We are still in the early furlongs of a long, long race, and it seems physically impossible for Mets fans to contain themselves. Eleven in a row will do that to you. You don’t luck your way into 11 in a row. You don’t fluke your way through them.
It isn’t an accident that from 1962 to 1987, the three Mets teams that enjoyed the three highest winning percentages — 1969 (.617), 1972 (.532) and 1986 (.667) — all happened to enjoy long winning streaks that helped fuel those surges. It so happens that all three streaks were 11 games in length.
“What we’re learning is that it’s fun to come to the ballpark when you’re winning, when you’re playing well, when you’re taking advantage of other teams’ mistakes and when you’re making them pay — the way they used to make us pay. And I think we can be even better.”
That was Tommie Agee on the night of June 10, 1969, when he hit two home runs and drove in three runs in a 9-4 win over the Giants at old Candlestick Park, the ’69 Mets’ 11th win in a row, a streak that not only catapulted the Mets into the thick of the NL East race, it announced their legitimacy after a long period of fraudulence.
Does that sound familiar?
Does this?
“This has been so much fun. It’s good to see good baseball being played, capitalizing on mistakes, limiting our mistakes. And here’s the thing: We haven’t even been clicking on all cylinders yet in offense. That could all be ahead of us.”
That was Michael Cuddyer on Thursday afternoon, after he had scored two runs and driven in another in a 6-3 win over the Braves at frosty Citi Field, the ’15 Mets 11th win a row, a streak that has catapulted the Mets 4 ½ games in front in the NL East (by far the biggest division lead in baseball) and, who knows, may well announce …
You get the idea.
“We know we won’t win ’em all. But we’d like to see how many of ’em we can win.”
That was Davey Johnson on the evening of April 30, 1986, at old Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, after Dwight Gooden had thrown eight innings of six-hit ball to stifle the Braves, 8-1, to polish off an 11th straight win for the ’86 Mets, to push their nascent lead in the NL East after 16 games to five.
And this was Terry Collins late Thursday afternoon, after Bartolo Colon three six innings of three-run, seven hit ball, enough to stifle the Braves: “We’ll have some blips, some hiccups. But we’ll also be resilient when those things happen, as they inevitably will.”
It is an odd time to be a manager of a team like these Mets, because the last thing you want to do is be a daily buzzkill, the equivalent of the court spokesman in medieval times tailing the king and reminding him: “Remember thou art mortal … remember thou art mortal …”
On the other hand, when you have worked as long as Collins has and you finally get a stretch like this where the hitting is clutch, the pitching fabulous, the bullpen sturdy and every single ball is bouncing your way … what are you supposed to do? Apologize for it?
“We’re getting runs when we need ’em,” Collins said. “And our pitching has been awfully good.”
Yes: It is only 16 games. The Jets will sign up for 13-3, and so will the Giants. The Mets? This is what this means in tangible terms: One-tenth of the way in, they are as good as any team in baseball. And yes: With nine-tenths of a season to go, there is plenty of room and plenty of space for the narrative to change, for opponents to stop kicking the ball around and issuing walk after walk after walk.
Still: Not every team wins 11 in a row. It is no accident that two of the three Mets teams that have won that many are the franchise’s only two champions, and that the other one, the ’72 team, was 31-12 and five games clear of the East on June 3 when Brave (and future Met) George Stone plunked Rusty Staub (off to an MVP-caliber start) on the hand, sidelining him for almost three months.
Have the Mets taken advantage of bad teams? Maybe. But the ’69 Mets feasted on the 110-loss Padres in their streak, and the ’72 team beat the 59-97 Phillies four times during theirs, and the ’86 team clobbered the 98-loss Pirates plenty during the streak, and went 17-1 against them all year.
Part of being a good team is beating the bad ones. A bigger part of being a good team is learning how to actually be good. Lots of work ahead for the Mets, starting with three fascinating games this weekend against the equally smoking-hot Yankees. But lots of good work already. You don’t win a title this early, of course. But maybe you can learn if you even have it in you.