The Mets and Their Unprecedented Home/Road Splits

There's no place like home for the Mets.  It's a different story on the road, where they're wicked awful.

The Mets just completed an eight-game road trip this afternoon in Milwaukee, taking the finale against the Brewers after dropping the first seven games of the trip.  The win improved the team's road record to 11-26, which serves as a mirror image to the club's 26-11 home mark.

As bad as the team has played away from Citi Field, the Mets' .297 winning percentage on the road is not the lowest in team history.  That "honor" belongs to the 1962 through 1965 squads, who played no better than .259 ball away from home in any of those four seasons.  However, those first four Mets squads were also lousy at home, posting sub-.500 records at the Polo Grounds and Shea Stadium as well.  This year's Mets have a .703 winning percentage at Citi Field.  How impressive is that figure?  It's higher than the .700 mark posted by the 1988 Mets, which is the highest full season winning percentage in club history.

The difference between the .703 winning percentage posted by the Mets at home and their .297 mark on the road is a whopping .406.  If that seems like an unusually large difference, that's because it is.  In fact, no past Mets team has ever come close to that lopsided of a home/road split.

Year	Home Wins	Home Losses	Road Wins	Road Losses	Home Win %	Road Win %	Difference
2015	26	11	11	26	.703	.297	.406
1963	34	47	17	64	.420	.210	.210
2000	55	26	39	42	.679	.481	.198
1989	51	30	36	45	.630	.444	.186
2010	47	34	32	49	.580	.395	.185
1967	36	42	25	59	.462	.298	.164
1983	41	41	27	53	.500	.338	.162
1990	52	29	39	42	.642	.481	.161
2005	48	33	35	46	.593	.432	.161
1996	42	39	29	52	.519	.358	.161

It's more than likely that the Mets' winning percentage at home is not sustainable for the rest of the season.  Similarly, the team will probably play better than .297 ball on the road over the next three months.  So let's say the Mets play .500 ball at home for the rest of the season, which would be a huge drop-off from the .700-plus ball they've played at Citi Field so far this year.  That would give the Mets a 48-33 home record at season's end.  Similarly, if they find a cure for their road doldrums and split their remaining 44 games away from Flushing, the Mets would finish 33-48 on the road.

A 48-33 mark is a .593 winning percentage, while a 33-48 record is .407.  That's a difference of .186, which would tie the 1989 Mets for the third-greatest difference between home and road winning percentages.  Should the Mets go 23-21 at home and 21-23 on the road the rest of the way, they would match the 1963 club with a .210 difference (49-32 is a .605 winning percentage, while 32-49 produces a .395 mark).

After losing 18 of their last 21 road games, the Mets finally won a game on the road today, taking the series finale against the Brewers, 2-0.  They'll need more of today's good fortune and less of what they did over their previous 21 road games to avoid becoming known as the Jekyll and Hyde of all Mets teams.