The Mets are once again playing important games (2024)

A funny thing happened Wednesday night in Arlington, Texas. For the first time in 619 days the New York Mets played what could be termed an “important” game.

What’s even funnier is that nobody really noticed that before it happened, or while it was happening. And even when they surrendered a 5-3 game to the Texas Rangers, snapping a seven-game winning streak, there wasn’t much wringing of hands or pounding of fists.

It’s the middle of June, after all, not the start of October.

Nothing of true import happens in June.

Except, just as the Mets seized a 3-1 lead in the top of the sixth inning, SNY showed a graphic of the wild-card standings in the National League. And two things struck right away: they didn’t just show five or six teams, the way wild-card standings are supposed to look. They showed 10. Ten!

Also, even before Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez did the obvious math, if you took a look at that graphic one thing became apparent: if the Mets could have gotten the final 12 outs of this game, they would have woken up Thursday morning — and this is almost impossible to believe, if you recall what the Mets looked like for much of April and May — tied for playoff position.

They never did get those outs. Sean Manaea lost his no-hitter, then lost the lead, and then Drew Smith offered up a meatball to Leady Taveras, and that was that.

“After what we have been through, especially in the month of May, and for us to play good baseball shows that we have got a good team,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said afterward. “We have got guys that are going to continue to compete.”

And look, the Mets’ playing better (seven straight before Wednesday, 11 out of 13, 11-4 in June) was the biggest reason for there to be any reason at all to even glance at the standings. The Mets fell a season-worst 11 games under .500 when they blew a ninth-inning lead to Arizona on June 2, and they were a ghastly mess.

The season could have spun completely out of control at that point and it would have been understandable because at that point the Mets did nothing well, and nothing right. They also fell a season-high 6 ½ games behind the final wild-card spot that day, a significant number even for early June since there were eight teams between them and the wild card.

We can have good fun at the expense of the three wild-card system (and will in a paragraph or two), but when you’re a terrible team not even the promise of three consolation prizes mean very much. There hasn’t been one second of false hope this year for White Sox or Rockies fans, for instance, and on June 2 Mets fans were easily shuffled into that crew.

Now? Look, not long ago we wrote about the 35-game stretch that was going to take the Mets a few days past the All-Star break that featured 33 games against teams at or below .500. Now the caveat, of course, is that all of those losing teams were hungrily eyeing their games with the Mets every bit as much.

But now, nine games in, the Mets are 7-2 as they head to Wrigley Field and the Cubs, who are one percentage point higher than the 35-38 Mets at 36-39.

There’s a lot of work to do, and a lot of season left, and the delicate balance of a season always offers silent warning that a six-game losing streak might be awaiting you.

Now … a few words about the wild card.

And look, there are still a lot of baseball fans who pine for the days when only first-place teams made the postseason. And that was, for the longest time, a calling card that baseball held all to itself. Then they added a wild card in each league. Then another. And another.

It’s still rare when a whole season plays itself out with a team qualifying for the playoffs when it spent the first 158 or so games wondering if it would even finish above .500.

All these years later, the ’73 Mets — who finished 82-79, who as late as the final week were dealing with the possibility of a five-way playoff in the NL East — are still tied for the playoff team with the fewest regular-season wins ever (with the 82-80 ’05 Padres).

It’s interesting to note that those teams — along with the ’06 Cardinals, at 83-79 — were all division winners, all first-place teams. The worst-ever wild-card teams were last year’s 84-78 Diamondbacks and Marlins.

Right now, there’s the Braves with a comfortable 5 ¹/₂-game lead in the wild card. Then there are those nine teams — Cards, Nats, Padres, D-backs, Pirates, Cubs, Giants, Mets and Reds — separated by 1 ½ games, vying for the last two slots.

Now, is this absurd? Probably. It’s also likely that one of those teams will have a coming stretch where they go 20-5 and probably sneak securely into the second wild card. But those teams are all awfully similar to each other, too, and not just the records. This could be a crazy inching to the finish line, if not eight teams then surely five.

Is that absurd? Maybe. But if you happen to root for the team that does squeeze in at, say, 81-81, will you think it’s so absurd?

Unlikely.