Even in an era of baseball when advanced statistics such as WAR and wOBA and WHIP and BABIP have become essential numbers to the sport’s bookkeeping, digits to describe the magic — unquantifiable and, at times, even indescribable — that carried the Mets to the NLCS last year still don’t exist and likely never will.
There’s nothing that can accurately measure the power of “OMG,” of the aura that started around the end of June and carried them all the way to Game 6 of the NLCS against the Dodgers.
Moments such as Francisco Lindor’s ninth-inning homer against the Braves to snatch the Mets’ playoff spot and Pete Alonso’s ninth-inning blast against the Brewers to save them in Game 3 of the National League wild-card series. Trends such as Jose Iglesias — a journeyman infielder who started spring training on a minor-league deal — hitting .335 across the final two months of the regular season and performing an on-field concert for his song that soared up the Billboard charts around the same time the Mets soared up the standings, as well as Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana and David Peterson becoming three of the best pitchers in baseball over the latter portion of the season.
Plenty of Mets wins last year defied logic. Made no sense. Felt like a storybook journey that could suddenly end at any point. But the need for a tear like that to salvage the season stemmed from sitting 11 games under .500 after splitting an early-June series with the Diamondbacks. They discovered ways to lose games instead of deciphering ways to win them. Nothing, really, was going right for them. They hadn’t figured out a formula for the magical run.
