After 55 games this year, the Mets were 22-33 and at the bottom of the wild card standings. Since that time, the Mers have gone a baseball-best 27-12 to put themselves in position right now of owning a wild card spot. How have they done it? Simply put they win series after series and Saturday they added another series win to the ledger beating the Rockies 7-3
And this game clearly illustrated why the Mets have risen in the standings. First of all, their core players have performed at a level that looks like the back of their baseball cards. Case in point is Francisco Lindor who since taking over the leadoff spot has hit for power, hit for average and catalyzed the offense every game.
He crushed his 17th homer of the season and he has combined with Brandon Nimmo on well over 110 RBI so far this season. But the other bats in the lineup are percolating as well. Yesterday, Jeff Mcneil carved out a 2 run double in a 4-run second inning that got the day off to a great start.
If the Mets have one area that is still very much hot and cold, it is the bullpen but even that sore spot excelled on Saturday as both Joe Butto and Dedniel Nunez got big outs with Nunez earning his firt career save giving Edwin Diaz a much needed day off. Butto has been a sensation for the team as he seems to excel in every role he is asked to do–starting, long relief or even short relief.. On this day, he earned the win as starter Christian Scott left the game in the fifth inning.
The Mets had a super hot June getting back in the race but have not cooled off when the calendar moved to July as they are now 9-4 this month staying red hot because this offense is absolutely relentless and quite honestly that has covered up the bullpen issues.
You walk around this Met clubhouse and you see a confident group that loves talking baseball with each other and they all benefit from those conversations. And it is more than just a coincidence this team has the best record in baseball since June 1 when those conversations began to occur with regularity in that Met clubhouse. That is good news for Met fans and bad news for the other teams in this NL Wild Card race.
