For Mets, 'all but guaranteed' is NOT guaranteed
Mets manager Buck Showalter takes the ball from starting pitcher David Peterson after the Cubs scored four runs during the first inning of an MLB game at Citi Field on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Buck Showalter’s face contorted into something between a grimace and an eyeroll; he shook his head slowly. It may not be the reaction you’d expect from a manager being told his team is all but guaranteed to make the playoffs, but it made sense, in a way.
All but guaranteed based on what, Showalter asked.
Well, statisticians – the Mets have a greater than 99.9% chance of clinching a playoff berth, according to Baseball Reference. But his question seemed more philosophical in nature: In a sport that consistently obliterates the idea of certainty, who’s to say that anyone is guaranteed anything?
“Finishing a good season is hard,” he said before the Mets were swept by the lowly Cubs, 6-3 at Citi Field. “A season can move quickly and all of a sudden it inches by in September.”
Logic and a whole lot of math tells us the Mets will play past their regular-season finale on Oct. 5. But as they face this final stretch – the third-easiest remaining schedule in baseball, with all but six of their final games coming against sub-.500 teams – “making the playoffs” isn’t exactly the concern of the moment. No, as the Cubs piled on the runs against David Peterson in the first inning Wednesday, a different issue surfaced.
Despite the schedule and despite the favorable conditions, the Mets have scrambled in this three-game series against a team that came into the week 24 games under .500. The offense, so good at stringing together hits and capitalizing on mistakes, has appeared nothing short of befuddled – pressing at the plate against one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball.
Minor misfortunes seemed large, bad calls felt insurmountable, and that near-certain playoff berth has been cold comfort.
“It’s human nature,” Showalter said. “You’ve got a deadline, you’re pressing to get it. It’s the way life is. Can you function when you have that sense of urgency? That’s the challenge.”
There are plenty of reasons this happens – the season is long, serpentine, and physically grueling. But the Mets are also facing a situation that’s largely novel for a franchise used to spending this month either fighting for its baseball life or contemplating offseason tee times. For the first time in a long time, they need to battle the human tendency to press fast forward over the drudgery of the next few weeks and avoid mentally parking themselves in a far-away land filled with champagne showers and home plate dogpiles.
That means mental discipline – a lot of it. It’s important they hone it now, and fast.
Sure, they have Atlanta to contend with, and the fight for the division does lend an extra layer to the proceedings. But the Mets are 5-7 in their last 12 games, all against losing teams, and, for maybe the first time this season, there was a certain finality to their deficits – a missing spark that made a comeback feel unlikely.
That’s not how you want to go into the postseason, and certainly not what got the Mets here: Entering Monday, they were .694 against sub-.500 teams, which was third-best in baseball.
“You can want it more than anyone on the field but if you don’t stay within yourself, it’s going to be a little hard to get it done,” said Francisco Lindor. “When you start trying to do a little too much and you’re not staying within yourself, that’s when, instead of failing seven out of 10, you fail eight out of 10, nine out of 10.”
And maybe that’s why Showalter doesn’t want to hear about playoff probability. Or about the strength of their remaining schedule. The duality of this sport means it's as unpredictable as it is routine, and it does no good for players to get too far ahead of themselves. That type of thing makes it hard to overcome early holes or to compensate for small mistakes. And even if a loss to the Cubs won’t cost the Mets the division, a loss of confidence can. It can cost them a lot more than that, too.
Of course, a lot of good teams have had bad Septembers and very good Octobers. But that’s a trend, not a rule.
“If it was so predictive, it would be boring,” Showalter said. “Anybody who sits up here and says this is going to happen and that’s going to happen, you lose me at hello, because nobody knows.”
So, for the record, there’s a fraction of a percentage point that says the Mets don’t make the playoffs. They need to start playing like it again.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
