ANAHEIM, CA – After finding out this morning that the New York Mets beat the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County – because there was no way in H-E-L-L I was staying up to watch another potential mind-numbing loss – yours nuttily (TM) finds himself drinking the “Ya Gotta Believe” Kool-Aid… again. If you’re still reading, you’re either a giggling Stanks’ fan or a cursed Amazins’ fan as well. With that, I offer you hope. Yes, we’ve already gone through the five stages of grief this season – a 12-game losing streak will do that. It’s the kind of stretch that makes you question not just your team, but your life choices, and paying Spectrum for anything. And yet here we are. Let’s shift from delusion to math.
Let’s start with the obvious: this isn’t your grandmother’s MLB. Back when the 1951 New York Giants dropped 11 straight, the playoff format was basically, “Win the pennant or go home and mow the lawn.” Same deal when the 1982 Atlanta Braves. It changed somewhat in 2017 when the Los Angeles Dodgers hit their own 11-game skids. Compared to now, the safety net was significantly smaller. Now, like all baseball stats, historical comparisons get fuzzy. Before the Wild Card, you either dominated or disappeared.
Today, Major League Baseball has turned the postseason into something closer to an exclusive nightclub with a much more forgiving bouncer. Expanded Wild Cards mean more teams get in, and more importantly, more teams hang around the race long enough to convince themselves they belong. The Mets don’t need to be perfect or go on a 12-game winning streak. They just need to be less chaotic than a handful of other teams.
And here’s the thing about losing streaks: they’re dramatic, ugly, and wildly misleading. The 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers, for example, looked like they forgot how to play baseball for two weeks—and still won 104 games. Baseball seasons are long enough to absorb a disaster or two. Twelve straight losses feels like the apocalypse, but in a 162-game marathon, it’s more like tripping over a pothole and spilling your coffee. Painful? Yes. Fatal? No. Unless you’re a soccer fan. ZING!
The Mets’ path forward isn’t complicated. They need to play consistently decent baseball. Not heroic, not historic—just competent. Hover around .520 the rest of the way, win some series, avoid another faceplant of biblical proportions, and suddenly that early-season horror show becomes a weird footnote instead of the headline.
Also working in their favor: mediocrity is contagious. The National League is rarely a perfectly ordered machine. There are always a few teams that decide, collectively, “What if we just… didn’t?” That’s your opening.
So yes, the Metsies buried themselves for a couple of weeks. But thanks to expanded playoffs, forgiving math, and the general unpredictability of baseball, they’ve also been handed a shovel – the young hitter have to stop sucking and help dig out of this canyon, though. Ya Gotta Believe.
Did I mention I’m maniacally optimistic?
Go Knicks.
