IN A world without the Braves, the Mets would be 19 games above .500 this season. In a world without the Mets, the Braves would be two games above .500 this season. In that world, the Mets would be briskly enjoying another summer romp through the National League, yawning all the way to October.
In this world, the Mets must be grateful for the kindnesses of strangers who have kept tormenting the Braves during the lulls between the beatings they keep administering the Mets. And in this world, sometime between now and three weeks from now, when they meet again in Atlanta, it would behoove the Mets to try to recapture a little of the mojo they enjoyed in 2006, when they were able to scoff at the notion of a Braves hex and actually find a way to disprove it. Temporarily.
“They’ve worn us out,” was the simple assessment of David Wright, a few minutes after the Braves had beaten the Mets at Shea Stadium yesterday 7-6, winning for the eighth time in 12 meetings this year, securing a fourth straight series victory over the Mets and adding another chapter to their decade-long mastery.
It was only proper that Wright, the future captain of this team, should take no solace at all from the empty three-run rally in the ninth that made things interesting, punctuated by his own two-run homer. Willie Harris’ leaping grab of Carlos Delgado’s long fly ball a few moments later may have spared the Braves what would have been a crushing collapse, but it may also have spared the Mets something else:
The ability to delude themselves.
Every few weeks, you keep waiting for the shock to the system that will finally apply the kick-start necessary for the Mets to achieve the manifest destiny in the NL East everyone seems to expect of them. The first three series losses to the Braves didn’t do it. The 4-14 death march through June didn’t do it. The decapitation in Denver in early July didn’t do it.
Will this latest humbling by the Braves? Will the coming 10 days – in which the Mets get nine games against the Marlins, Pirates and Nationals, who entered play yesterday a combined 39 games under .500 – be the tonic that allows them to finally put some distance between themselves and the Braves and the Phillies?
Because make no mistake: Someone in this division will eventually shake off the middling mediocrity that’s prevailed across the season’s first 4 ½ months. The Braves are certainly capable, now that they have a lineup that goes legitimately eight deep. The Phillies, despite all the historical slapstick that fastens itself to them like barnacles to a submarine, are clearly capable.
“We have to remember that we still control our own destiny,” Wright said. “I know I’ve said this before but I believe it: I think our best baseball is still ahead of us.”
Added Moises Alou, who himself was robbed of an extra-base hit on Harris’ first heroic defensive effort yesterday, in the first: “We’re up by 3 ½ games. That’s not the biggest lead. It’s not as big as we’d like. But it’s still a comfortable lead.”
Just not comfortable enough for the Mets to fail to seize the moment across the next week and a half. Looming at the end of the month is a 10-day road trip with the first seven games in Philadelphia and Atlanta. Circle it. That is where the East will be won and lost, and the Mets need to collect as many wins as they can between now and then, or that comfort level will dissolve like an Italian ice on an August picnic table.
“We’ll turn the page on this,” Willie Randolph said. “We’ve done that all year.”
Mostly, what they’ve done all year is offer thanks while the rest of the National League has done what they’ve been unable to do against the Braves. Soon enough, though, the scholarship will run dry. Soon enough, the Mets are going to have to beat the Braves in a game when they absolutely need to. Maybe they can. Maybe they will.
It’s just that in this season, in this world, they haven’t shown they can. And they haven’t shown they will.
