Mets Must Get Over The Four-and-a-Half Game Hump

If the Mets want to see this in October, they need to increase their division lead in August and September.  (AP Photo)

No lead in the division is safe in baseball.  If you were a Mets fan in 2007, then you know how true that statement is.  But some leads are more safe than others, and the Mets have proven that in seasons when they've qualified for the postseason.

The 2015 Mets currently hold a 4½-game lead over the floundering Washington Nationals.  New York has built its lead by winning 11 of its last 14 games, while Washington is in the throes of a 4-11 team slump.  But an extra inning loss to the Pirates last night prevented the Mets from increasing their lead to 5½ games.  And earlier in the season, when the Mets rolled off a franchise record-tying 11-game winning streak, they also held a 4½-game lead in the division.  However, they never went over that hump, standing pat at 4½ for nine straight days (April 23-May 1) before a loss to the Nationals on May 2 cut their lead to 3½ games.

Only twice in club history has the team held a lead in the division of more than 4½ games and failed to win a division title.  The 1972 Mets got off to a tremendous start, winning 31 of their first 43 games.  In late May, the team possessed a comfortable 6½-game lead in the NL East.  But when Rusty Staub was felled by a wayward pitch thrown by Braves pitcher (and future Met) George Stone in early June, the team crumbled.  In the three-month period from June 7 to September 7, the Mets went 34-50 and finished double-digit games behind the eventual division champion Pittsburgh Pirates.

Thirty-five years later, the Mets famously held a seven-game lead with 17 games left in the season, only to see the Philadelphia Phillies take advantage of a Mets team that suddenly forgot how to pitch effectively.  Philly won all seven of their match-ups with the Mets in the season's final five weeks and Mets pitchers allowed an unfathomable 131 runs in the team's last 19 games to cough up the seemingly insurmountable lead.

Other than the 1972 and 2007 campaigns, New York has held a division lead of at least five games in four other campaigns.  They won the division crown in each of those seasons (1969, 1986, 1988, 2006).  They also held a lead of five or more games in the wild card race in 2000 and advanced to the World Series that year.

The Mets have had leads in the division of at least one game many times in franchise history.  And since the wild card came into play in 1995, they have been the leader in that race many times.  But just having a lead in the division or wild card race after the season is well underway hasn't guaranteed October baseball in Flushing.  Let's look at five not-so-memorable instances where this occurred.

• In 1970, the defending World Series champion Mets held a two-game lead in the division when the calendar turned from June to July.  They ended the season six games behind the division-winning Pirates.

• In 1984, the Mets were 4½ games ahead of the Chicago Cubs on July 27.  They lost 11 games in the standings after that date to finish 6½ games behind the first place Cubs.

• The 1990 Mets were alone in first place as late as September 3.  But a 14-16 finish doomed them to second place, four games behind the division champion Pirates.

• Eight years later, the 1998 Mets held a one-game lead in the wild card race with just five games left in the season.  They lost each of their last five games to finish 1½ games behind the eventual wild card-winning Cubs.

• In 2008, one year after blowing a seven-game lead with 17 games to play, the Mets were on top of the NL East by a season-high 3½ games on September 10.  They were also 2½ games up on the Milwaukee Brewers for the wild card as late as September 20, when the season was down to its final eight games.  They failed to qualify for the playoffs.

What do the 1970, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2008 Mets have in common?  Neither of them were able to stretch their division or wild card leads to more than 4½ games.  That's the same number of games the current Mets haven't been able to surpass in their quest to fight off the Washington Nationals.

The New York Mets have rarely missed the playoffs when they've had a lead of at least five games.  Only the 1972 and 2007 Mets know what it's like to watch the postseason on television after having such a lead.  But give the Mets a lead in the division or wild card race of more than seven games at any point in the season and they've never failed to crash the postseason party.

Entering Saturday's game against the Pirates, the 2015 Mets have been in first place for 64 of the season's 131 days.  They've held a 4½-game lead in the division for 11 of those days.  They've yet to hold a lead of at least five games.  History tells us that increasing that lead would subsequently increase the Mets' odds of making the playoffs.  If the lead were to grow by just three more games, the Mets would be in rarefied air - air that has only been breathed in by the 1969, 1986, 1988 and 2006 Mets.  Those were the only four teams that held a division lead of more than seven games.  You may recall those teams by their other name - NL East champions.

If the 2015 Mets want to join those squads as division champs, they just need to get over the 4½-game hump.  The longer they wait to get over it, the more nerve-wracking the final seven weeks of the season will be. 
  

To Continue This Rare Season, The Mets Must Win Now

On Saturday, the Mets lost for the seventh time in eight games since the All-Star Break.  Their 8-5 loss to the Dodgers dropped their record to 47-47.  It was the third time this year the Mets fell to .500, as they were 8-8 in April and 13-13 in May.  They have yet to fall under .500 at any point this year.

Should the Mets win today to go back above .500, they would continue to hold out hope that they can play an entire 162-game schedule without ever spending a day below the break-even point.  How rare is it for the Mets to play an entire season without ever falling below .500?  Let's put it this way.  They've had an easier time winning division titles than they've had playing an entire campaign at or above the .500 mark.

Since their inaugural season in 1962, the Mets have won five division titles (making a total of seven playoff appearances overall).  But they've only had four seasons in which they never spent a day below .500.

