Through the first six weeks of the season, the Mets have lost five straight, won six straight, taken road series from the Dodgers and Braves and got swept by the Rays.
There are plenty of unknowns around a team that appropriately is 18-18, having shown flashes of potential and flashes that this season should be viewed as a rebuilding year.
If the Mets are going to show in the early going whether they are a true contender or whether they are heading toward becoming sellers at the deadline, the next seven games might prove to be a litmus test.
Six or seven wins against the Braves and Phillies would send a message that the Mets should be considered a legitimate playoff threat.
Six or seven losses against the Braves and Phillies would send a message that 2024 could be effectively over by the end of July.
“You’re trying to run them down, you’re trying to chase them down.,” Jeff McNeil said Thursday at Citi Field, where he and Hank Azaria co-hosted a charity poker event that benefited the Metropolitan PGA foundation and the Human Solidarity Project. “They’re going to be the teams to beat. Hopefully go out there this week and take care of business.”
The gauntlet begins Friday, when the Mets begin a three-game series at home against a Braves team that in some ways has started slowly — Matt Olson is hitting .200; Ronald Acuña Jr. is batting just .261 with two home runs; Michael Harris II owns a .671 OPS — and yet is still averaging the fourth-most runs in baseball, partly because Marcell Ozuna entered play as the majors’ home run leader.
The Mets already took two of three from the powerhouse in Atlanta last month, when they beat up on Friday starter Charlie Morton and since-demoted Allan Winans.
The Braves’ rotation has settled in and been good enough for the club to own the third-best record in the National League.
MLB’s best record belongs to the Phillies (26-12), who fell in the NLCS last year and returned roughly the same roster.
Their rotation has been both excellent and deep, and a step forward from Alec Bohm and more dominance from Bryce Harper has carried the offense.
The Mets will see the Phillies for the first time this season Monday to start a four-game series that is split between Queens and Philadelphia.
“We know they’re good teams, but we’re a good team, too,” manager Carlos Mendoza said this week. “We’ll be up for the challenge, guys will be ready to go. They’ll be excited, and it’ll be fun.”
There are signs that a middle-of-the-pack Mets offense could get going.
McNeil, who is coming off a down season and who did not show much hope in April, is coming off a three-hit game that raised his average to .248.
Pete Alonso, who had been in a 1-for-29 funk that earned him a rare day out of the starting lineup, blasted a homer and a double Tuesday that brought his OPS from .710 to .742.
Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Brett Baty are similarly trending upward.
But through the first month and a half, when one aspect of the Mets emerges another has dipped.
Will the bullpen, the largest strength of the club so far, continue to excel under heavy usage?
Will Mendoza push the right buttons with an in-flux rotation that might extend to six starters and now holds rookie Christian Scott?
There are plenty of questions around a middling Mets club.
This week, the Mets could begin providing some answers.
“You want to beat them — they’re at the top of our division right now,” McNeil said of the Braves and Phillies. “They’re playing really good baseball.
“I think you have the same motivation [as any game]. But at the same time, those games really matter, I think, a little bit more.”
