Mets Are Overcoming Mistakes To Play Winning Baseball

The New York Mets are turning things around, and it started at the trade deadline. The Mets have one of the best records in baseball at 8-3 since then, even though they moved most of their bullpen to restock their farm system. 

For manager Andy Green, the better level of play is about being able to move on from the inevitable mistakes. 

“For me, it’s just resilience. You don’t play perfect baseball when you go on winning streaks,” Green said in a piece written by Bill Ladson of MLB.com. “You make mistakes. You make errors. You make base running mistakes. You don’t execute every pitch. But you don’t let that moment impact the next moment. I think our guys have been tremendous at that.”

The biggest example of that happened yesterday, as the Mets came from behind with two runs in the ninth to notch a 5-4 win over the Washington Nationals. Shortstop Francisco Lindor was in the middle of both the good and the bad, as he got thrown out at second after a bad read of a wild pitch by Nationals reliever Clayton Beeter. 

But Lindor approached Green after the play and acknowledged his mistake, and he atoned for it in the ninth with a walk-off base hit to cap off the rally. 

"[Lindor] didn’t let it impact the game on the line. That’s a championship-caliber player,” Green said. “That’s what you want from your entire team. I think we have seen that time and time again. Teams go on a long [winning] streak and it’s not perfect. It’s just resilience. So you are always bouncing back from mistakes. You always believe you can come back and win baseball games. I'm excited by what happened at the end of the game.”

Lindor talked about the changes he’s seen since the deadline, which is different from before the deadline when the Mets were rolling over after the mistakes in one listless, desultory loss anfter another. 

“Guys are figuring each other out. Guys are jumping up after strikeouts, which is fun. You have younger players playing the game the right way, playing hard,” Lindor said. “Then you have the other ones having quite the at-bats like Bo [Bichette] and Marcus [Semien] and [Jorge] Polanco. This is a good time right now. We have to keep up the energy, play for each other and see what happens.”

The streak has allowed the Mets to make some ground against the Nationals in the NL East, and completing the series sweep today would serve notice that there might be something to play for after all.