New York Mets need to wake up for good before September ends

The New York Mets finished August with two wins. Now in the final month, it’s time to wake up before September ends.

If you fell asleep on the New York Mets over the last week or so, you missed a 180-degree turn in how the season was going. After sweeping the Cleveland Indians at Citi Field to begin an important homestand, the Mets dropped three straight to the Atlanta Braves then another trio of games to the Chicago Cubs.

Heading into their series against the Philadelphia Phillies, the Mets were five games out of the second Wild Card spot and only a single win above .500 baseball.

What happened here?

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During the weekend series against Atlanta, I spent some time down at the Jersey Shore escaping the baseball world for at least a few days. Hoping to beat the Labor Day weekend rush of Staten Islanders, I accepted the Mets’ fate against one of the best teams in baseball. They finished up the series with a week performance led by an absent offense.

Throughout this poor stretch of baseball, it has been the offense’s inability to put up consistent numbers which given the doubters a reason to crawl out of their caves.

Among fans of the Flushing 25, there are the eternally optimistic and hard-headed pessimists. Both sides are unwavering in what they believe this team can do—usually citing the ownership as an issue. Ownership isn’t to blame here. The players just aren’t performing at their best.

Meaningful baseball returned to Flushing this summer. Almost immediately after the All-Star Break, the Mets began to play the kind of baseball many knew they had in them.

The starting pitchers delivered. The best players on offense continued to produce. And to the surprise of many, the bullpen dumpster fire went out.

They aren’t playing terrible baseball right now. They still battle back in games which began as blowouts. In many of their losses, they are a rally away from getting back in it.

Unfortunately, there’s no reward for a positive run differential. Losing one-run games gets them nowhere in the standings. When the game goes final, they need more runs than the other team.

It’s the final month of the regular season and the Mets have been anything but sleepless in Citi Field. Two victories in Philadelphia to end August may have been exactly what they needed. It took them late into Friday’s affair before waking up. We’ll see if their eyes shut.

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Their second-half magic still has some juice. In the immortal altered words of Green Day, the Mets need to wake up before September ends.