Mets must prove this is who they really are

This was right in the middle of the wondrous summer of 1969, the year the Mets lost last place, the year they first started to play meaningful baseball games in Queens.

The Mets had taken the first two games of an intriguing midweek series in early July with the first-place Cubs. In the first game the Mets had rallied for three in the ninth for a 4-3 win when a Cubs rookie named Don Young misplayed a fly ball. In the second, Tom Seaver retired the first 25 Cubs before Jimmy Qualls spoiled what came to be known as his “Imperfect Game.”

That nudged the Mets to within 3 ½ games of Chicago at the exact midway point of their season, 81 games. But in the third game, the Mets were stricken by a touch of the 1962 flu: they made two errors, they scratched out only three hits, and lost 6-2.

Afterward, someone asked Cubs manager Leo Durocher, “Are these the real Cubs?”

“I don’t know,” Durocher snorted. “But these are the real Mets.”

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Leo the Lip got his a few months later, of course. And Braves manager Brian Snitker is far too gentlemanly a soul to have even thought about channeling such bravado. But you could’ve understood if he had, because a day after the Braves departed town they left behind a Mets fan base that was audibly muttering to itself.

For two glorious days, they’d looked the Braves in the eye, and as they did that they slipped by them into the lead wild-card position. Then the Braves outscored the Mets 13-2 the next two, to split the series and head to Milwaukee with no blood spilled. Were those the real Braves?

More to the point: Were those the real Mets?

“A good night overall for us,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets halted their two-game slide with a resounding 15-2 pounding of the Twins on Monday night which seemed to pump a little oxygen back into Citi. “We had a lot of really good at-bats as a team tonight. It was a good night offensively for us.”

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It is never a terrible thing for a New York baseball team needing a quick fix to look at the schedule and see Minnesota’s home nine. The Yankees, if you haven’t heard, are 122-44 against them since 2002. The Mets have only played the Twins 25 times in their history but they’ve now won 16 of them, including 12 of the last 15, an even higher percentage than the Yankees.

The Twins have played four games in New York in 2024. They have been outscored 36-13. They are 0-7 against the Mets and Yankees, 58-39 against everyone else. They are the gift that keeps on giving around here, The Bronx or Queens. Apparently when Wellington Mara traded Fran Tarkenton back to Minnesota he got in return the deed to the Twins’ soul on behalf of New York City, just before hustling off to Jersey.

Kidding aside, it was a welcome resuscitation for the Mets. As they wait out the final few hours before the trade deadline hits, wondering if David Stearns can make an arm or two appear , they put the lost weekend behind them with a six-run outburst in the fourth inning which they kept adding to. They sent 10 men to the plate in two separate innings; the last time they did that was … 1976.

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Yep. They had a lot of fun at Citi Field watching all those runs trample across the plate, which is good because the faithful aren’t going to see a lot of them in August, since the Mets play only nine games here and travel to seven different cities. If the Mets are going to survive that gauntlet still in playoff position, they’ll need to take care of business here. This was a good launching point.

There was a lot of things to like. Pete Alonso hit a homer for the second straight day. Jose Quintana threw six terrific innings. New friend Jesse Winker had a walk and a hit in his debut, and when Tyrone Taylor replaced him he robbed Ryan Jeffers of a home run, pulling a deep fly to right back over the face.

Good stuff, all of it, and enough to make Mets fans wonder …

Are these the real Mets?

Between now and Labor Day we’ll know for sure. How many reinforcements are on the way? That’ll be Tuesday’s topic. Even if these are the real Mets they could use a little help.

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