The Mets made franchise history with their third straight 10-run outburst on Thursday night, pounding former teammate Taijuan Walker and the Phillies to maintain a two-game cushion in the Wild Card standings as the regular season nears its conclusion.
It was the fourth straight victory for New York, and represented the latest landmark in an unprecedented turnaround that began back in June, when the Mets were declared dead and buried by many, seemingly heading for a disappointing season that began with low expectations to begin with. But suddenly, from 11 games below .500 and buried beneath a crop of playoff hopefuls in the National League, the Mets have played like one of the best teams in baseball ever since, and are now in the driver’s seat towards October.
How did things change so rapidly in Queens? Where did this prolonged outburst come from? If you ask the team, they point to well-timed team meetings, the no-panic aura of first-year manager Carlos Mendoza, or previously slumping stars rounding into form.
We’ll try to get a little more specific and reveal the five faces of the Mets’ unprecedented rebound:
Francisco Lindor
No single player on the Mets has had their season run more parallel to the team’s performance than Lindor. Known for his slow starts, the veteran shortstop was particularly brutal to begin the 2024 campaign, holding a lousy .197 batting average and a .628 OPS in mid May, just before a homecoming series in Cleveland against his former Guardians squad. At the time, New York was 21-25, having just salvaged a series finale against the lowly Marlins to prevent an embarrassing sweep.
Since then, Lindor has unquestionably been the best two-way player in the National League, batting .304 with 24 home runs and a .927 OPS, a span of 102 games. Lindor was bumped up to the leadoff spot and took off, and he hasn’t slowed down since. A back injury has had him sidelined for days, and the Mets’ hopes in the playoffs (should they make it there) will largely ride on Lindor’s health, but they wouldn’t be in this position in the first place had it not been for Lindor’s stellar season, one of the best in franchise history.
Lindor’s record contract, once a source of heavy criticism, now looks like a bargain.
Carlos Mendoza
It was Mendoza who shuffled the deck and moved Lindor to the leadoff spot, arguably the biggest move of the Mets’ season. It was just one of several instances where the first-year skipper has looked like a seasoned veteran in the Mets dugout, keeping things even keeled when the season looked to be coming off the rails early.
Players have lauded Mendoza for his demeanor and ability to keep players motivated and optimistic through the grind of a 162-game season. When Jorge Lopez tossed his glove into the stands in frustration early in the season during a loss to the Dodgers, Mendoza quickly declared the behavior “unacceptable,” and Lopez was gone the next day, having been designated for assignment.
Whether it be lineup decisions or managing a clubhouse, Mendoza has been all the Mets could have hoped for in a rookie manager, and he should be a favorite for Manager of the Year.
Mark Vientos
Vientos got the offense rolling for the Mets on Thursday night, lacing a line drive just over the wall in left field for his 25th home run of the season, and his 67th RBI.
There was a time when some feared Vientos, a former second-round pick, was looking like a bust, as he finished the 2023 campaign batting .211 with nine home runs in 233 plate appearances. He was sent down after three quick games in late April of this season, then promoted weeks later, and hasn’t looked back. Since being called back up, the 24-year-old is batting .269 with an .844 OPS, and has become a steady power bat in the middle of the Mets lineup, even when veteran sluggers like Pete Alonso or J.D. Martinez struggle (though Alonso could be showing signs of breaking out).
The Mets were hoping Francisco Alvarez would be their homegrown youngster to break out in 2024, but so far, it has been Vientos, taking the league by storm since mid May.
David Stearns
Behind the decision to DFA Lopez, call up Vientos and keep him there, or quickly cut ties with struggling veterans like Joey Wendle, has been Stearns, who has pushed the right buttons in his first year as president of baseball operations.
In July of last year, the Mets were quickly selling off big contracts that hadn’t worked out, shipping out the likes of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander in a stunning fire sale that took a match to the highest payroll in league history. Fast forward to this summer, and Stearns made multiple savvy moves to address glaring team needs, bolstering the bullpen with the likes of Phil Maton (holding a 2.28 ERA since the trade) and Huascar Brazoban (2.87 ERA in his last 13 appearances), and bringing in valuable outfield depth in the form of Jesse Winker. Stearns was scoffed at by many for publicly expressing his expectation of the Mets being a playoff team in 2024, and four months later, that declaration seems like it could be spot on.
Jeremy Hefner
Perhaps the most improbable face of the Mets’ turnaround is the performance of the starting rotation, so Hefner will take the collective credit for this one. Talked about highly by Hall of Famers like Scherzer and Verlander during their time in Queens, Hefner is proving his worth as one of the top pitching coaches in the game, as an unlikely band of arms has become the strength of a team closing in on a playoff berth.
The rotation is filled with unlikely redemptions. Luis Severino posted one of the worst ERAs in baseball last season, and came to Queens in the offseason with a loaded injury history. He has since logged 178 innings of work in 2024, posting a solid 3.79 ERA after turning in a fourth straight quality start on Thursday. Sean Manaea has emerged as the unlikely ace of the staff in his first season with the Mets, posting a 3.26 ERA, which would be the best mark of his nine-year career (minimum of 10 starts). Jose Quintana has stayed healthy with a 3.74 ERA, and perhaps most surprisingly, David Peterson has enjoyed one of the top bounceback seasons in the league, holding a 2.85 ERA over 19 starts after finishing 2023 with an ERA of 5.03.
All of this has come with expected ace Kodai Senga being a non-factor all year. For that, Hefner deserves a standing ovation.
Honorable Mention: Jose Iglesias
This list wouldn’t be complete without the creator of the team’s anthem for the season, right? But Iglesias has done much more for the Mets than record the hit song “OMG.” He has also flat-out hit in his role, holding a .330 batting average and an .815 OPS in 76 games (his career OPS is .708). Iglesias has seamlessly filled in at second base in the wake of Jeff McNeil’s season-ending injury, and is a prime example of out-of-nowhere players excelling and guiding the Mets towards a playoff spot that nobody saw coming.