NEW YORK -- Dare it be said that the New York Mets look legit, or at least as legit as they’re going to look given their shortcomings and short-staffing.
A lot has to continue to go well and a lot has to break right for the Mets to return to the postseason (their current playoff odds: 21 percent). But on Saturday, things did, with a 12-1 rout of the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Mets gained a game on the St. Louis Cardinals and moved within 2 1/2 games of the second wild-card spot in the National League. Granted, the past two wins have come against the fast-fading Phillies, but the first four came against contenders -- the San Francisco Giants and Cardinals.
On Saturday, the Mets won with lightning bolts: a second straight strong start from Noah Syndergaard and (per the Elias Sports Bureau) the fourth game in club history to feature a solo homer, two-run homer, three-run homer and grand slam.
Shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera continued what has looked like a Daniel Murphy hot streak with his third home run in two games. This one was a shot -- a two-run, opposite-field clout that cleared the fence in left-center by 35 feet.
Cabrera’s 16 homers match the second most he has had in a season in his career. His four opposite-field home runs are one more than he had from 2013-15 combined, though he shrugged that off as being an improved part of his approach.
“I’ve done it before,” Cabrera said.
Yoenis Cespedes did what he has done before, clocking a 420-foot homer to left for three runs in a manner resembling Darryl Strawberry and Mike Piazza. Mets manager Terry Collins joked about the internal competition on the team, noting that right before the homer, bench coach Dick Scott predicted Cespedes would not let his teammates get the better of him in this game.
It was also a similar type of home run to some of those that Cespedes hit in August and September 2015.
“I think the energy we have right now is taking us back to last season,” Cespedes said. “The desire, the motivation, the not giving up until the last out.”
Kelly Johnson’s smash was of the tack-on variety, turning the game into a laugher. It was his fifth career grand slam, his first since the 2011 season, and the 10th pinch-hit grand slam in club history. Neil Walker’s was his 23rd of the season, matching his career high set in 2014.
Speaking of club history, the Mets now have 87 home runs at Citi Field, the most they’ve ever hit in a season there (one more than 2015). Remember when the ballpark was among the toughest in baseball to hit one out?
This marked the sixth time in team history (and second time this season) that they hit at least four home runs in consecutive games. The only other season with two such streaks was 2005.
Syndergaard matched his career low for hits allowed, yielding only two in seven innings. Phillies manager Pete Mackanin called it “typical Syndergaard” and for good reason -- he's 4-0 with a 1.37 ERA in four starts against the Phillies. His season ERA is 2.55, third best in the majors.
After some struggles earlier in the month, Syndergaard did some things that were Syndergaard-like, such as striking out Ryan Howard three times on pitches in three different spots.
“He established his fastball early, and then he threw us a bunch of breaking balls later after we saw him,” Mackanin said. “He just put it to us.”
Phillies hitters were 0-for-11 with four strikeouts against Syndergaard’s fastball, the first start all season in which he held an opponent hitless with his fastball.
The breaking balls led to chases. Syndergaard threw 19 two-strike pitches out of the strike zone. The Phillies swung at 12 of them (including the ones from Howard above). His 63 percent two-strike chase rate also was a season high.
“My slider’s been more consistent the last two times around,” Syndergaard said. “Just getting back to repeating my delivery, getting good mechanics and trusting it like a fastball.”
Syndergaard also hit a double -- his sixth extra-base hit of the season (one shy of Tom Seaver’s 1972 record for most extra-base hits by a Mets pitcher) -- and ducked out of the way of a Cespedes foul ball, just before his home run. Collins joked that a few weeks ago, it would have hit Syndergaard in the back.
But perhaps a reminder of where things are for the Mets and how things differ from 2015: In the next three games, they’ll start Robert Gsellman, Rafael Montero and Seth Lugo -- three pitchers who have combined for 11 major league starts.
Montero, a forgotten man after a forgettable series of stints with the Mets, has rediscovered success at Double-A Binghamton, to an extent. He has a 1.70 ERA in eight starts, though he has walked 19 in 47 2/3 innings pitched (3.6 per nine innings).
“He’s had two real, real good starts and an ERA sub-2.00,” Collins said. “In order to have that kind of ERA, you’ve got to be pitching pretty well.”
Given that Jose Fernandez will be Montero’s mound opponent this Monday, that will be a pretty good test to see if Montero is, dare we say it, looking legit.