Francisco Lindor, Starling Marte
Jessica Alcheh-USA TODAY Sports

Remember last week when the Mets dropped two straight in San Francisco? And actually lost a series?

A week later, they’re back to being the Mets — the 2022 Mets — after sweeping a pair of three-game sets at home against the free-falling Phillies and lowly Nationals. Their stranglehold on the National League East is now 10 games in the loss column over the reigning world champion Braves — tied for the biggest June 1 division lead in NL history.

Next up: A real test.

The Mets are headed back to the West Coast for a beast of a road swing. Ten games over 11 days, starting with a four-gamer weekend series at the Dodgers in a potential NLCS preview. That will be followed by three-game series at the Padres and Angels.

Combined record of the three opponents through Wednesday: 93-60.

The Mets aren’t going to sweep these series. But as long as they come home with five or six wins (or even four), they should be OK.

Lineup picking up the slack. The typical Mets fan complains. It’s in their blood. Even if the team has a fantastic 35-17 start to the year, the Queens faithful will find an issue. And as of this moment, that issue exists within the pitching staff, as Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Tylor Megill are all out with varying injuries.

This Mets lineup has had to carry much of the weight with the big arms out of the rotation. You can’t slack in the runs department and expect someone like David Peterson or Trevor Williams to keep you afloat.

But luckily, the Mets’ bats came through against both Philly and Washington, scoring 49 combined runs across the six games (just over eight runs a game).

The big names have come to play. Francisco Lindor is on a 10-game RBI streak (he and Mike Piazza are the only Mets to do that) and has 20 RBI in that span. Pete Alonso also smacked a pair of home runs and recorded six RBI across the homestand.

But the production hasn’t halted there.

Starling Marte has been excellent and notched six combined RBI in Monday and Tuesday’s wins over the Nats, with a home run in each victory. Mark Canha also knocked four runs in during the homestand while Luis Guillorme was 9-for-18. On Wednesday, specifically, Tomas Nido was 4-for-4 with three RBI.

Ryan Honey is a staff writer and host of the Wide Right Podcast.