We’re going to divide the column in half at present, expensive reader, so be ready. Up first:
The Glass Half Empty
Look, it's ineffective to sugarcoat the quantity of harm the Mets did to themselves this weekend in Georgia. They fulfilled a legion of darkish prophesies from a strong core of their fan base, who solely know Atlanta as a torture chamber that has ruined too many baseball seasons to rely.
Together with, in the meanwhile, this one.
For the Mets desperately craved the most important perk afforded the winner of the NL East. Overlook the bonus that the Braves will get to attend an additional spherical to face the Dodgers; for those who’re going to win the NL pennant, the highway is sort of definitely going straight via Chavez Ravine in some unspecified time in the future. No, one of the best profit was this: relaxation.
The Mets look cooked. They appear exhausted. Their greatest gamers have performed day after day, a necessity since Starling Marte’s bat was faraway from the lineup a couple of weeks in the past. They, as a lot as any group in baseball, might’ve used the 5 days off between Wednesday’s regular-season finale and the beginning of the NLDS Oct. 11.
These batteries are comparatively straightforward to recharge. The extra sophisticated one entails the facet that was speculated to be the Mets’ largest weapon: the highest of the rotation. Sure, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt had a misplaced weekend at Truist Park, however they nonetheless symbolize the Mets’ greatest probability for October survival.
The issue is, now deGrom and Scherzer (and, if wanted, Bassitt) will pitch within the best-of-three wild-card collection with both the Padres or Phillies that’ll occupy subsequent Friday/Saturday/Sunday. The NLDS with the Dodgers begins Tuesday, and there can be however one off day in that best-of-five. Which means Scherzer and deGrom solely go as soon as apiece, when a bye would’ve allowed one — presumably deGrom — to throw Video games 1 and 5.
(And let’s not even speculate on the idiot’s-gold errand that could possibly be in play Wednesday if, by some miracle, the Mets sweep their doubleheader vs. the Nats on Tuesday and the Braves lose once more to the Marlins after a Monday shutout. deGrom has already stated he’d be able to pitch that day, and whereas that’s good, the Mets would nonetheless be shifted to the wild card if the Braves win … and wouldn’t have deGrom in any respect for it.)
So, yeah. The Mets made themselves fairly a multitude. And now:
The Glass Half Full
Proper now, the Mets appear like a overwhelmed, damaged, dispirited group. They've surrendered all the momentum and lots of the good vibes assembled throughout the season’s first 156 video games. It feels unattainable they will muster something resembling a resurrection at this level.
However I can let you know two issues for positive:
No person was extra overwhelmed or damaged than the 1999 Mets. After being nose-to-nose with the Braves in September they misplaced seven video games in a row and headed into the ultimate weekend needing every kind of assist simply to make it to a one-game wild-card play-in sport in Cincinnati.
“This was an incredible experience,” Bobby Valentine stated earlier than the season-ending collection in opposition to the Pirates, even the rose-lensed supervisor slipping into the previous tense. However they bought the assistance. They beat the Reds. They knocked off a strong 100-win Diamondbacks group (managed by Buck Showalter) within the NLDS and got here inside a few outs of reaching Sport 7 of the NLCS. No person noticed that coming.
After which there was 2015, a season we greatest keep in mind for the way in which the Mets seized the NL East early in September after which ransacked the Dodgers and Cubs within the playoffs. However with six days to go in that season, the Mets had a two-game lead on LA for what was anticipated to be important home-field benefit.
The Mets promptly dropped 5 in a row, the final coming by way of an nearly beyond-belief no-hitter by a Nationals pitcher named Max Scherzer. They squandered home-field to the Dodgers, and that positive felt like a loss of life knell for the Mets’ World Sequence hopes.
“We all know we’re higher than this,” David Wright stated within the quiet of the post-no-hitter clubhouse at Citi Area, a curious factor to say a few group that had already clinched first place.
Given the prospect to show that, the Mets did, all the way in which to the World Sequence. Now none of this implies — empty-glass alert! — that that is the future of the 2022 Mets. However you actually by no means know. You understand?
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