It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. This is great advice for athletes and the common person when visiting a buffet. The New York Mets definitely had a strong finish over the weekend against the Los Angeles Dodgers. After dropping the first two and putting members of the fan base into panic mode, they came back and won the last two.
We saw the Mets go cold. We saw them heat up again.
The weekend series that could be viewed as a playoff preview featured some of the Mets’ greatest strengths and weaknesses. From those four games, a pair of strengths and one weakness stood out most.
The Mets showed their strength of resilience yet again
By losing the first two games and coming back to win the second two, the Mets showed a lot of resilience. This has been a theme for the team all year long. They’ve been the comeback kids nearly all year long and never more so on Sunday when they could have folded.
The Mets were down 2-1 for most of the day before scoring three times in the eighth. A Seth Lugo blown save in the ninth brought the game into extras. In the tenth, a J.D. Davis double gave them the lead and a victory leading to a series split.
The Mets had two opportunities to lose this finale. They could have been satisfied with their win on Saturday. Going into Los Angeles and taking one out of four isn’t bad. But nope. They wanted at least two. After Lugo blew it, the Mets could have conceded and not marched on. That’s not in the mission statement of this year’s team. They want to capture every win.
It’s one thing to win a game late against the Philadelphia Phillies bullpen. It’s a whole different story to do it on a Sunday afternoon on the road versus the mighty Dodgers.
Mets players aren’t illiterate but I’d be none know how to spell quit.