OK. At the top, let’s make sure we get a few things straight:
1. The Mets are on the periphery of the National League wild-card race. They are not yet what you would call in the wild-card race.
2. The Mets are on the periphery of the National League wild-card race. They are not yet what you would call out of the wild-card race.
3. The Mets aren’t likely to win the wild card.
4. That isn’t to say they can’t win the wild card.
OK. Now let’s take a look at a few things about precisely where the Mets are, now that they’ve dealt away their closer and their best everyday player, now that they head back East for a three-game stopover in Washington, after sweeping away Cincinnati.
They are in third place in the NL East, a couple of miles behind the uncatchable Phillies, and, after their 10-9 thrill-ride of a win over the Reds and the Braves’ 5-2 loss to the Pirates, 6½ games behind Atlanta. Between them and the Braves sit the Diamondbacks (three up in the loss column), and whichever two you’d like to pick among the Pirates, Cardinals and Brewers (two up).
Those are daunting odds. They are improbable odds
They are not impossible odds.
Nevertheless: What you are asking for when the calendar bleeds from July to August is hope, a reason to watch, a reason to care, a reason to believe. You do not want to be the Astros (35 games under .500, 21½ games out in the standings) or the Cubs (21 under, 14½ back) or the Dodgers (10 under, 13½ back) or the Padres (14 under, 15½ back).
Those are impossible odds.
The Mets? Let’s forget for a moment that the Mets, and their fans, of all fans, know that 7 ½ games — the deficit they faced at the start of business yesterday — is not insurmountable; in 2007, the Mets themselves proved just how very surmountable 7½ games is. Let’s forget for now that the Mets are going to ask Lucas Duda and probably Scott Hairston to keep up a Carlos Beltran imitation for the next 57 games.
And let’s just forget, for now, how daunting the task is, how improbable.
These are the things we do know: After 105 games, it is clear that the Mets buy into what manager Terry Collins is selling. They believe they’re still in the race. Willie Harris’ playful-but-pointed rallying cry to meet and beat Carlos Beltran in October may not yet have the masses stirred into the lather Tug McGraw created with “Ya Gotta Believe” in 1973, but it does reveal a distinct strain of character in the clubhouse that has sustained them for four months when they never did (and now never will) play even one game with their A-team lineup on the field together.
You know something? It may be worth looking at that 1973 team for a second. Exactly 38 years ago today, July 29, 1973, the Mets lost to the Expos, 6-4. They fell to 44-54 on the season, last place, nine games behind the first-place Cardinals, and it got worse. By Aug. 5, they were 12 under, 11½ games out, five teams sitting between themselves and St. Louis. We know how that turned out.
Let’s look back a little closer: 10 years ago, the 2001 Mets, who on this date were 49-57, in fourth place, 11½ games out of a playoff slot. That also got worse. By Aug. 17 they were 54-68, 14½ games out, six teams sitting between them and a playoff slot. Yet by the season’s final 14 games, they were one blown Armando Benitez save away from crawling within two games in the loss column.
Point? General manager Sandy Alderson had a fiduciary responsibility not to get caught up in what-ifs and how-abouts and such, and he didn’t. But you are under no such duty. This is your team: six out in the loss column, nine weeks to play. You pick up a game a week on the Braves — who are black and blue right now, by the way — and, well . . .
Hey. You are allowed to hope, and you still have hope. Isn’t that what this is supposed to be about?