The New York Mets need to make “winning” a mindset as they begin an 11-game road trip in Atlanta on Monday.
As the regular season rolls on, it’s clear the New York Mets haven’t had consistency as a winning ballclub. It seems once they pull away with a win, the following day they add one to the loss column. And being that they’re in the middle of the NL East, a win-streak is exactly what the team needs.
After the Mets fell to the Saint Louis Cardinals on Sunday, their record fell to three games below .500 at 34-37. They’ll begin an 11-game road trip on Monday, which includes a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves and four-game series against the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.
Going into this streak of games away from Citi Field, the organization knows exactly what it needs to do. And it’s simple: win and do it consistently.
“We gotta start winning games, and we gotta start now,” Todd Frazier said, per Tim Healey of Newsday. “It’s gotta start [Monday].”
Since that the Mets are now 7.5 games back from the division leading-Braves, a sweep or at least taking two-out-of-three will really help their positioning as the summer rolls on. The most important series will probably be the four-game series against the Phillies starting June 24.
New York is currently five games behind Philadelphia in both the NL East and NL Wild Card races.
Dominic Smith, who went 2-for-3 on Sunday from the first base position, knows just how important this upcoming road trip is.
“This is one of the road trips we circle on the calendar,” Smith said.”We know what the Braves are doing, we know what the Phillies are doing and we know the Cubs are a really good team, as well. We know this is huge for us. This can get us going in the right direction and we can gain some ground over the next week[-plus].”
The Mets and Braves will begin play on Monday at SunTrust Park in Atlanta at 7:20 p.m. ET.
