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.
