The Blue Jays Leave New York Feeling Proud. Mets Exit Seeking Answers

Three weekends into their third straight season of high expectations, the Toronto Blue Jays looked the part of a team expected to do big things in the AL East or at least.

They dominated two games against the Yankees, lost the other on a walk off that featured a chirpy buildup involving past comments by Alek Manoah and Gerrit Cole along with two homers from Vladimir Guerrero Jr, who left the series with a .341 average.

Those wins were part of an 18-9 start through April 29 and Toronto’s best start since 2009, a season that ended with them as a 75-win team and 28 games behind the Yankees in the AL East. At times during May, Toronto resembled a 75-win team when it turned a good start into some middling quality of play.

Perhaps no sequence highlighted the mediocre quality than that unfolded from May 16-22.

Coming off a three-game sweep at home against Atlanta to help the Mets out and push their record to 24-16, the Blue Jays followed it by dropping six of seven against the Yankees and Orioles.

There was the constant noise against the Yankees highlighted by accusations towards Aaron Judge and disputes about the positioning of coaches. Then came a three-game sweep against the Orioles featuring consecutive overtime losses with the first defeat coming after manager John Schneider losing track of mound visits and the second setback featuring the pitching allowing five runs in the second overtime.

Since then, the brand has trended back to the respectability the Mets are still waiting to display from a roster currently at .500 for the 11th time. When Brandon Belt clanged a slider off the protective thing that hides the home run apple from being dented by homers, the Blue Jays walked out of their second visit to New York with a 6-4 win.

“I think guys are understanding that they’re a good team, right? Calendar month flips to June and things are a little bit different than they were in May,” Schneider said. “Sweeping a team is really hard no matter where you are or who it is. I thought it was just a really complete team effort over the weekend.”

And complete effort it was for the Jays, who are back towards trending upwards with six wins in eight games since they ended May 25 at 26-25 with a rough start from Manoah coming two days after Guerrero homered off position player Luke Raley in a 20-1 rout.

They did not dominate offensively like those two wins against the Yankees but did just enough.

They were in position to do just enough because of strong pitching, starting with Chris Bassitt, who waited 90 minutes to pitch Friday much to his chagrin because of a plane waiting to whisk him to his expectant wife. Then came Jose Berrios and a well-timed base hit by Guerrero Jr. after the Mets opted to pitch to him on Saturday.

In the finale, Yusei Kikuchi was not necessarily booked for much more than five innings but in the time, he was out there other than Tommy Pham, the Mets struggled against the left-hander, who once carried a no-hitter into the sixth in the Bronx with the Mariners in May 2019.

And that enabled Toronto to surge to a four-run lead that seemed insurmountable given the inconsistent nature of the Mets. It was until the sixth inning when consecutive homers flushed the lead, but the vibe was more like they are going to win this game.

Shortly after losing the lead, Belt got a hold of a low slider. He was not sure it was going to go out but then was greeted with chants of “MVP, MVP” from his adoring teammates in the dugout.

“I couldn’t be more proud of this team this series,” Belt said. “To have a game like we had yesterday and just grind and battle the entire day and end up coming up with the victory.

“And same thing today. They came and tied it late, and we just kept battling. We never thought that we would lose the game. That’s what’s really impressive about this team.”

Similar things were said by the Mets when they seemingly went from their season being canceled to the start of a turnaround with five straight wins – all by one run and two coming in walk-offs.

Instead, the Mets were left to accept the realities of mediocrity while the Blue Jays headed back home with the following numbers:.265 batting average, a .333 on-base percentage and .422 slugging percentage.

“I guess as of right now we’re a .500 ballclub,” Pete Alonso said after a weekend that saw the Mets go hitless in 19 at-bats with runners in scoring position and 1-for-29 with runners on base. “They’re a really good team over there. We were in every single one of these games. We had a chance to win all of them. So it’s frustrating but we got to come back and play our best and win ballgames.”