CHICAGO — The Mets have a lot of work to do to lock down a postseason return, but a desperately needed comeback at Wrigley Field on Tuesday demonstrated one thing: From here on out, New York is in postseason mode.
“Needed that one,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after cataloging the big moments from his team’s win. And how.
The evidence of New York’s right-now postseason mindset was all over its 9-7, come-from-behind win over the flagging Chicago Cubs. A short stint by a starter. A long outing by a closer. A cathartic go-ahead homer from a beleaguered catcher. A rally from a deficit that the Mets hadn’t overcome in more than two years.
For the Mets, the playoffs aren’t here, but playoff baseball already is.
“The only thing that I’m focused about is winning and getting back to the playoffs,” Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez said through an interpreter. “Last year, we went to the playoffs and we had a deep run, and I just love the way that that felt.”
The Mets’ win coincided with the Reds’ 4-2 loss to last-place Pittsburgh, putting New York back into the sixth slot in the NL playoff pecking order after Cincinnati nudged ahead of them Sunday. The Reds hold the tiebreaker over New York should the teams finish in a tie.
Alvarez’s two-run, eighth-inning blast off Chicago reliever Caleb Thielbar capped a rally from an early 6-1 hole. Dating to May 19, 2023, the Mets had lost 80 straight games in which they trailed by five or more runs, according to ESPN Research
That it was Alvarez striking the key blow ignited the Mets’ dugout, which erupted when the ball cleared the ivy-covered wall in left-center and settled into the bleachers. Alvarez stopped just before reaching first base and turned to yell at his teammates in the dugout before rounding the bases.
Alvarez said he yelled, “Let’s go!” at the dugout, though he then laughed in a way that suggested there was another word or two peppered in there.
“That’s who he is, you know, and we feed off that,” Mendoza said. “Guys love it as a team. We need that, you know? We need that spark. We need that energy.”
The blast was Alvarez’s 10th of a season in which he has battled hand injuries and a midseason stint in the minor leagues. If the Mets can get back to October, it’ll all have been worth it.
The Cubs jumped on Mets starter David Peterson early, knocking him out of the game after he gave up five runs on five hits in just 1⅓ innings, continuing a string of lackluster outings that has left his ERA at 4.22, the first time it has been over 4.00 all season.
Yet, the Mets won, and Peterson, who has made all 30 of his appearances this season as a member of the rotation, has to wipe the slate clean. With five games to go, he and everyone else on the staff has to be ready for anything.
“I don’t have enough words to show my appreciation for what they did,” Peterson said of the offense. “They picked me up big time. We’ve got to win every game possible, and I will do everything that I can to help this team win ballgames.”
The same holds true for the bullpen, which held the Cubs to two runs, one earned, in 7⅔ innings after Peterson was pulled. Alvarez’s go-ahead homer didn’t just give the Mets the lead, it set up star closer Edwin Diaz for his third two-inning save of the season.
Diaz retired all six batters he faced, striking out five and throwing only 27 pitches. Yet he knows that in playoff mode, he and all the Mets’ other pitchers have to come back Wednesday, ready to do it all over again.
“Just get outs,” Diaz said. “I think every single guy in the bullpen knows what they have to do to get outs. Today, the bullpen did a really good job. Tomorrow, we’ve got to have the same mentality.”
If Tuesday’s game had a playoff feel to it — and it did — it wasn’t just coming from the Mets. The loss was Chicago’s fifth straight, and the Cubs now hold just a 1½-game lead over San Diego for the NL’s fourth seed, with home-field advantage in a wild-card series next week on the line.
That all sets the stage for Wednesday’s return match in which the Mets will send rookie Jonah Tong against Chicago’s 13-game winner Matthew Boyd. Tong is going through all of this the first time, but if there was one lesson he could take from the Mets’ Houdini job Tuesday, it’s that he’s going to have plenty of help.
But that’s tomorrow — in postseason mode, you’ve got to take care of today first.
“I can’t be thinking about tomorrow,” Mendoza said. “I’ve got to do whatever we got to do to win today. I’m glad that the guys came through today. Now, we’ve got to sit here and see how we want to piece it together.”
