Keidel: These Mets Have Mojo, Confidence And A Pitching Staff Built For October
By Jason Keidel
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The Mets have mojo.
Six straight wins. Two-game lead. The best young staff in the sport. And a suddenly resurgent offense.
The Dark Knight has indeed returned from Tommy John. Over his last nine starts, Matt Harvey sports a 1.64 ERA. And he was typically brilliant on Wednesday night, even if the final score didn't reflect it.
And those of us who banged the Jon Niese drum may break our arms patting ourselves on the back. Niese has allowed three runs or less in 10 of his last 11 starts. And they were able to improve the club without dealing an essential arm.
To give you an idea of how gifted this starting staff is, the Mets are 41-6 when scoring at least four runs. While the bullpen is stuffed with Rolaids moments, the front-end studs have carried the woeful offense to first place.
And now the lumber is out of its slumber. On July 25, the Mets were averaging a paltry 3.4 runs a game, but have nearly doubled that output since.
And the new imports have become important. Juan Uribe bashed a three-run homer on Wednesday night. Yoenis Cespedes swatted three doubles two games before. And beyond the statistical bona fides, the Mets have one crucial, yet unquantifiable edge: confidence.
The Mets no longer dwell in the realm of theory, potential or upside. The nauseating, yearly mantra of "wait till next year" has been replaced by an authentic sense of hope.
We've got twin pennant races in NYC. Like the animated subway race that flashes nightly on the Yankee Stadium scoreboard, the Mets and Yanks are galloping toward the fall with the feeling that they can make the playoffs and perhaps the Fall Classic.
No doubt the Yankees have surprised everyone by darting out to first place and keeping the pole position for months. But a seemingly insurmountable lead has now shriveled to 4 1/2 games, with 13 games left against the second-place Blue Jays, whom the Bombers play this weekend. For all the fairy dust sprinkled over their season, the Yankees don't have a dominant rotation, which could well bite them in October.
But who will want to play the Mets in October and face the pitching triumvirate that only seems to get stronger each week? Would you rather square off against Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard or Tanaka, Nova and Pineda?
Not to mention that the Mets have a relatively soft schedule the rest of the way, with their remaining opponents having won about 46 percent of their games this season. They play more road games than home games, but pitching travels. And they only play five road games against teams that currently have winning records (two against Baltimore and three against Washington).
Despite their recent lineup infusion, the Mets could still slump somewhere this summer. They won't average six runs per game the rest of the season. But playoff runs are at a premium. And few staffs, if any, are more stingy than the one in Flushing.
This morning, WFAN host Boomer Esiason noted that there are nearly 80,000 New Yorkers attending home games this season. So if there's a nationwide malaise toward our pastime, it's not felt in the five boroughs, which has always been a baseball town.
You expect the Yankees to draw because of their history and the hubris of their fans, who always see the team through an October prism. But now they have to split the headlines, and first place, with the new kings of Queens.
Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonKeidel.
