http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/sports/baseball/new-york-mets-playoffs-wild-card-race.html 2016-10-02 03:14:53 Just When It Seemed Like the Mets Were Goners, They Weren’t In August, there was a pile of injuries and thoughts of doom. But the alternate dimension Mets are going to the playoffs, albeit through the bargain-basement door. === PHILADELPHIA — So there’s Thomas Javier Rivera, a graduate of Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx and a career minor leaguer, standing in the In August, he played second base in 108-degree heat for the Hey T. J., did you expect this? He gives you a very friendly, are-you-stoned look. “Expect this? You dream this; you don’t expect it,” he said. “But even in Triple-A, from Little League to today, this is your dream.” Manager On the mound was hardly what any semi-sane fan would have hoped to see in a game like this. Instead of one of the Mets’ young, hard-throwing pitchers, there was big Bartolo Colon and his easy-rocking, Barcalounger style. He is 43, and his fastball sits most comfortably in the high 80s but — as my colleague “At this particular time last year, we were thinking, ‘Wow, if we could re-sign Bartolo he’d be a nice piece in the bullpen,” Collins said. “All he’s done is pitch almost 200 innings.” Colon led the team in wins with 15. This is the point in the column at which I offer a skeptic’s guilty plea. I recall sitting in August in my hotel room in Rio de Janeiro, where I was covering the Olympics, and reading dispatches about the Mets. Their offense was a lull-you-into-a-coma enterprise; their young pitchers were running up frequent-user miles on M.R.I. scanners. The team had gone more than a month without winning two games in a row. Its Cuban slugger, Yoenis Cespedes, was injured, as was its Venezuelan shortstop, Asdrubal Cabrera. Collins has a keen eye and ear for clubhouse psychology, but he can get twitchy with his decision making. He has acknowledged that even his wife second-guesses him. The who-is-the-next-Met-manager parlor game was ready to go. My youngest son, Aidan, an absurdly optimistic fan, sent me an email in Rio to say that his crystal ball had gone on the fritz on Mets matters, offering only riddles and parables. As it turned out, Collins shared our take. He stood in his office after the game, this little pepperpot of a man, soaked in beer and Champagne, his eyes red. Reporters asked about August and thoughts of doom. “Believe me, those thoughts went through everyone’s mind, mine included,” he said. “You sit there and try to analyze it and you say: How are we going to get through this?” He added, “You just try to stay calm, because that’s when the players are watching you.” What about in private? “I slam my head against the door sometimes.” Cespedes returned and began pounding home runs. Wilmer Flores began stroking doubles and home runs, beginning to lock himself into the starting lineup in September — until, of course, he too was injured. But in mid-August, Cabrera became the beating heart of this team. He is 30 with hair frosted golden. He’s got a gimpy knee and a hint of a beer gut. His face tends toward a perpetually comic, whaddaya-think-of-this look. On Saturday, he made a diving catch of a line drive, hopped up and flipped the ball into his bare hand, smiling. In the eighth inning, a Philadelphia relief pitcher sent a fastball sailing at Cabrera’s chin. His eyes popped, and he collapsed into the dirt. The Phillies fans roared approval; Mets fans in attendance hooted loudly. Their ancestral, up-and-down the Jersey Turnpike antipathies are well established. Cabrera dusted himself off and lined a shot to center field to drive in a comforting insurance run. For the neurotically inclined — and as someone raised to root for this Flushing Bay team, I know from fan neuroses — the portents and auguries of playing the last series of the year here were not good. The Phillies’ pennant and World Series banners snapping in the cool western winds summoned past pain, not least the Mets’ collapses — implosions is perhaps the truer word — of 2007 and 2008. My older son, Nick, and I had the misfortune to sit in this park for a game during one of those unravelings. We saw mighty Ryan Howard stroke a 650-foot homer (or so it seemed) and heard Philly fans screaming. We hurried for the exits. This weekend, that stadium felt like a station host to two trains traveling in opposite directions. Mets fans had thoroughly infiltrated it with their boisterous tribal chants. It was the last weekend of Howard’s long and glorious Philadelphia career. He still hits some home runs, but his average is a dying bird, sitting in the .190s. The end when it comes in sport is unsentimental and often unsightly. On Friday night, Cespedes hit a soaring pop-up into the wind. Howard, his legs long since gone wobbly, missed it. The ball landed on the first-base bag, which just might be God’s way of saying it’s time to retire. Howard came back Saturday and stroked a long home run off Colon, reminding the Mets of the sense of menace that once accompanied him to the plate. In the end, Jeurys Familia threw his darting rabid fastballs and sliders, and the Mets had stumbled improbably into the playoffs. They have their hammer-throwing Syndergaard ready. After that, it’s that middle-aged pitcher, then more kid pitchers who so far lack the common sense to be intimidated. Rivera is one of those rookies, although at 27 perhaps he can no longer be called a kid. His wife, father and mother had trooped down to Philadelphia from the Bronx. In truth, no one thought to bring Rivera to the major leagues until more or less every other option for the Mets was injured. Collins chuckled at the improbability of it all. “He’s just got a simple swing: sees it, hits it,” he said. “I’ll take my shot with him, you know?” You kind of have to nod in agreement. At that position, as at almost every other one, there are no alternatives. For this team, at this moment, no alternative seems to be working.