mets

The Mets Are the Hottest Team in Baseball

At one point during the Mets’ thrashing of the Orioles yesterday, finishing off an easy three-game sweep of the team with the worst record in the Major Leagues, you had to wonder: Wait, are the Mets really traditionally that much worse than the Yankees? Or is it just that the Yankees get to play the Orioles more often? Baltimore makes everybody look dominant. And boy, are the Mets dominant right now.

The Amazin’s won their fourth in a row and eighth of their last nine, smashing the Orioles 11–4 behind two David Wright homers. The Mets third baseman is heating up: He’s batting .368 in his last ten games and already has more homers than he did all of last year.

Best of all, the Mets are now seven games over .500, their high-water mark this season. They’re alone in second place in the NL East, two games ahead of Philadelphia and only one and a half games behind Atlanta. (Also, this has been a great year so far to live in NYC and go to home games: The Mets have the second-best home record in the majors, 24–10, behind only the Yankees’$2 22–7.) Playoff odds: up to 26.2 percent. Nice, right?

The Mets are off today, which gives Mets fan gadfly and poet Howard Megdal a chance to announce his “candidacy” for the Mets GM job “ending months of swirling speculation a few floors below swirling restaurant.” (It’s at the Marriott Marquis.) His timing couldn’t be worse: The Mets are so hot right now, even Omar Minaya looks smart.

The Mets Are the Hottest Team in Baseball