Eight days ago, the Mets were lost, wobbling toward irrelevancy, fading away in the wild-card race.
A little over a week later, they have a pulse and the belief a September run is in them.
It’s not magic, no special voodoo that has changed the vibe in Queens. Two of their offensive stalwarts — Yoenis Cespedes and Asdrubal Cabrera — came off the disabled list, and both have provided a jolt to this once lifeless lineup. It’s that simple.
“When we got Ces back in the lineup, you could almost hear a sigh of, ‘OK, we got our guy back, let’s all just calm down, go back to what we do best,’ ” manager Terry Collins said. “Guys look around, and all of a sudden the lineup has gotten a lot deeper in the last week.
“It looks like a completely different team.”
The trend continued Saturday night, with both Cespedes and Cabrera going deep in the Mets’ third straight victory, a 12-1 bludgeoning of the Phillies at Citi Field in front of 35.832. They have now won six of their past seven games, and two series in a row, after Noah Syndergaard (12-7, 2.55 ERA) turned in his second consecutive dominant outing, seven innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts.
With the win, the Mets moved to within 2 ¹/₂ games of the Cardinals for the second NL wild card, and just a game back of the Pirates and Marlins for second place in the race.
“I think the energy we’re having is taking us back to the last two months of last season,” Cespedes said through a translator. “The desire, the motivation, we’re not giving up until the last out.”
[mlbvideo id=”1103756483″ width=”600″ height=”340″ /]
Clearly, Cespedes changes everything with the Mets (66-63) by his hulking presence alone. But while his three-run shot in the fourth turned a close game into a rout, Cabrera’s hot streak arguably has been just as important, because before he went on the disabled list, he wasn’t hitting anything like this. He batted just .241 in July.
Since returning on Aug. 19 in San Francisco, Cabrera is 14-for-32 with three home runs and nine RBIs, forcing his way to the second spot in the lineup, and creating a dynamic top four of Jose Reyes, Cabrera, Cespedes and Neil Walker. In their seven-game run, the Mets are averaging an even seven runs per game, an unheard of figure for this offensively challenged team.
“It’s contagious at the top right now,” Collins said. “They’re almost trying to outdo each other. They’re playing off each other, and that’s a good thing to have.”
Cabrera gave the Mets the lead for good in the third, roping his 16th homer of the year, a laser beam to left-center field, the opposite way. The next time up, with runners on the corners and one out, Cabrera popped up.
Cespedes had his back, working an eight-pitch at-bat, and blasting his 26th homer of the season that went an estimated 423 feet, according to Statcast. Like Cabrera, Cespedes has returned from his short DL stint red hot, 12-for-37 with four homers and nine RBIs.
The two bombs were more than enough for Syndergaard, who was electric. Coming off eight shutout innings against the Giants last Sunday, the big right-hander allowed just two hits over seven innings, his only blemish hanging a curveball that Freddy Galvin deposited into the seats for the Phillies’ lone run. In his last two starts, spanning 15 innings, Syndergaard has allowed just one run on four hits, walked four and struck out 13.
Suddenly scorching outfielder Alejandro De Aza, who could be seeing a lot of playing time with Curtis Granderson struggling so much and Justin Ruggiano (left shoulder) sent to the disabled list, put the game out of reach in the seventh with a two-run double to center. Kelly Johnson iced it with a pinch-hit grand slam.
“Reyes has a saying around the team that says, ‘Do your job,’ ” Cespedes said. “So that’s what we’re feeding off, just do our jobs on a daily basis.”