Lets Go Mets! Two thirds of the season are gone. Now comes the dog days of August. The Mets are battling Washington for the division to start the month off. Finally doing something to upgrade the team and make a serious playoff run, they acquired four players before the trade deadline at the end of July and they brought up their top prospect Michael Conforto for his MLB debut. Slugger Yoenis Cespedes should help the Mets offence while reliever Tyler Clippard will help carry the bullpen load. The versatile Kelly Johnson and gold glove candidate Juan Uribe give manager Terry Collins more flexibility with who he puts on the field. He can give guys a rest and rotate quality MLB players in and out of the lineup without compromising the team with AAA Las Vegas players who are batting .170
The only games the Mets play in August against teams with a winning record are Washington, Pittsburgh and Baltimore. The other 21 games are against opponents with a sub .500 record entering August. A nice productive month could mean that the Mets will play meaningful baseball in September. Let's hope the injuries from earlier in the season are over and the team stays healthy.
End of Month Update
What a difference a day makes, or in this case what a difference a month makes. The Mets started August by sweeping the Washington Nationals to tie them for first place in the NL East. A 4-2 road trip along side a Nationals 3-4 homestand gave the Mets a division lead that they expanded all month with a 20-8 record for August. An 8-1 road trip through Baltimore, Colorado and Philadelphia in which the Mets scored 82 runs in nine games helped put distance between the Mets and their division rivals. The flexibility of the Mets bench and great starting pitching helped the Mets finish the month of August six and a half games ahead of the fading Nats. This month I got to watch the first place Mets on my birthday (10th), sit with the 7Line with my friend Mike, share losing 3 games to Pittsburgh with Mike, and have my brother Dennis come down from Rhode Island to see a couple games.
The return of David Wright was a big factor during the end of August. David was out since the second home game in April with a hamstring issue followed by doctors diagnosing him with Spinal Stenosis. Months of rehab and rest and now he is back with the Mets. Wright homered in his first at bat returning from the disabled list.
Such a successful month has made the Mets the favorite to win the division and hopefully make the postseason for the first time since 2006. The new additions to the Mets roster have tremendously improved the team. The crowds at Citi Field are getting larger and louder. After six losing seasons since Shea Stadium was demolished and Citi Field was opened, people tell me Citi crowds remind them of the crowds at Shea when the Mets were contenders in the past. It certainly seems that I picked the right season to fulfill my Dream Season.
