Bounce Back Year For Mets?

The expectations for the New York Mets were low coming into this season.

Sure enough, the Mets have met those expectations more than midway through the season. They are 44-45 after losing to the Pirates 8-2 on Monday in Pittsburgh and splitting a four-game series.

Being one game under .500 is about as mediocre as a team can get. However, inside the Mets’ clubhouse, expectations are higher.

The Mets believe they can make the postseason, especially in the mediocre National League. Despite its su-.500 record, New York is just 2 ½ games out of the third and final NL wild card spot.

“This is a big stretch going into the All-Star break where we kind of put our statement where we are at,” reliever Reed Garrett said. “We firmly believe we are in the hunt.”

The Mets have a six-game homestand leading into the break that begins Tuesday, playing three games against both the Washington Nationals and Colorado Rockies.

What gives the Mets hope is that they’ve already clawed their way back to respectability after their season was seemingly on the brink. They fell 11 games under .500 at 24-35 on June 2 with a loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Mets, though, are 20-10 since reaching their low water mark.

“Finding success, as the season’s gone along, I think it’s been really nice and I want to keep continuing that and helping this team win ballgames,” All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said. “I mean, we’ve come, collectively, such a long way to get back to .500 and I think this is a really good opportunity to keep moving forward in a positive manner.”

The Mets won 101 games just two years ago but were abruptly bounced out of the playoffs by the San Diego Padres in an NL Wild Card Series. Things fell apart last year when the Mets had a 75-87 record despite the largest payroll in MLB history at $355 million.

Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, both three-time Cy Young Award winners, were dealt at the trade deadline. Buck Showalter was fired as manager on the final day of the season.

Thus, the bar was seemingly low for Carlos Mendoza when he was hired to replace Showalter after spending the previous six seasons on the New York Yankees’ coaching staff. However, Mendoza didn’t view the job that way when he was hired and certainly not 89 games into his first season.

“My expectation was to compete and contend,” he said.

The Mets got a bit of good news over the weekend when closer Edwin Diaz returned from his 10-game suspension from Major League Baseball for having a foreign substance on his pitching hand. Diaz pitched a scoreless ninth inning to close the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the Pirates.

Diaz was brought in to protect a 1-0 lead in the eighth inning the following day but suffered a blown save when Nick Gonzales hit a two-run single. However, Diaz wound up with the win when Francisco Lindor’s two-run single in the ninth enabled the Mets to triumph 3-2.

Diaz is a microcosm of everything that’s happened to the Mets over the last three seasons.

In 2022, he was nearly invincible with 32 saves and a 1.31 ERA in 61 games. The Mets signed Diaz to a five-year, $102-million contract extension before he could reach free agency.

Diaz then sustained a season-ending knee injury last year while celebrating a victory by Puerto Rico over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic in March. He has struggled to regain his old form this season by converting just eight of 13 save opportunities to go with a 4.26 ERA in 25 games.

Diaz hoped for a new beginning when he returned from suspension.

“I just want to keep doing my job for the rest of the season,” he said.

Yet he blew a save the next day. And then the Mets bullpen had a meltdown Monday, allowing the Pirates to break a 2-2 tie with a five-run sixth inning against relievers Greg Orze – who was making his MLB debut – and Adrian Houser.

The loss was the Mets’ sixth in their last 10 games, a stretch that seemingly stalled the progress they had made during most of June.

“There’s some games that have gotten away from us, but you know what — honestly, that’s the story of the year so far,” center fielder Brandon Nimmo said. “We haven’t been able to lock down wins all the time, and that’s a problem. But we’re hoping to address it. There is a lot of season left.”