Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff

MLB

5 reasons why the Mets can be a factor down the stretch

It almost certainly won’t be immortalized alongside Tug McGraw’s “Ya gotta believe!” of 1973, or even Bobby Valentine’s 1999 public proclamation he should be fired if the Mets couldn’t turn their season around in the subsequent 55 games.

But Terry Collins has been checking in with his players individually, as he typically does, and he has shared a common message that is the seedling of a slogan.

“I said, ‘Right now, we’ve had a nice July,’ ” Collins told The Post on Tuesday. “ ‘We put together a good August and good September, who the hell knows where we’ll be?’ ”

“Who the hell knows?” has a nice, blue-collar vibe to it. First, of course, the Mets, who are 14-10 in July with one game left, have to put together a good August and good September — hardly a guarantee. All the more so because they don’t appear likely to make a major addition by Thursday’s non-waivers trading deadline.

Their 6-0 loss to the Phillies on Tuesday at Citi Field notwithstanding, the Mets are trending upward. If you squint hard enough and brush aside enough concerns, you can talk yourself into believing that this team possesses a chance to stay relevant deep into the schedule.

The Mets (51-56) trail the Pirates, who leapfrogged the Giants with a win in San Francisco on Tuesday night, by 6 ¹/₂ games in the competition for the National League’s second wild-card spot. In an even longer shot, they trail the Nationals (57-47) by 7 ¹/₂ games in the NL East.

In honor of captain David Wright’s uniform number, and also in honor of the fact we often include exactly five items in a list like this one, here are five reasons to believe in these Mets:

For Starters…

The Mets are tied with Washington for fifth in the NL in quality-start percentage (61 percent) and rank fifth in overall quality starts (65). More often than not, their starters have kept them in games.

Dillon Gee lost his third straight start Tuesday, although he could have notched a quality start had Josh Edgin entered in the seventh, with two outs and the bases loaded, and retired Chase Utley. Instead, Utley smashed a game-sealing grand slam. Nevertheless, this marked improvement for Gee, the Mets’ starting rotation Achilles’ heel as of late.

Something Owed

David Wright has a .275/.335/.398 slash line. He has tallied a lower batting average just once (.254 in 2011), a lower on-base percentage just once (.332 in his rookie season 2004), and a lower slugging percentage never. He owns a .196/.260/.217 line since the All-Star break.

“I felt good before the All-Star break,” Wright said before Tuesday’s game. “Then, post All-Star break, I felt pretty good. I got off to a slow start. And then you start pressing a little bit. It seems like hit some balls were hit hard right at people. Then you start trying to tamper with some things in your swing. … All of a sudden you feel lost at the plate. That’s the kind of thing I’ve been going through the last couple of weeks.”

Curtis Granderson, too, emerged slowly from the break (.171/.256/.314) before going 2-for-4 with a pair of singles Tuesday night.

That’s Deep

Against tough Phillies lefty Cole Hamels on Tuesday, Collins could rest his en fuego, lefty-hitting first baseman Lucas Duda and start righty-hitting Eric Campbell, who delivered a pair of singles.

Meanwhile, remember the days of the Mets being terrified to bring leads late into games, due to their awful bullpen? They’re long gone, Edgin’s slip-up Tuesday notwithstanding.

“The bullpen, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen three young guys get it as fast as these three guys have got it,” Collins said of Vic Black, Jeurys Familia and Jenrry Mejia.

Confrontations and Walkovers

“You get caught in, ‘Well we lost tonight, the Nationals won, woe is us,’ [baloney!],” Collins said. “We play them 13 times. We can take care of that ourselves.”

The Mets do play Washington 13 more times, amazingly. More realistically, they play the Giants four times at Citi Field this weekend. And mixed in with such “Controlling our destiny” foes are some bad teams: Nine games with the Phillies, six with the Marlins, four with the Cubs, three with the Rockies and three with the Astros.

The Math

Yup, you hate when Sandy Alderson mentions run differential. Yet the Mets have started to live up to their positive differential since Alderson brought it up again earlier this month. They now have 412 runs scored and 407 allowed, indicating they could have more breaks headed their way.

Who the hell knows? No one. But the Mets might not be boring here in the stretch drive, which would mark a pleasant change for their remaining supporters.