NEW YORK \u2014 Within the first few minutes of a news conference after the New York Mets\u2019 7-6 walk-off win over the New York Yankees on Sunday, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said the same word four times.<\/p>\n
Fight.<\/p>\n
For weeks, Mets officials kept saying that they believed in their team because of \u201cthe talent in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reality is that turning things around requires more. Last season, talent wasn\u2019t enough. This season, injuries have stripped the Mets of much of their talent. Outside of maybe the specific case of Bo Bichette, the task for the Mets is no longer about playing to their talent level.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about resilience.<\/p>\n
The Mets trailed by three runs heading into the ninth inning Sunday. The Mets had been 0-91 when trailing after eight innings since the start of last season. It was the longest such streak in the major leagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s impressive, right? That\u2019s hard to do,\u201d Mendoza said with a smile. \u201cBaseball, it\u2019s hard to explain at times. Now, we continue to come back in games. We get down, we get punched in the face, we get back up. Today was a perfect example.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the Mets\u2019 best win of the season. Tyrone Taylor\u2019s three-run home run in the ninth inning tied the score at 6-6. Carson Benge\u2019s chopper with the Yankees\u2019 infield drawn in and featuring five defenders scored Marcus Semien from third base to win it in the 10th. The four-run deficit they erased (they trailed 5-1 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning) represented their biggest comeback of the season.<\/p>\n
It was the Mets\u2019 best week of the season. In their homestand, they went 5-1. Each of their five wins featured a comeback.<\/p>\n
For a while, it was one of the Mets\u2019 worst games of the season (they are 20-26; there\u2019s a lot to choose from).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t play our best,\u201d Mendoza said.<\/p>\n
An understatement. On a day the Mets needed innings from a starter, Freddy Peralta didn\u2019t have command of his fastball, issued six walks and failed to record an out in the sixth inning. Bichette, who holds a .530 OPS, dropped a routine popup, allowing the Yankees to add another run in the sixth inning. In the seventh inning, Sean Manaea walked Max Schuemann to load the bases and then gave up another free pass to Anthony Volpe, the next batter. For most of the game, things looked ugly.<\/p>\n
Then things changed. Instead of rolling over, panicking or simply continuing to play poorly, the Mets fought back. Manaea kept pitching and didn\u2019t allow a run in the eighth or ninth.<\/p>\n
After Benge led off the ninth inning with a single, Bichette singled to put runners on first and second. Juan Soto grounded into a fielder\u2019s choice, hustling down the line for the Mets to maintain two runners on base. Then Taylor, carrying an 0-for-2 day and sub-.200 batting average, came to the plate. He said he was anticipating a curveball from Yankees closer David Bednar after he watched Mark Vientos, the previous batter, see two of them. On the first pitch he saw from Bednar, a curveball, Taylor connected for a 404-foot home run.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only are we winning games, we are getting contributions from guys who have been struggling,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about his emotions regarding his performance, Taylor\u2019s words were certainly appropriate for the team as a whole: \u201cBummed out to happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets keep showing a grittiness that was previously lacking. Perhaps the youth infusion has helped; it\u2019s not just Benge. A.J. Ewing, who was called up Tuesday, reached base four more times Sunday and executed a terrific bunt to move Semien to third base in the 10th inning. It seems like it extends beyond that, though.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Sunday\u2019s game, veteran players expressed confidence in the Mets\u2019 ability to turn things around, pointing to something they couldn\u2019t quite measure: resolve. It showed up Saturday after they processed the news of Clay Holmes\u2019 injury. It showed up again Sunday. It\u2019s going to need to show up again and again, considering the Mets\u2019 regulars like Francisco Lindor are not close to returning from respective stints on the injured list.<\/p>\n
The Mets took two out of three from the Yankees (28-19). They have won four of their last five series. They remain six games below .500. But players, in private conversations, seem to sincerely be buying into the idea of racking up series wins without getting caught up too much in the standings. It\u2019s at least a start, considering where the Mets were previously.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now gotta start playing better, period \u2014 it\u2019s been rough, but that\u2019s in the past,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cThere\u2019s a long way to go, but it\u2019s important for us to continue to carry that momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Within the first few minutes of a news conference after the New York Mets\u2019 7-6…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,475,82],"class_list":["post-677005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}