So much has changed for the Mets in the past calendar year.
On June 8 of last year, the Mets were 27-36, fourth in the NL East and, even in a forgiving National League in which just five teams were above .500 at that time, Fangraphs gave them just an 11.3 percent chance to make the playoffs.
From then through their series against the Dodgers, the Mets had played the equivalent of a 162-game season and had gone 101-61, which was five games better than the second-best record — which belonged to the Tigers, another incredible before-and-after picture.
Perhaps nothing exemplifies the transformation for the Mets in this time better than how toe-to-toe competitive they were in the recently completed home-and-home with the Dodgers. By this time last year, the Mets also were done with their regular season games against Los Angeles and had gone 2-4, including getting swept three games at Citi Field by a combined 18-5 in late May.
