Today feels different. It's a feeling that hasn't been around since that 8 game winning streak earlier this year. The Mets have returned to being exciting. It's like a buzz in the air. Pure anticipation for each game. No longer is it “oh no, here we go again” its now “yeah! let's get this game started!” Its gone from “ugh I don't want to look at the box score” to “20 hours between games is too long!”.
Earlier this week, the question was proposed here if the series against the Yankees could be considered a possible turning point for the season. So far there really have been two turning points, the Ike Davis Call-Up Homestand, and then that was directly followed by the abysmal series in Philly.
I think its worthwhile to interrupt my own thought here and explain how I'm defining turning point. These Mets have proved to be real streaky players. Therefore normally in a season you have one or two turning points, tops. This season though, we are going to have a lot of “turning points”. Maybe it might be better to think of this in math terms, as critical points, or points where the behavior of a function changes from positive to negative or negative to positive. However, the word critical carries too much weight, and so does turning, but for sake of keeping myself sane, I'm going to refer to them as turning points, but think of them as mathematical critical points.
So anyway, earlier this week I said I would reserve judgement as to this being a turning point of the season until after the series with Philly. Now I think its safe to say that is a very important point for this season. The Mets were coming off of a terrible road trip and although they were coming home to Citi Field, they had to face the Yankees and the Phillies for a six game stretch. A stretch that could have knocked out the coaching staff and one that, if the Mets performed better on the preceding road trip, they probably would have been fine with a 2-4 record and happy with a 3-3 record.
After dropping the first game, the Mets roared back winning the next 5, taking series from two very good teams. They went from 7 games back in the division all the way to 2 games back. What they did against the Phillies was special though. Three consecutive shut outs. Those are like double wins now.
Not only is that a three game sweep of a rival, they never let them go across home plate. The Mets may have infected them with some sort of psychological hitting block where the Red Sox administered the first infection.
This is also what the pitching staff needed. This what the hitters needed. This is what Jerry needed. This is what we needed.
Now there is one more part. The Mets need to win on the road starting tonight. They need to keep building this little cushion above .500 and head back to the top of the division.
