Mets rolling, but still have work cut out

On the night when Shohei Ohtani reminded everybody why he is the best player in this world, the Mets continued to be what they have been for nearly the last 100 games of this season, which means the best team anywhere. And guess what? After all the good work they’ve done, there is still more to do. They still aren’t guaranteed a spot in the postseason tournament when it starts up in October, because they still have to go through the Phillies and Braves and Brewers to get there.

“We’re good,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said on Thursday night after the Mets put a 10-6 beating on the Phillies.

Mendoza’s Mets have been better than that for a while, and a lot better than that lately as they’ve won 16 of their last 20 games. They have now scored 10 runs for three straight games, something no Mets team has ever done before. They go into Friday night’s game against the first-place Phillies just six games behind them in the NL East, after being a mile-and-a-half behind at the end of May (15 behind, to be exact), and tied for the second Wild Card spot in the National League and just two games behind the Padres for the first one.

You want more? Here’s more: The Mets are playing the way they’ve played this week without Francisco Lindor, who will probably end up finishing second to the great Ohtani for the MVP award.

But even before they get to Milwaukee next weekend for the series that will end what has been the most entertaining and appealing Mets season since they made the World Series in 2015, they get three more games against the Phillies and then three in Atlanta against the Braves. Rivalry Week for the Mets, as they have to keep balling the way they have since their season seemed to have bottomed out on May 29, when they lost 10-3 to the Dodgers and their record fell to 22-33 and a players-only meeting was called.

Going into Friday night’s game against the Phillies, the Mets have been 63-35 since then. No one in baseball has a better record than that, certainly not the Yankees or the Dodgers. The Astros were 24-32 when the Mets began their run. They’re 58-38 since. The Diamondbacks, who came out of Thursday night’s games with the same record as the Mets, have been 60-38. It is the Mets who have stood taller than everybody else over the four months when this could have turned into another lost season for them -- a season in which their ace, Kodai Senga has made exactly one start -- and has become the opposite of that.

The Phillies still have first place in their division. The Braves, despite all of their own injuries, refuse to go away, and are waiting for the Mets in Atlanta after the weekend the way they have been waiting for them in a lot of other Septembers. As well as the Mets are playing, and the way they keep scoring -- and the way they hit four more home runs at Citi Field against the Phillies on Thursday -- their Wild Card circumstances really aren’t all that much better right now than the Tigers’ are in the American League.

The Mets are right there, anyway. Their destiny is very much in their own hands because they really are playing their best baseball at the very best time for them to do that. They have picked themselves up again after two gutting losses in Philadelphia last weekend when they lost leads to the Phillies in the late innings. After that they came home and survived against the Nationals in extra innings on Monday. Then they scored 10 against the Nats twice and did it again and then did the same to the Phillies, at this point in the baseball calendar when every game feels like a playoff game. And has for some time. It has still been some high time for the Mets.

Suddenly Pete Alonso, well on his way to being the greatest home run hitter the Mets have ever had if he is still with them after this season, is hitting home runs again. Brandon Nimmo, who struggled himself this season, now has 21 homers and 84 RBIs, just three fewer than Alonso does. Jose Iglesias continues to play like a star after returning to the Mets earlier in the season from Triple-A Syracuse. And when Lindor had to sit down with a bad back, Ronald Acuña Jr.'s brother Luisangel, showed up to play shortstop in what is every bit a pennant race at Citi Field as if the kid had done that plenty of times before.

Through it all, the Mets starting pitchers, especially Luis Severino, Jose Quintana, Sean Manaea and David Peterson, were the rock-solid foundation of everything the Mets have been doing even before they started scoring 10 runs a game. The Yankees (against whom the Mets are 4-0 this season) are likely going to finish first in the AL East. With all that, the Mets have given their fans this kind of finish on the other side of town.

They haven’t won anything yet, apart from the full-throated admiration of their fans. Three more with the Phillies, starting Friday night. Three with the Braves. Rivalry Week for the New York Mets.