Livescore
Entering play on the second-to-last day in May, the Mets were 22-33 and had just been swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in a tumultuous three days at Citi Field. Three months later, the team improved to 10 games over .500 for the first time this year and continued to push for a postseason berth.
“What a story, right?” first-year manager Carlos Mendoza said after Monday’s 4-1 win over the Boston Red Sox improved his team to 52-31 (.627) in the past 94 calendar days.
“Proud of the guys, it’s been a lot of ups and downs, but we never quit, we never gave up, we always continued to believe,” Mendoza said. “We knew we had a good room, we knew we had good players and it was just a matter of time for us to not only prepare and get better at the things that we needed to get better at, but actually go out there and execute and get the job done.”
The result has the Mets just a half-game out of the third and final NL Wild Card spot behind the idle Atlanta Braves and now 3.0 games out of the second spot after the Diamondbacks fell to the Dodgers earlier on Monday.
And while the Mets are in a position to strike, the manager knows the big turnaround only means something if they continue to play good baseball.
“Here we are playing meaningful games in September, but we haven’t done anything,” Mendoza said. “We know where we’re at, and the mindset continues to be one game at a time, one series at a time and let the thing play out.”
The win on Monday, the fifth on the bounce in their first game back at Citi Field after a 10-game road trip, came after a stretch of play that saw New York take care of business against three playoff-bound teams — 6-4 against Baltimore, San Diego and Arizona, and sweeping aside the hapless White Sox in Chicago.
“I think it’s just preparation, it’s holding each other accountable, but keeping it fun,” the skipper added. “Today was a fun night, being back here in our house, in front of a really good crowd, so that’s what it’s all about.”
The fun came in the form of winning for the 13th time in their last 19 games and behind another solid seven-inning performance from right-hander Luis Severino and a two-double night from catcher Luis Torrens.
The catcher, who joined the Mets the first week of June after arriving in a trade, said the turnaround “speaks to how competitive this team is and how we go out there and work day-in and day-out.
“And I think, despite the slow start that we originally had, we continue to go out there and do our best to make it to the playoffs, because at the end of the day, that’s our goal,” he said through an interpreter.
“We realized that nobody was expecting us to win,” Severino said. “So, if we go out there and lose, it was nothing crazy about it. So just go out there and compete, give 100 percent, and we’ll see what happens at the end of the year and right now it’s like that.
“So we’re going out there, we’re going to compete every time. The guys are winning every pitch, the pitchers are trying to win every pitch, too. Everything is combined.”
For Severino, a rough start was a new phenomenon. Other than his final season with the Yankees — an 82-80 finish in which he made just 19 appearances — pitching in meaningful games has been the norm and is something he is ready to embrace over the final 24 games.
“I’ve always been in New York, I don’t know any other way,” he said. “… And for now, we have to win every game and we are really close to being in a playoff spot, so for now on, every time they give me the ball it’s like, this is a chance for me to get my time closer to the playoffs.”
Starters continue to deliver
After Severino dropped his sixth start of seven or more innings on Monday, Mendoza said the solid performances and length the Mets have been able to get out of the starters is “one of the biggest reasons we are where we’re at.”
“We’ve been getting a lot of starts where they’re giving us a chance and keeping us in games and even when it’s a struggle for them, they’re finding ways to keep us in the game,” the skipper said.
The results have been particularly good of late with Sean Manaea delivering five seven-inning outings in his last seven starts with one going 6.2 mixed in there and David Peterson pitching three-straight outings of seven innings or more.
“It’s contagious,” Mendoza said about the starting pitchers stacking outings. “It’s like hitting you get one, two, three guys going, same thing pitching-wise. One guy takes the ball and he goes out there and throws six, seven, the next guy feels like ‘alright, I gotta match that.’
“And I feel like it’s a healthy competition and it’s fun to watch.”
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