It’s quite amusing to go back and read what folks thought about this edition of the New York Mets when things weren’t going so well. Back when they were eleven games under .500 and floundering.
Fox Sports Deesha Thosar wondered aloud about a lot of things including trading star first baseman Pete Alonso, off to a poor start and his contract up at the end of the season
“More and more, it appears GM Stearns has inherited an underperforming core group of hitters in need of sweeping changes. Alonso’s contract situation represents Stearns’ first such opportunity to make an aggressive adjustment”
“The underperforming club is on the verge of facing irrelevancy before the official start of summer for the second consecutive year.”
The Mets were 24-35 as late as June 2nd. They sat 16.5 games in back of the Philadelphia Phillies, a team they would vanquish four months later.
The headline at ESPN 104.5 in New York blared on Rodger Wyland’s story at the end of May – “What has caused the New York Mets to go from bad to worse?“.
“The pressure is on the front office and manager Carlos Mendoza to step up and give the fans a better team and more of a winning product. The Mets better turn this around quickly because this thing is sinking and sinking fast.”
The headline on MLB insider Joel Sherman’s column in the New York Post read – “Weak National League only thing keeping Mets’ season from being totally lost”
“In most seasons even having a pipe-dream playoff conversation about a team 11 games under .500 in June would be where folly merges with delusion. And the way these Mets are playing, that is likely true for them as well.”
Here’s one that hurt from Lauren Thiessen at Defector: “The Mets are worse than bad, they’re tedious”.
“If you are an optimistic Mets fan—thanks in advance for donating your body to science—you could believe that since last year’s trade-deadline teardown, it’ll take time to reform a roster that functions properly. But there’s so much to fix”
The right guy didn’t give up on the team
Let’s however hand it to the guy signing the checks. On June 9th Mets owner Steve Cohen still had faith as Mike Axisa reported at cbs sports.com
“What are we, four games out of the wild card? We shouldn’t be proud of that, right? We’re still nine games under. But it gives you the opportunity to make the season a success. And so that’s the way I’m looking at it.”
On June 3rd the Mets won three in a row. On June 12th they started a seven game streak. By July 13th they had pulled four games over 500 having gone 24-10 and they were on their way.
The Diamondbacks, Braves, Brewers and now Phillies are all in their rearview. There’s only one other National League team still standing. Only the Los Angeles Dodgers stand between them and a 6th franchise trip to the world series.
Mets fans are dreaming big now. They haven’t played in the fall classic since 2015. They haven’t won it since the ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs in 1986.
Eight more wins.
