David Wright’s fly ball in the fourth inning seemed destined for the stands down the left-field line in foul territory.
Instead, the ball improbably stayed fair for an unlikely home run — about as unexpected an occurrence as a Mets four-game winning streak would have seemed a week ago.
“I’ll take it,” Wright said of his second dinger of the ballgame.
So will the Mets, who managed to close their homestand by sweeping the woeful Diamondbacks with yesterday’s 8-4 win.
They also hit three homers in a game on two different occasions. They’re now 9-13 after starting the season an MLB-worst 5-13.
It’s been just as much a turn-around for Wright as it’s been for his team.
After a career-worst 0-for-20 slide, the third baseman has multi-hit games in three of his last four games and seems to have gotten past the frustration he expressed earlier in the homestand, when several hard-hit balls turned into outs.
Manager Terry Collins said of Wright’s second homer, “I didn’t think that could happen here.”
Perhaps Wright should take his cues from Ike Davis, who said before yesterday’s game: “It’s like beating your head against a wall.”
“Why do it?” Davis said. “You can’t let it affect the way you play, because you have to play here every day.”
Wright said the size of the park wasn’t in his head.
“I don’t think you’re gonna beat the park psychologically,” said Wright, who crushed his first home run in the first inning, to left.
“You put good swings on it, and some days they’re gonna go out and sometimes they’re not.”
Yesterday was a day when they did, as Jason Pridie hit his first major-league homer and the Mets provided plenty of offense for Jon Niese — who improved to 1-3.
It helped that the Mets gave the lefty a 6-0 lead after three.
Now they head out on a six-game trip to Washington and Philadelphia, playing better than they have all season.
And maybe when they return, their home field won’t be quite as intimidating as it’s seemed to be at times.
“The first year, it was almost in everyone’s head that the ballpark was big and it was gonna be hard to hit the ball out of park,” said Carlos Beltran.
“I believe it got into everyone’s head. But you get used to it. I think no one thinks about it anymore.”
Games like yesterday’s can’t hurt, even though Beltran hit a shot to deep right that fell for a double in a four-run third.
Just as important was Niese’s performance. He snapped a personal eight-start winless streak dating back to Sept. 12 of last year.
His seven-inning outing (six hits, three runs, two earned) was the sixth in a row by a Mets starting pitcher that lasted at least six innings.
“I felt a lot more comfortable,” Niese said. “I took my time more today, and that helped out a lot.”
And just like that, the Mets have gone from playing awful baseball to looking pretty impressive. Even the players don’t quite know what the difference is.
“There’s not one word to explain it, just people got caught up in trying to do too much,” Beltran said. “Now, I don’t think anyone is thinking about anything.”