The 1969 Miracle Mets might have won 100 games en route to a World Series championship, but even they didn't spend every day of the season at or above .500.

From 1962-1969, the Mets lost on Opening Day every year, ending their chances of playing at or above .500 for an entire season before they had earned their first victory.  From 1970-1976, the Mets had six winning seasons, with 1974 being the sole exception to this era of winning baseball.  But in each of those seasons, the Mets couldn't get through the year without spending a day below .500.

The 1970 Mets were under .500 by the seventh game of the season en route to an 83-79 record.  In 1971, the team got off to a fantastic start.  Going into July, they were 45-29 and had yet to spend a single day below .500.  But over the next six weeks, the team played as bad as their 1962 counterparts, going 13-31.  They fell under .500 for the first time on August 14.  It was the first time a Mets team had gone past the All-Star Break without spending a day below .500.

Although the 1972 Mets became the second team in franchise history to finish a season at least ten games above .500, they spent exactly one day below the break-even point.  After three games, the Mets were 1-2, ending any chances of going an entire season with ever having a losing record.

The 1973 Mets had to believe they were going to win the pennant, but they didn't for most of the season.  In fact, from May 30 to September 20, the Mets were below .500 every single day.  They did recover to win a very mediocre National League East and shocked the Big Red Machine in the NLCS, but their late season success did not carry over into 1974, as the Mets finished 20 games under .500 that season.

1975 and 1976 brought the team back to the winning baseball they had known in the early '70s, but both teams spent time under the .500 mark before the calendar turned to May.

Should we even talk about the 1977 to 1983 Mets?  Let's just say those seasons were darker than Grant's tomb.  Needless to say, those teams spent plenty of time below .500 during that bleak era of Mets baseball.

But in 1984, things started to turn around for the franchise.  The Mets spent one day under .500 all season, and that was after their Opening Day loss to the Reds.  The team recovered from that 8-1 defeat to win their next six games, never dropping below .500 again all year, although they did fall to exactly .500 twice, at 22-22 and 23-23.

Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez and Dwight Gooden played together for the first time in 1984.  By 1985, they were part of a Mets team that did something no other Mets team had accomplished before.

Then it finally happened.  In their 24th season of existence, the 1985 Mets did not spend a single day below .500, becoming the first team in franchise history to play an entire season of winning baseball.  Of course, the St. Louis Cardinals, who spent most of April and May below .500, went 77-38 after June 2 and went on to take the division title from the Mets during the last week of the season.

Although the Mets had an extended era of greatness in the mid-to-late 1980s, the team didn't play another full season at or above .500 for another 13 years.  (The 1991 team came close, not going under .500 for the first time until August 16.)  Just like the 1985 team, the 1998 Mets were in the second season of a renaissance after an extended slumber.  The 1998 squad spent three days at exactly .500 (1-1, 13-13, 14-14), but never succumbed to the dark side, although a five-game losing streak at season's end once again kept the Mets from making the postseason.

In 1999 and 2000, the Mets made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history.  But both teams spent time below .500 at some point of their magical seasons, with the 1999 squad dropping under .500 two times (0-1, 27-28) and the 2000 team losing six of their first nine games.

The 2001 Mets finished the season with a winning record (82-80) but needed a strong finish to get there after spending most of the season below .500, just one year after their fourth World Series appearance.  That would be the last time the Mets would finish an entire season above the break-even point until 2005, when the team finished 83-79 (although they didn't go over .500 for good until September 25).

The 2006 Mets were good enough to win the World Series.  But they weren't good enough to win the pennant.  However, they were good enough to become the third team in franchise history to spend every day at or above .500.  After dropping to .500 with a loss in their second game of the season, the Mets didn't see .500 again until the 2008 season.  That's right.  In 2007, the Mets also never spent a day below .500.  In fact, they became the first team since 1985 to never even finish a day at exactly .500, as they won their first four games of the season and never dropped back to the break-even point.

The 2006 Mets began a two-year run in which the team never spent a single day below .500 during the regular season.  Unfortunately, the same could not be said about the postseason.

That brings us to the Citi Field era, an era in which the Mets have finished under .500 for three consecutive seasons (2009-2011).  The 2012 Mets have yet to spend a day under .500.  But after losing to the Dodgers on Saturday, the Mets fell back to the mark of mediocrity for only the third time this season.  The first two times they fell to .500, they recovered to win their next game.  They'll have to do the same again today.

Only four times in franchise history have the Mets played an entire season without ever falling below .500.  The 1985, 1998, 2006 and 2007 Mets are the only teams in the franchise's 50-year existence to accomplish that feat, making it a rarer accomplishment than winning a division title, which the Mets have done five times.

The 2012 squad is looking to become the fifth team to join that exclusive Mets fraternity.  But if they lose today, their dream will end.  Instead of becoming one of the lucky five, they will join the 1971 and 1991 Mets as the only teams in franchise history to spend their first day below .500 after the All-Star Break.  It's not such a bad thing to be compared to a Gil Hodges-led Mets team, but it would be much more of an accomplishment to be associated with the four teams that never spent a day below .500, as those teams were all part of an extended era of success for the franchise.

Will this year's team be the start of another extended era of success?  Spending every day at or above .500 for an entire season usually leads to that.  But the Mets have to win today to make sure 2012 can continue to be an unexpected magical season.