NEW YORK — With 53 games and more than eight weeks to go, the NL East is far from won, the annals of baseball history pockmarked enough by comebacks and collapses and other September surprises that, well, as one long-ago Mets manager said, it ain’t over till it’s over.
But after a 5-2 win over Atlanta on Sunday the Mets have to like their chances. By taking four out of five games in the series, they nearly doubled their division lead, from 3 1/2 to 6 1/2. Jacob deGrom’s dazzling return to Citi Field included a perfect-game bid into the sixth inning, Pete Alonso and Mark Canha each had a two-run double during a game-deciding third-inning rally, and lefthander Joely Rodriguez tossed 2 1/3 scoreless innings to build a bridge from deGrom to closer Edwin Diaz.
Diaz’s presence underscored the significance of this series at this time of year. He was pitching for the second day in a row and a third time in four days — a stretch that started Thursday, when he recorded the first two-inning save of his career.
Manager Buck Showalter and the Mets saw a chance to step on Atlanta’s neck, and they did it.
DeGrom’s final line was 5 2/3 innings, one hit, two runs, one walk and 12 strikeouts (the most by a Mets pitcher this year).
Somehow, he was even better than those numbers would suggest. He retired each of his first 17 batters, until No. 9 hitter Ehire Adrianza stepped up with two outs in the sixth — and drew a walk. Dansby Swanson followed with Atlanta’s first hit, a two-run home run to right-centerfield.
That was it for deGrom, who departed to the last in a lengthy series of standing ovations from the Citi Field fans. He hadn’t pitched there in exactly 13 months. The crowd of 37,717 showed its appreciation and excitement by getting on its feet before he had even thrown a pitch, as he warmed up to his usual anthem, “Simple Man'' by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
A four-run rally in the third inning was classic 2022 Mets: infield single (Brandon Nimmo), soft single dunked into left (Francisco Lindor), double that deflected off the third-base bag to allow two runs to score (Alonso), walk (Daniel Vogelbach) and the big hit, a two-out, two-run double (Canha).
Jeff McNeil created a run in the fifth, hustling for a double to open the inning. Then he advanced to third on a medium-depth flyout to right, taking advantage of Robbie Grossman playing there instead of Ronald Acuna Jr., and scored on Collin McHugh’s wild pitch.
