NEW YORK -- A little more than two weeks ago, the Mets still profiled as one of baseball’s most puzzling offenses. The track records of their individual players -- Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, et al -- suggested that their lineup should be elite. Their results suggested otherwise.
From Opening Day through Aug. 11, the Mets ranked 17th in the Majors in runs scored -- hardly what they envisioned when they doled out more than $1.4 billion in total contract dollars to the position players on their roster. Team officials puzzled over it. Hitting coaches logged hours in the cage. Nothing seemed capable of snapping New York out of its mediocrity.
Then … the situation simply changed. Why it took so long, the Mets don’t entirely know, but since Aug. 12, this has been the league’s best offense. With a 6-5 walk-off win over the Phillies added to their ledger on Tuesday evening, the Mets have scored 99 runs over that stretch -- an average of 7.1 per game. That leads the Majors by a wide margin.
The latest of those runs crossed home in the bottom of the ninth inning at Citi Field, where Brandon Nimmo hit a walk-off single off closer Jhoan Duran. The Mets (71-61) have now won nine consecutive games against the Phillies (76-56) at Citi and two in a row this week, paring Philadelphia’s National League East lead down to five games.
“This is the most talented team I’ve ever played on,” Nimmo said. “So I know exactly what we’re capable of. It’s just going out there and executing it every night.”
That the Mets even found themselves in position for a walk-off was largely thanks to their five-run fifth inning, which resulted in Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo’s ejection. The sideshow did nothing to distract Alonso, who greeted reliever Orion Kerkering with a go-ahead two-run double. Nimmo and red-hot Mark Vientos later added RBI hits, but embattled reliever Ryan Helsley gave back two runs to tie things in the eighth.
That’s when the Mets stepped up and won a game that they easily could have lost. First, Edwin Díaz relieved Helsley, preventing further damage en route to retiring all five batters he faced -- four via strikeout. Next, Starling Marte opened the bottom of the ninth with a 109 mph single off Duran, one of the game’s best closers. Then Alonso followed with a 109.6 mph single before Brett Baty’s bloop off a 102 mph fastball loaded the bases.
“Just relentless at-bats,” was how Baty described the rally.
“It just made my job a whole lot easier there,” added Nimmo. “A lot of things get the job done there. All I need to do is find the barrel.”
About two minutes later, Nimmo laced another Duran fastball into left-center field for the walk-off. As a near-sellout crowd of 41,914 frothed and churned, Nimmo’s teammates poured onto the field to celebrate with him.
“When you create traffic,” manager Carlos Mendoza said, “it’s kind of contagious.”
Earlier this season, that wasn’t always the case for the Mets, who frequently struggled with runners in scoring position. It’s a mystery that team officials, coaches and hitters alike never really solved -- one that Nimmo chalked up to the oddness of baseball.
Asked about the difference in his offense over the past two weeks, Mendoza credited his hitters’ willingness to stay short and use the entire field, taking line drives the other way instead of trying to pull home runs in big spots.
Why the Mets couldn’t do that earlier, no one seems to know, but they’ll certainly enjoy the fruits of it now. Over the past two games, New York has logged 16 hits with runners in scoring position. The Mets lead the league in batting average in those situations this month.
As a result, the Mets are enjoying as much momentum as they’ve had at any point since early May, with star rookie Nolan McLean set to pitch Wednesday’s series finale and blue-chip prospect Jonah Tong waiting in the wings.
More than anything, the Mets are beginning to prove that their expensive offense can carry them -- something they had long hoped for but only recently begun to see.
“Love what I see from the guys -- the fight, the compete, not giving up, playing the whole game,” Mendoza said. “We did it yesterday. We did it today. And we need to continue to do that.”