The Mets are still five games under .500 and only in third place in the NL East, but their hot streak heading into the All-Star break has them thinking big.
Following Sunday’s 9-1 rout of the Marlins, their third straight victory and seventh in eight games, David Wright said he believes the Mets can even catch front-runners Atlanta and Washington.
“I think that’s the mind-set,” Wright said after the Mets completed the sweep and an 8-2 homestand with the help of a four-run eighth.
“That Braves series gave us a lot of confidence. We know that they’re both very talented teams with a lot of household names. We might not be there yet, but we’re playing very good baseball. We plan on giving them a run for their money.”
They will open the second half in San Diego trailing both the Braves and Nationals by seven games, hoping for more performances like the one they got out of Jacob deGrom against the Marlins.
The rookie right-hander was excellent for a second consecutive start, this time holding a horrid-looking Miami team to one run over seven innings, despite not having his best fastball.
The lone run he surrendered was the product of shaky defense as much as anything, as a two-out fly ball by Garrett Jones turned into a double when second baseman Eric Campbell and right fielder Curtis Granderson failed to come up with it. Casey McGehee then scored from third on Marcell Ozuna’s infield hit to Ruben Tejada at shortstop.
So while he wasn’t as dominant as he was against Atlanta, when he tossed seven shutout innings and fanned 11, deGrom was good enough to go seven innings again and strike out eight.
The Mets intend to limit his innings, but aren’t ready to make any moves yet, since that likely would entail shifting him to the bullpen. And that won’t happen until later in the season, at the earliest.
Even Wright admitted to being somewhat surprised by deGrom’s effectiveness.
“Jake came up here a little under the radar,” Wright said. “You heard about the [Noah] Syndergaards, the [Zack] Wheelers and Steven Matz have been getting a lot of attention and [Rafael] Montero, but you never really heard too much about deGrom. He’s seized the opportunity.”
Not just on the mound. His run-scoring single in the fourth gave the Mets the lead after the Marlins walked Tejada intentionally with Chris Young on second and two out. DeGrom came through with his first RBI.
Given deGrom’s success with the bat since being in the majors, the walk of Tejada didn’t seem routine, but Miami manager Mike Redmond didn’t sound as if he regretted the decision.
“I was hoping to get the pitcher out,” Redmond said. “That was the mind-set.”
The Mets also added a run in the sixth, when Granderson scored on Wright’s double after home plate umpire Paul Schreiber was overruled because Granderson appeared to be interfered with on the basepaths by second baseman Ed Lucas.
Now the Mets are off until Friday, when they open a 10-game trip with a series against the Padres.
“We’re not happy with the record,” Terry Collins said. “Not by any [stretch] of the imagination, but we’ve got a lot of games left and if we go out and play like we did this homestand, we’ll get back in the hunt.”
Of course, the Mets have teased their fan base before.
“We’ve shown the last 10 days that we can compete,” Collins said. “Now we’ve got 67 more games, we’ve got to go out and do it. We can’t just talk about it. If we continue to play like this, September is going to be a fun month.”