those games are all against beatable teams: Pittsburgh, Washington, and Colorado. They do get the four days off for the All Star break, but then it’s 13 straight to end the month (against the Marlins, Yankees, Atlanta, and Minnesota). The Mets are not going to go 14-0 to start the month. But they do need to pile up something like 10 wins while the getting is good.That will also put some breathing room between them and the .500 mark before the challenges of late July and August.

I guess it’s worth noting here, too, that the trade deadline is July 30. It’s looking less likely the Mets will have a complete sell-off…but there is almost certainly going to be some kind of player movement between now and the end of July. Stay tuned.

Notes

*I have officially declared Francisco Alvarez as my favorite current Met. He joins the likes of Gary Carter, John Olerud, and David Wright as favorite players. I’m going to have to look at some rosters and remind myself of favorite Mets in the years in between those guys.

*We talked about it a little bit at some point, but the Mets schedule has been home-heavy in the first half of the season. That’s mostly because of their trip to London. They’ve played 35 on the road, and 46 at home through Sunday. As such, I’ve been to a lot of Mets games so far this season…and my attendance will end up being disproportionately first-half of the season heavy. Once July ends I’ll probably only be going to a couple more games…which is also by design. I don’t want to do too much back-and-forth as I train for the New York City Marathon.

*Oh, hey, speaking of which: I’m running the New York City Marathon to raise money for Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation. If you can support my fundraising, I would appreciate it. You can do so at this link. The running will be picking up again soon - you can follow along with my progress towards November at the Instagram link below.

*My record in games I’ve attended so far? Thanks for asking. It’s 7-3. (For comparison’s sake last year I went to 5 games before July and 4 after June 30.)

*On Friday night my daughter and I went but we did not stay for the post-game fireworks. We decided to take some pictures of the fireworks exploding over Citi Field as we walked to the 7 train. (It was a good decision - we got some great pictures, which you may have already noticed above.) But that meant we missed Jose Iglesias singing his song on the field, which at first I regretted, but after seeing video of the performance the next day I am OK with. It’s a great song. I love how the team has rallied around it. But that performance was lacking..like they couldn’t decide if they should have his mic turned on or off and just play the song over the speakers or what. Maybe it sounded different inside the ballpark.

*I’ll tell you what sounded great in the ballpark - they panned through the celebrities in attendance on Friday night and Grimace was there and when they showed Grimace the crowd went wild.

*It’s just been plain fun watching the Mets this past month. It’s been a while since it’s been like that. I hope they keep it up…with or without ‘OMG’ and Grimace.

Let’s Go Mets. I might have to frame one of these fireworks pictures I took and hang it in my office.