SAN DIEGO — Before the Mets headed their separate ways Sunday for the All-Star break, manager Terry Collins addressed the team.
“We’ve got a whole half to go,” Collins said he told the players. “We’ve played great and let’s just continue with all the things we’re supposed to be doing. Pitching, situational hitting, we are catching the baseball, so just continue it.”
By “continue,” the manager’s point of reference was the 10 games the Mets played heading into the break, in which they went 8-2 at home and breathed some life into a season on life support.
But when the Mets’ season resumes Friday night at Petco Park against the Padres, the task ahead will still be formidable. Just climbing back to .500 and remaining at that level or above will be challenging enough for the third-place Mets (45-50), never mind catching the Nationals and Braves, who each lead them by seven games in the NL East.
The wild card is an even bigger long shot, with the Mets, who are seven games behind in that race, needing to leapfrog five teams.
Collins is by no means dismissing these next 10 games on the road against the Padres, Mariners and Brewers, but realizes the Mets’ fortunes will largely be determined by how they perform within the NL East.
“We’ve got 67 games to go and we’ve got 39 in our division,” Collins said. “If we end up having a good record against our division, I think we’re going to be in the mix at the end.”
Instead of holding a workout Thursday when the team arrived in town, Collins planned to defer it until early Friday afternoon. The manager said he probably rushed his players back from the All-Star break last year, when he held a Thursday workout, and the fact the Mets were crushed 13-8 by the Phillies the following night stuck with Collins.
In the 10 games heading into this year’s break, the Mets averaged 5.4 runs. In the previous 85 games, they averaged 3.9 runs. Maybe the biggest question now facing the Mets is: Will the good times continue offensively?
“I can’t tell the future,” Daniel Murphy said at the All-Star Game. “I hope it does. We’re having good at-bats. I’m not reading anymore into it than that.
“When Lucas Duda walks up there, he’s having really good at-bats.
When Juan Lagares walks up there with runners on second and third and nobody out, he hits a missile right at the second baseman to get the run in and move the guy over. We’re kind of feeding off each other in the way the at-bats are going and we’re just stringing them together.”
In the bigger picture, Collins has to manage a young bullpen — led by young flame-throwers Jenrry Mejia, Jeurys Familia and Vic Black — that looked to be on fumes as the first half ended.
Familia, in particular, needed extra time off last week after struggling to get loose for an appearance.
“Are they overworked? Hell, I won’t know that until the end of August,” Collins said. “That last month of the season is when, those guys who are in the big leagues for that first full season, some of that stuff starts to show up.
“The fatigue, the pressure of 145 games at that time and you can start to see it … because their minor league seasons would have been over and they’re still playing. So how they handle that situation will determine how that last month will go. But I feel great about the way we’ve played and the way we’re going to start the second half.”