After the first series since the All-Star Break, the Mets are not quite where we might have hoped they’d be at some of the more optimistic moments of the season. Eight games back of the second NL wild card spot, the once-glimmery playoff hopes are looking less…shiny these days.
Coming into their most recent three-game series, the Mets odds to beat the Seattle Mariners are decent for a road team with an inferior record. With that in mind, let’s look at three reasons to stay positive going into the second series since the All-Star Break.
Granderson Resurgence
A month into the season, the four-year, $60-million deal the Mets signed with Curtis Granderson looked like another horrendous bust. Batting .136 with just a single dinger, there wasn’t much to be happy about.
Since then, however, Granderson (a notorious slow starter) has shown his bat still has plenty of pop, putting up 13 homers since then and a total of 43 RBIs while leading off. Things seemed to turn around with the Mets’ series against Granderson’s former team, in which he hit two round-baggers and had four RBIs in two games.
As a pillar of the next three seasons, the improvement brings this signing back to looking like a great storyline of the 2014 season.
Trade Deadline Value
Though they wouldn’t come in as champion-makers for a contender, pitchers like Bartolo Colon and Daniel Murphy could get a nice return on the trade market as the pennant races heat up. Colon in particular, at 41, could only offer the Mets so much going forward. And the opportunity to flip a quality third or fourth-rotation pitcher to a team like the Jays, who are looking desperately for depth on the mound, could lead to some nice depth for the Mets in 2015 and beyond.
Spoiler Alert
Ok, it’s not always fun to play spoiler, but there are worst roles to play. Series’ like this week’s against the Mariners are a great opportunity for this Mets team to show they can hang with the big boys. The Mariners are in the mix for the AL wild card race, but losing this series could seriously hinder their chances of playing in October.
The Mets have loads of big series that will affect the playoff hopes of teams around the bigs coming up, including sets with the Brewers, Nationals, and Braves, in the next month alone. Time to break some hearts.
