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Well, we can thank Justin Verlander for derailing one distinction that would have made this weekend’s latest renewal of the Subway Series extra compelling:
Had Mike Pelfrey figured out a way to nurse that early 1-0 lead, if he hadn’t blown past 400 pitches by the third inning, and if the Mets had managed to squeeze a sweep out of their trip to Detroit, both the Mets and the Yankees would’ve brought matching five-game winning streaks to Citi Field this weekend.
Fact: The hottest these teams have ever been, together, heading into a Subway Series is . . . well, not very hot at all. In the 15 years they’ve been playing this series, both teams have brought winning streaks into the showdown only three times: 1998, 2000 (when each were on brief two-game bursts), and earlier this year, when the Yankees had won three in a row and the Mets two straight.
Still, unless Verlander’s cooling of the Mets’ bats translates into a deep-freeze across the weekend, this remains the highest-level collision point the teams have ever reached before squaring off with each other.
The Yankees have won five in a row, 15 out of 19, and just completed an 18-8 June that leaves them 2 1/2 games clear of anyone else in the American League. The Mets have won four out of five, six out of eight, enjoyed their own relatively robust June (16-11) and are 36-27 since April 20, the third-best record in the National League since then (though it’s to their great misfortune that Philadelphia and Atlanta are 1-2).
So, for one of the few times in this series, both the Mets and the Yankees have some serious traction under their spikes as they prepare for each other. But if both have a full head of momentum, a serious burst of steam, they enter this series from decidedly different ports of call.
The Yankees have put themselves in an enviable spot by pasting the patsies of interleague, by taking four out of six in Chicago and Cincinnati and five out of six at home against the Rockies and Brewers. If the Red Sox are still a stone in their shoe, it seems unlikely that a third team — even the ever-feisty Rays — will have enough to keep the two titans of the AL East away from the postseason.
The Mets are the intriguing case here. They lost a half-game to the Braves yesterday, sit five out in the loss column, a more-than-manageable distance especially since they have lately leapfrogged four other teams in the crowded NL wild-card pile. But the funny thing about the loss column is this: It can get away from you in a hurry, especially when you’re in the midst of the swath of schedule the Mets are.
Already they’ve chiseled off six games against the Tigers and Rangers — both of whom were in first place at the start of their series — and won four. Up next are the Yankees, with the second-best record in baseball, and after four road games in Los Angeles, the Mets bookend the All-Star Game with three at first-place San Francisco and three at home against the first-place Phillies.
By the time the Phillies leave town on July 17 — exactly two weeks before the trade deadline — the Mets will know for good precisely what their season will be about. And it’s worth mentioning that while the Mets will be playing nine of these coming 13 games against teams whose present combined records are 145-98 (all but three on the road), the Braves enjoy 10 of their next 13 against the Orioles, Rockies and Nationals (all of them at home) — a combined 114-124.
The carrot is this: If the Mets can survive these 13 games — and “survive,” given how the Braves and Phillies are playing, has to mean a minimum of 9-4, which would leave them at 50-44 on July 17 — they will spend much of the rest of the season at home, with 37 of their final 68 games at Citi Field.
That’s when the Mets could use the kind of momentum they carry into this weekend, momentum they could really use by the end of the weekend.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com