Ray Knight still roots for the Mets whenever he can, and the 1986 World Series MVP is happy the Mets have turned things around this season and are in the running to make the playoffs.
“I always root for the Mets and I’m happy they’re starting to play good, solid baseball,” Knight said Saturday at FanaticsFest NYC at the Javits Center. “At the beginning of the year, it all seemed like a struggle.
“But they [started] “We’re scoring better, our pitching is better and maybe we have a chance to do some damage. If we get to the playoffs, you never know what’s going to happen.”
The Mets were staggering at 24-35 at the start of June, but under first-year manager Carlos Mendoza, they are now just one game behind the Braves for the third wild card spot in the National League.
Knight, 71, who played three seasons with the Mets from 1984-86, believes the early struggles helped foster team unity and resilience.
“It happens all the time when you come out of adversity,” Knight said. “You go through bad days or bad weeks and you learn how to deal with them, but you come out of it and you realize, ‘Hey, we’re pretty good.’ So you see the value in not having to worry or think that this struggle is going to be an absolute struggle. We’re going to come out of this and play good baseball.”
The retired third baseman was acquired from the Astros after the Mets finished the 1983 season with a 68-94 record.
He won 22 games the following season, 98 in 1985 and a franchise-record 108 in 1986 as he defeated the Red Sox to win the World Series.
“I got traded there in ’84 and they were already really strong,” Knight said. “It was just [of] Organize your pitching staff. Doc [Gooden] Coming up, obviously, [Ron] With darling [making] Trade [Bobby] Ojeda. … The pitching staff was already strong offensively, but once the pitching staff was established, it felt like we could win every day.”
