David Lennon: With the Mets, all you should expect is the unexpected
The Mets' Tyrone Taylor is doused with Gatorade by teammate Luis Torrens as they celebrate their win over the Yankees at Citi Field on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
There’s doing things the hard way, and then there’s doing things the Mets’ way, an age-old practice of defying odds, flipping narratives and pulling off the improbable — sometimes happily, but mostly ending in disappointment.
So if there’s any reason to believe the 2026 Mets can turn this season around, look to the franchise’s twisted history and its vexing habit of reversing expectations.
More specifically, we’d point to Sunday’s 7-6 comeback victory over the Yankees, made possible by Tyrone Taylor’s tying three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning and secured by Carson Benge’s one-out tapper in the 10th.
Taylor hammered a first-pitch curveball from Yankees closer David Bednar, hooking it well inside the leftfield foul pole. Benge stepped to the plate against a five-man infield, deployed to plug the middle, and punched a grounder over the mound on which Anthony Volpe and Max Schuemann collided, allowing Marcus Semien to race home from third.
Afterward, the two heroes passed each other on the way to greet the media.
“You’re sick, man,” the giddy Taylor said to Benge. “A 20-year-old hitting walk-offs.”
Actually, Benge is 23. But he looks more like a teenager, and the Baby Mets have come to the rescue of their Flushing elders lately. A.J. Ewing (age 21) is barely old enough for a beer, but he can bunt, and it was his perfect sacrifice that moved Semien to third in the 10th.
“I’ve attempted plenty of times,” said Ewing, who reached base in his four previous plate trips Sunday, including three walks. “Didn’t go as well as that one, but I’ve been working on it for sure.”
This was a game the Mets had no business winning. They had lost 96 straight when trailing after the eighth (including the postseason) dating to Pete Alonso’s three-run homer off Devin Williams in Game 3 of the 2024 Wild Card Series.
Also, there was a baffling defensive blunder for a second consecutive night, as Bo Bichette dropped a routine two-out pop-up in shallow leftfield — one with a 3% hit probability — that gave the Yankees a 5-1 lead and extended a bumpy four-run sixth inning by Sean Manaea that should have torpedoed the Mets’ chances.
“We didn’t play our best,” manager Carlos Mendoza said.
We’ve heard that plenty during the first six weeks. It’s why the Mets still are six games under .500 (20-26) despite winning four of the past five series.
The difference on Sunday? Those mistakes were a footnote because the Mets did just enough right, at the right times.
The fact that it was the Yankees made these two wins count even more.
“I think it means a lot for us, especially how the offense came back,” said Freddy Peralta, who tied a career high with six walks in five innings-plus. “It was an unbelievable job by everybody, and it shows everyone in here, and the fans, how special this team is when everything is working the way it should be working.”
Almost nothing had gone as planned for the Mets heading to this Subway Series, and they doubled down on that bad luck in Friday’s opener when Clay Holmes — their most consistent starting pitcher — suffered a broken right fibula when he was nailed by a 111-mph line drive off the bat of Spencer Jones.
Suddenly, losing Holmes for eight-plus weeks felt like removing the pivotal piece in the Mets’ wobbly Jenga stack, but they still rallied to take the next two games from the Yankees and refused to lay down in Sunday’s finale.
The Mets trailed by four runs in the sixth before pinch hitter Luis Torrens poked a two-run double that skimmed a few feet inside the first-base line. But after the Yankees immediately padded the lead — on Manaea’s bases-loaded walk to Anthony Volpe — the momentum turned around again.
Just as Citi Field seemingly had been turned over to the pro-Yankees crowd, a vocal bunch that probably occupied half the building all weekend, the Mets refused to go quietly in the ninth. For all the debate last month about firing Mendoza, what transpired Sunday — and really, since the calendar flipped to May — is proof positive that keeping him was the correct decision.
Also up there? Moving Benge to the leadoff spot. He opened the ninth by lashing a single to leftfield. Two outs later, Taylor — who entered in the fifth as a pinch hitter for MJ Melendez — jumped on a poorly located 80-mph curveball from David Bednar, launching a high-arcing 404-foot rainbow that brought the ballpark to its feet.
“Huge series win,” Taylor said. “I think you just continue to take it game by game. We know injuries happen, so it’s kind of a next-man-up mentality. Just keep going.”
Maybe, just maybe, the Mets could start getting a few lucky bounces for a change, too. That happened Sunday when Benge — who’s hitting .333 (18-for-54) this month with an .853 OPS — got his bat on Tim Hill’s sinker in the 10th. If this were April, Semien gets cut down at the plate. But for these new Mets, in May? Volpe and Schuemann — the fifth infielder — crashed into each other going for the ball.
“I saw them collide,” Benge said. “And I was like, yeah, Marcus has got it in the bag.”
The Mets are 10-5 this month after a hellish April. They took Round 1 of the Subway Series against a crosstown rival that figured to be far superior. Is it enough to believe yet?
“Baseball is hard to explain at times,” Mendoza said. “But it’s just a good feeling right now.”
Imagine that. A positive vibe, wrapped in a glimmer of hope, that nobody saw coming.
But with the Mets, what else would you expect?
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
