Series losses to the Yankees always cause Mets fans a special kind of pain, and that’s understandable. But let us not lose sight of what matters, Mets fans: The two-losses-out-of-three series to the Yanks ended a wildly successful road trip that put the pep back in the step of the Mets season.
7–2 road trips don’t come along every week, after all, even if it didn’t help out that much in the standings. (Thanks to the Braves’ hot streak, the Mets are actually farther out of first place today — two and a half games — than they were before the road trip started.) The trip did put the Mets in the wild-card spot; if the season ended today, they’d be playing San Diego in the first round of the playoffs, while Atlanta played St. Louis. And the Mets are still three games ahead of the Phillies, and that’s not for nothing.
The Mets have a day off today before starting a six-game AL Central homestand, with Detroit and Minnesota both in for three. (Come see Johnny Damon, if you miss him.) The day off brings with it some news. First, John Maine isn’t getting any better and very well might be shut down for the season. (And, thusly, his whole Mets career; the team will surely turn down his option at the end of the year.) And, the biggest news: Finally, finally, the Mets sent Jenrry Mejia down to the Double A to be a starter, which is what he almost certainly should have been doing at the beginning of the year. The Mets have pushed his development back a year and started his arbitration clock … all for 27.2 mostly meaningless relief innings. Matters have been doing so well for the Mets lately that we’re not going to dwell on the abject lunacy of the Mets’ dealing with Mejia, and save that for a future day, when the Mets have lost four in a row and everyone’s cranky.