The magic was real. It really was. Anyone who was at the ballpark during those balmy days in June and early July knew it was true. They heard and saw the sounds and sights of Citi Field, just like they had for a few precious days since October 2015, a month that had been a never-ending carnival of joy just off Flushing Bay.
“I’m hoping this trend continues as long as possible,” manager Brandon Nimmo said on a jubilant July 25 night when the Mets beat Chris Sale and the Braves, 3-2, on a night when the Braves, uncharacteristically, made a lot of foolish plays and the Mets, uncharacteristically, made Atlanta pay for every misstep.
And the next night…yes, the next night. Kodai Senga was back and he was hyped, the Mets hit Charlie Morton for seven runs in one inning, Grimace was dancing, the crowd couldn’t wait to sing “OMG,” and there was total frenzy as the Mets overtook the Braves for the No. 1 Wild Card spot. Magic? This was more than magic…
And then a popup appeared.
And then Chika fell to the ground.
And there’s no need to overstate this. The Mets have won a few games since then. They haven’t fallen off a cliff, even if it felt that way after they only managed one run all weekend against the Mariners’ starters in Seattle. The Mariners’ starters are pretty good, but they’ve never been publicly confused with Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz. They’re still a half-game out of position for the playoffs after that losing weekend by the Space Needle.
It just…feels different.
Not much fun, or not so exciting? After all, this is a bad time. The Mets were not the first team to hit the August wall. Even though they had won 31 of 44 games from June 3 to July 26, they were still operating with a small margin of error, carefully parrying every call to the bullpen. The old words of the great Bob Murphy often came to mind, as they did on any given night: “They won that damn game, 9-8.”
Of course, just because they only scored one run in 27 innings doesn’t mean there’s much to celebrate. When two of the teams in playoff contention, the Padres and Diamondbacks, are winning every day, the celebrations are short-lived.
And that confidence fades when it becomes clear that the team to watch now is the Braves, the team that has dominated the Mets since April 4, 1993, when the two teams officially split the NL East.
“We still have a lot of important games to play,” coach Carlos Mendoza said after Seattle’s brutal 12-1 loss Sunday night. “We’re ready to go.”
Technically, the Mets have 44 games left to play, and all 44 will matter, but especially the nine they’ll play at home over the next nine days against Oakland, Miami and Baltimore. And it’s not July anymore. It’s not time to just keep winning series. The Mets need to step up against the Athletics and Marlins, because the next 10 games — three at home against the Orioles and seven in San Diego and Phoenix — will almost certainly be the 10 that define their season.
And the truth is, they need some breathing room right now. A 5-1 or even 6-0 victory against a full-strength Athletics or Marlins team would give them that breathing room. Those games have been hard for the Mets to win at key times over the last few seasons, and maybe what they saw in June and July was more illusion than magic. It’s definitely at work.
We’ll find out starting Tuesday. It may seem silly to see Senga’s injury as a bad omen — but baseball breeds superstitions like that. 1987 Mets fans will still swear their title defense was doomed the moment the Mets lost a game in May because a routine fly ball by Atlanta’s Dion James hit a pigeon and gave the Braves a crucial run.
Ah, that stuff is as meaningless as the power of a grimace. But we saw it in June. It was real. Now they’re struggling. So are the Braves, who blew a six-run eighth-inning lead to the awful Rockies on Sunday. For now, the Mets and Braves face off again. Whoever gets healthy first wins.
