June was supposed to be a telltale month for this 2012 Mets team. It was the month that could end the season or present them as contenders if they could survive it. It was a month that offered up top of the food chain type teams looking for blood.
Cardinals – 4 games (3W – 1L) – were in first place NL Central
Nationals – 3 games (1W – 2L) – first place NL East
Yankees – two series for 6 games (1W – 5L) – first place AL East
Rays – 3 games (sweep 3W – 0L) – one of the hotter teams on the rise AL East
Reds – 3 games (swept 0W – 3L) – were in first place NL Central
Orioles – 3 games (sweep 3W – 0L) – one of the surprise teams and hanging up top the tough AL East
Cubs – 3 games (1W- 2L) worse in the league
Dodgers – 4 games (3W – 1L, the final game was in July) – were in first place NL West
Well, Mets survived June alright, and did it unconventionally. But I still sit here skeptical they can be contenders. The good news? There will continue to be meaningful games in Flushing in July and that’s all we can ask for considering this team should be in last place according to the so called experts.
The team started the month off right, taking 3 of 4 against the first place Cardinals only to get smacked around by the Nationals and swept by the Yankees next. At that point, not to panic or anything, I seriously thought this could be the end with a super-hot Rays team looming coming off a hometown Yankee spanking.
But then things got strange as the Mets not only swept the Rays, they pretty much had their way with them, scoring 29 runs in the 3-game series after only scoring 7 runs in the Yankees series. They followed that up by getting swept by the first place Reds, then sweeping the Orioles, only to get smacked around by the Yankees again heading into the final week of June with the last place Cubs on tap.
Well, the last place Cubs were too much to handle as the Mets were able to salvage the final game of the series with a clobbering performance with one more series to go in the month against the stumbling Dodgers. With a chance to sweep a four game series in Los Angeles for the first time in history, Mets settled for taking 3 of 4 to finish off the month at 15-13.
That my friends is a successful June!
Heck, anything close to .500 baseball in June would have been a successful month for the little Mets that could. They enter July within a striking distance of the first place Nationals heading towards the All Star break.
The next test is this little stretch towards the break, six games against the last place Phillies (sounds great to say) and Cubs. The Mets have had a habit of crumbling in recent years in the run up to the All Star break which is why this becomes an important week of baseball. If the Mets can hold status quo coming out of the break, get ready fans as we will be approaching some series August baseball with a lighter schedule on tap than they’ve just experienced.
The Mets side stepped a June ‘gloom’, but can they fly in July and not go bust in August?
Let’s go Mets in 2012…who would’ve thought?
you forgot “can they have a September to remember?”
It’s scary that they can look so bad in certain games/series and so good in others.
Terry needs to chill out with the lefty-righty madness, though. Leave Ike Davis in there for EVERY game. Fuck this Justin Turner against lefties bullshit! JT is a good solid bench player–keep him there. Ike is the present and future, and the only true slugger on the team.
Nickeas is the worst, i’m sorry. He doesnt belong on any major league roster. Thole should start 5 out of every 6 games.
Murphy is finally coming around and he throws Cedeno in there for the lefty. Screw this platoon shit.
Over managing in MLB has become the norm and Terry is a culprit of it. not as bad as Girardi but bad enough. the catching situation on the Mets is a shit show. I like Thole, and don’t get me wrong, he’s called great games (no-hitter and a ton of one-hitters), but something tells me the pitchers drove that train more than he did. Nickeas needs to go, terrible.