It was the top of the third inning. The Mets had put together rallies in the first two innings against Evan Lee in his first major league start, but came up empty. Carlos Carrasco walked Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Bell to load the bases, and went 1-0 on Yadiel Hernandez. Eleven straight balls to those four hitters, in case you were scoring at home. In seasons past, Hernandez would have cleared the bases with a double, Lee would have given up one hit in his subsequent five innings of work, and the Mets would have lost 3-1.
As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, this isn’t “seasons past”.
Carlos Carrasco works himself out of trouble in the third, leaving the bases loaded
Dad loves it! pic.twitter.com/PibdFqLXpQ
— SNY (@SNYtv) June 1, 2022
(Editor’s note: Shout out to Luis Carrasco.)
Carrasco came back to strike out Hernandez, and would get out of trouble again and again in his five innings of work. The offense meanwhile would eventually get to Lee and was powered by four hits and three RBI from … /checks notes … Tomas Nido for a 5-0 victory to sweep the homestand against the Phillies and Nationals.
/checks notes again … yup, four hits from Tomas Nido.
Does it seem too good to be true? Absolutely. Is it really too good to be true? We’ll we’re about to find out. Because here we go on the magical mystery tour that we know as “June”. You know in the past I’ve highlighted groups of games and figured out a path to the playoffs. Usually this happens in August and September, but the Mets are so far ahead that we’re going to do this in June. So here we go:
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Four against the Dodgers (and Freddie Freeman, and Trea Turner) in L.A.
Three against the Padres in San Diego.
Three against the Angels in Anaheim.
Three against the Brewers at home.
Three against the Marlins at home.
Two against the Astros in Houston.
Three against the Marlins in Miami.
Two against the Astros at home.
That’s 22 games, only nine at home, against teams that at this very moment are 146-100 … 127-73 if you don’t include the Marlins (but as we discussed, you don’t get to zap teams from the schedule to fit your narrative of LOLMets.) This takes you to the end of the month. Let’s give the Mets 4 out of 6 against the Marlins. That leaves 16 games against the behemoths, ten of those on the road. Would you be happy with, say 7-9? Let’s go with that and be conservative. That would leave the Mets at 11-11 in that stretch, with their record in full being 46-28. If the Mets go into July 1st at 46-28, then check out their schedule from there:
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Three against the Rangers at home.
Three against the Reds in Cincinnati.
Four against the Marlins at home.
Three against the Braves in Atlanta.
Four against the Cubs in Chicago.
That leads you to the All-Star Break. Those teams? 103-138. If the Mets go .500 in the tough stretch and then do what they’re supposed to do in the first part of July? Especially if Max Scherzer, Tylor Megill and even Jacob deGrom come back on July 1? Also especially of that Braves series ends in two out of three wins? They’re home free. But they have to get through the tough stretch first. 11-11 will put them in a great spot heading into July. I don’t think it’s impossible.
But as we know, baseball isn’t just hard, it’s incredibly hard. These next three weeks will tell a very interesting short story about this team. For once, .500 will provide a very happy ending.
Today’s Hate List
1. Chase Utley
2. Austin Riley
3. Rhys Hoskins
4. Freddie Freeman
5. Also, Trea Turner
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