As the Mets enter the sixth week of the season and their second visit to Philadelphia, only eight teams in the majors, four in the NL and four in the AL, have won more games than Terry Collins’ club.
Most people would have expected 18 teams to have a better record than the Mets at this point. The Yankees and Mets have identical 15-13 records. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.
As a reward for their limited success the Mets get to face Roy Halladay and the Phillies tonight at Citizens Bank Park and then Cliff Lee on Wednesday.
The Mets are 10-5 against the NL East, including a 7-2 division record at home. For the first time this season R.A. Dickey and Johan Santana have posted back-to-back victories after Dickey’s superb eight-inning knuckleball performance in the Mets’ 3-1 win yesterday over the Diamondbacks at Citi Field, a game played in a tidy two hours and 16 minutes.
This was 1959 and Hoyt Wilhelm.
Of course, nothing is ever simple for the Mets. Young shortstop Ruben Tejada, who replaced Jose Reyes, the often-injured shortstop who raced off to Miami, did a face plant at first base after a beautiful bunt single in the fourth inning and came up with a strained quad and bruised ego. Things could go downhill quickly for the Mets.
But for now they are holding on.
“I personally think we’re a fun team to watch, and a lot of good things can happen,’’ catcher Josh Thole told The Post after driving in one of the three runs with a fourth-inning single.
The other two were driven in by Daniel Murphy. In a fascinating scene three hours before the game, Murphy was offering some hitting tips to Thole in front of Thole’s locker.
“When I walk down the street, people are saying, ‘Hey, keep going, you guys are playing hard,’ ” Thole said. “You appreciate hearing that, and when you show the fans that you care and have passion, that’s all they are asking for.’’
Wins help, too, and the Mets have been putting up just enough to keep from falling into the abyss. This game got interesting in the ninth when Dickey walked the leadoff hitter, gave up a run-scoring double and was replaced by Tim Byrdak.
The lefty got Jason Kubel to fly to the wall in left. Closer Frank Francisco came on and got a strikeout before the game ended with a towering fly by Miguel Montero that Lucas Duda engulfed in front of the right-field wall.
Francisco makes it exciting, but at least he’s healthy. Nine teams have lost their closers to injury this season, and the Marlins demoted Heath Bell, so in that respect, the Mets are ahead of the game as Francisco picked up his seventh save. If not for the bullpen blowing Friday night’s game in the eighth inning, the Mets would have swept the Diamondbacks.
Jon Niese meets Halladay tonight. Then the Mets chose to give journeyman Miguel Batista the ball tomorrow instead of offering an emergency start to young Matt Harvey. The Triple-A right-hander is not close to being ready for such an assignment, they say.
The offensively-challenged Phillies have their own issues. All in all, this is an important week for the Mets with a visit to the Marlins after the trip to Philadelphia. For now, the Phillies and Marlins are looking up at the Mets, but that could flip-flop quickly.
Murphy, who batted fifth, is hitting much better since moving to the middle of the order, going 7-for-12 in the series. He told me that is because of an adjustment he made with hitting coach Dave Hudgens three days ago.
“I feel confident right now,’’ Murphy said. “We’re playing well. We’ve done a good job of learning from the mistakes we’ve made.’’
These Mets will continue to make mistakes.
“But we feel like we can compete, we have competed and we’ll continue to try to play good baseball,’’ Murphy added.
If they don’t, the good vibes will be gone in an instant.
kevin.kernan@nypost.com