The calendar was a liar.
It was late September, not the first week of August, in Queens on Sunday night.
The pomp, the circumstance, the hype, the loud, spontaneous chants “Let’s Go Mets” that consumed Citi Field from the moment the Mets took the field, even before knocking those three home runs over the wall in the third inning, the standing ovation in the eighth inning for pinch-hitter Wilmer Flores, the derisive ditties aimed at Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth … these were the sounds and sights of pennant race baseball.
Or, as Daniel Murphy, the longest-tenured Met on the active roster, said following his team’s 5-2 defeat of the Nationals that completed a three-game sweep that propelled the club into a virtual first-place tie with Washington: “In my experience at this stadium, it was unique … a lot of fun.”
This was a night of celebration, even as everyone understood that nothing has yet truly been accomplished. Nothing, other than the restoration of pride in a franchise that has masqueraded as big-market entertainment for most of the preceding six seasons (and parts of this one, Wednesday and Thursday, cough, cough).
“I’ve got to tell you, this is my first experience with a New York crowd and what it’s like here and the energy they bring to the ballpark,” said Terry Collins, in his fifth year managing the ball club. “It’s unbelievable.”
The Mets’ limited success since their inception in 1962 — two World Series championships, two other National League pennants, three other playoff appearances, and just one player’s number (Tom Seaver’s 41) retired — has been built on pitching and this team’s modest success honors its ancestry.
One by one, Collins threw his power arms against the Nationals, first Matt Harvey, then Jacob deGrom and finally Noah Syndergaard. And one by one they made like Seaver, Koosman and Ryan; or Gooden, Darling and El Sid.
“Harvey and deGrom set the stage,” said Syndergaard, who retired 13 straight and 15 of the next 16 after Anthony Rendon clubbed one out to straightaway center to give the Nats a 1-0 lead two batters into the game, the rookie right-hander finishing his night with a flourish by striking out Bryce Harper swinging on a 99-mph two-seamer with one on in the eighth.
“That at-bat against Bryce, that shows the presence, poise and unbelievable fortitude he has,” said Collins, whose staff limited Harper to three singles and no RBIs in 13 at-bats in the series. “Guys were coming off the field shaking their heads.”
Thirty-five years after the Mets used “The Magic Is Back” as a marketing slogan, the magic was back in Queens. You could have closed your eyes and conjured Cleon grasping the final out in left field, or Keith and Ronnie winning games on the field rather than talking about them from the booth, or Piazza taking Clemens over the center-field wall.
Instead, it was Curtis Granderson and Murphy going back-to-back against Jordan Zimmermann for a 3-1 lead in the fifth two batters before Lucas Duda smashed his ninth homer in the last eight games to increase the lead to 5-1 and the cacophony grew exponentially into frenzy.
Once was the time that the team’s Wilpon ownership seemed to present as much an obstacle to a championship — or to even running in a pennant race — as the Nationals, Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers or Giants.
That was until last week, maybe even until just before Friday’s 4 p.m. trade deadline when general manager Sandy Alderson acquired marquee slugger Yoenis Cespedes from the Tigers after having previously obtained useful veteran bats Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson. All three were in the lineup.
Showdown. Showcase.
It is difficult to say whether the Mets had been more of a punch line or a punching bag for the Nationals over the last four years in taking one body blow after another while going 6-31 in their previous 37 meetings in Queens before this series commenced on Friday.
They’d been swept in four different three-game series and two different four-game sets. They were outscored 58-23 in going 1-9 at home last year after being outscored 25-5 in a four-game sweep in September 2013. There had been a four-game sweep in September 2011 by an aggregate 18-3.
But that is history, the kind that instructs that the Mets hadn’t held even a share of the division lead this late in a season since 2008, the final year at Shea, even as they are now percentage points back and a game down in the loss column.
Now, the Mets are no longer the flea on the elephant’s back, no longer the laughingstock that finished an aggregate 51 games behind Washington the last three years, in two of which the Nationals captured the division title.
Now, Citi Field is no longer the place where dreams either came to die or weren’t dreamed at all.
For so long, when the Nationals came calling, danger was at the door. Now, the Mets are the danger.
And this cannot be the first week of August.