Impossible Is Possible

It's the general stance of the Mets fan to kind of keep their asshole extra tight during the final few days of a Pennant Chase. There's not much anyone can do to help this; it's just the side effect of too many seasons where they've been in close contention only to have something get screwed up and everything fall apart at the end. But the way this 2016 race has played out, with the Mets storming back from the fringes the way they have has been something else. I'm not sure that I've seen the Mets do what they've done this year before—the only thing remotely close I'd guess would have to be 1973—6 years before I was born—but dammit, the Mets keep cobbling together these victories. Their 5-2 win over the Marlins finished off their 6th series win in September, their 16th win of the month, and combined with the Cardinals losing, and the Giants losing, put them 1 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco and 2 1/2 games ahead of St. Louis...with only 3 games remaining.

I really hate to say this, but for the first time, I'm starting to think that the Mets might actually pull this off.

How they've managed to do this, I'm not sure. But it seems to be exemplified by guys like Seth Lugo, who aren't given much in the way of attention and who might have a real rude regression to the mean at some point, but they continue to play over their heads and surprise the hell out of everyone. Lugo gave up an early Home Run to Martin Prado, which for the Mets is about on par with giving up a Home Run to, say, Greg Dobbs, but nothing after that as he navigated his way through 5.1 innings and received plenty of backup, first on a second inning 2-run Home Run from James Loney, who seems to be Mr. Marlins Park, that tied the game, and later another 2-run Home Run from Jay Bruce, who all of a sudden has come back to life, and probably at just the right time.

The remainder of the game was bullpen and more bullpen, as Hansel Robles, Fernando Salas and Addison Reed bridged things up to Jeurys Familia, who closed out the 9th inning for his 50th Save of the season.

So, the Mets are now finished with the Marlins for the season, and after a really difficult and emotional 3 games in Miami the Mets could use the day off they've got on Thursday. St. Louis and San Francisco are both playing, but no matter what happens on either front, the Mets will go into the weekend still leading the chase, and if things break right, they could conceivably have this thing wrapped up by Friday night and actually get to relax for a couple of days over the weekend. But—again. I'm getting ahead of myself. But after all the crap that's gone on this season and everything the Mets have had to overcome, it's quite a story the way things have played out, isn't it?