The Mets unveiled their City Connect uniforms over the weekend, and although the team hasn’t quite connected with the fans of this great city yet, it should. And it will.
The team from Queens was only 19th in attendance heading into Sunday’s great win, and they truly deserve better. Some of it’s the weather, which generally has ranged from dismal to crummy (Sunday was a rare exception), but a lot of it is likely a wait-and-see mindset in what’s been advertised as a transitional year before the big player personnel push that’s expected in the winter of 2024-25.
Well, the Mets are now exactly a month and a day into their season, and they are showing they deserve your attention. They may be only a game over .500, but that’s pretty good considering that they have yet to play any of the dregs of the leagues, and at least a quartet of teams they’ve yet to see are threatening to become all-time bad — including the injury-wrecked, star-crossed Marlins in their own division.
The reality is that the Mets are showing they are probably better than most and very likely playoff caliber, as predicted in February to The Post by new baseball president David Stearns. While they weren’t all-in over the winter, the guess here, too, is they are good enough to qualify for October baseball.
Their 14-13 mark is a lot better than it appears when you consider they’ve played only serious teams so far. Consider, too, that they already had a string of five straight series wins against teams that are otherwise .500 or better, including sets against the nemesis Braves and even the celebrity Dodgers, with the one roster that rivals the Mets for payroll and beats all 29 others in name recognition, international interest and, of course, attendance.
The Mets salvaged the weekend series against the Cardinals with their 4-2, 11-inning victory Sunday that manager Carlos Mendoza called a “great win.” But he laughed when I asked if it was a great win because it would have qualified as an even worse loss, likely because he knows that’s true.
The Mets wasted two innings where they began with men on first and second and none out, and another where they had second and third and one out. A loss would have qualified as an all-time waste. The Mets also received their best pitching performance of the season, 99 pitches and eight full innings of pure mastery by soft-tossing starter Jose Quintana, followed by a clean, two-strikeout inning by star closer Edwin Diaz and two more solid innings by new star setup man Reed Garrett. The heretofore unknown Garrett is now tied for the league lead in wins with star starters Tyler Glasnow and Ranger Suarez at 5-0 and on pace to become the club’s first 20-game winner since R.A. Dickey.
It’s a memorable win, sure, but it would have been an unbearable loss.
“The performance Quintana put up and Edwin put up and Reed put up, it couldn’t go to waste,” Francisco Lindor said. “We had to win that game for sure.”
Left unsaid was the offensive record of no hits in 15 at-bats with runners in scoring position until Harrison Bader — down to the Mets’ last strike in the 11th — lined a single to center to tie it. The very next batter, the just-promoted Mark Vientos, sent everyone home happy with a walk-off, two-run home run off lefty Matthew Liberatore that barely cleared center fielder Michael Siani’s glove just to the right side of center field.
Happiest of all was Vientos, who gets credit for handling an undeserved demotion with grace. There are still no promises he sticks around once Starling Marte comes off the bereavement list, and Vientos suggested he isn’t thinking about that, or anything beyond the joy following one of the biggest and best wins of the season.
Vientos said it felt like déjà vu because the moment was just how he imagined.
“It feels good,” Vientos said. “It feels good, for sure.”
Say this for the Mets, they look pretty good, and better than most folks (including me) expected. And there’s plenty of reason to believe Stearns’ assessment was dead-on accurate.
The Mets possess the fourth lowest ERA (3.69) in the league, and they’re even better out of the pen. With Diaz, Garrett and Adam Ottavino, they are solid bet to win the close ones. And their stars really haven’t played their best yet. Pete Alonso, Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil are all carrying batting averages and OPS’s below their career marks, and only Alonso is relatively close to his normal numbers.
Lindor has been especially up-and-down, and the way he’s gone it can’t be a surprise he followed Saturday’s 0-for-5, four-strikeout performance with a game that included a home run, two stolen bases and a couple nice plays in the field. As he does often, Lindor lamented his inconsistent ledger.
“Once we all get clicking, it’s going to be fun,” he said.
It already is, folks.
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