By every emotional measure — your eyes, your ears and maybe your hearts, depending on your loyalties — the 2014 Mets are more finished than the Sony Walkman. A hard-fought, 3-1 victory over the terrible Padres Sunday at Citi Field, characterized as much by offensive ineptitude as bullpen fortitude, won’t change your thinking.
The math says otherwise, and it’s on the Mets to live up to their own numerical reality. To not pass up a gift from the baseball gods, and to realize they aren’t as awful as they first appear, while they hit the road.
“Every little bit can definitely help you in a big way,” said Curtis Granderson, who homered and reached base four times in his debut as the Mets’ leadoff hitter, as well as his return from a left calf injury. “[We can] carry things to this road trip that we’ve got going. … To get a series victory after being split going into it. All positive things that we can hopefully build upon.”
“These guys, they endure,” manager Terry Collins said. “They don’t let stuff get to them.”
These guys are now 31-38 after taking two of three from San Diego to record their first series victory in four tries. That’s lousy. Less lousy, however, is that they trail the National League East-leading Braves by five-and-a-half games, six in the loss column. The second wild-card spot loomed five games out in the loss column, with both Washington and Miami at 35-33. Parity serves as the Mets’ greatest ally.
And then there’s the run differential that numbers geeks, some of whom work for the Mets and others of whom write for The Post (well, at least one — it’s me) like to cite. The Mets have scored 269 runs and allowed 275 this season, which means that their record should be closer to 34-35. They’re due a few breaks, yet they aren’t guaranteed.
This could have been the ugliest of Father’s Days for the Mets, who badly needed a victory to close out their homestand at 3-3 after losing nine of their previous 11 games. Instead, they hit their gross-out apex when starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka puked up his breakfast in the bullpen and responded to the crisis when the right-hander checked out after just one inning.
Maybe the Mets will eventually pay the price for asking Carlos Torres to throw four innings for the win and Jenrry Mejia two for the save; Torres now leads the National League with 44 ²/₃ relief frames, and Mejia began the day as a disabled list candidate with lower back stiffness. This sure felt like a must-win game, though — Collins used the phrase “with the way things have gone here lately” — so you give the manager the benefit of the doubt for now.
The Mets left home stabilized, but hardly steady. They start a three-game series Monday night in St. Louis against the defending NL champion Cardinals, then have a four-game set in Miami, where they always seem to struggle, against the Marlins. They’ll be back home for just two games with dangerous Oakland (just ask the Yankees) June 24-25 before going on the road again for four games in Pittsburgh and three more in Atlanta.
They expect Eric Young Jr. to rejoin them off the disabled list Monday, and a bullpen move, if not more than one, seems likely after Sunday’s victory by committee. Dillon Gee (right shoulder blade) will meet up with the club in Miami, since he’s rehabilitating in nearby Port St. Lucie at the Mets’ minor-league complex, and the team hopes the right-hander isn’t too far away from returning, either.
Granderson looks like he’s on one of his Yankees hot streaks, only with less slugging and more getting on base. The Mets probably should stop worrying about trying to get shortstop starts for Wilmer Flores, since he has an ugly .232/.264/.304 slash line while Ruben Tejada stands at .229/.340/.307 and possesses the superior glove.
More than anything, the Mets still need to improve offensively in the clutch. They scored two quick runs while putting men on second and third with no outs in the first inning against Padres starter (and former Yankee) Ian Kennedy, and that pair — Bobby Abreu and David Wright — never advanced. In the sixth, the Mets loaded the bases with two outs, only for Wright to pop out to right field. The team went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
“Today, we had great opportunities to blow this game open,” Collins said. “We’ve got to start blowing some games open, because it’s going to take a lot of pressure off a lot of people.”
Starting with Collins himself. He and his team still have life. They’ll retain it only if they start playing better quickly.