How 2022 actually went.
Buck Showalter brought order, Max Scherzer joined the rotation, and the Mets played with urgency from Opening Day. Lindor and Alonso drove the offense, Jeff McNeil won the batting title, and Edwin Díaz became dominant enough that the first notes of Narco turned every ninth inning into a stadium event.
The club won 101 games and held first place for nearly the entire year. A late sweep in Atlanta left the teams tied, and the Braves won the division on the season-series tiebreaker. That made a brilliant six months feel unstable just before the playoffs. The Mets had built a record worthy of a champion and still landed in the Wild Card round.
San Diego won the best-of-three series at Citi Field, holding the Mets to one hit in the deciding game. The sudden finish created a difficult argument about how to remember the year. One bad week does not erase 101 wins, Díaz’s entrance, or the summer’s consistency. It does explain why a season that was so enjoyable is often remembered through disappointment first.
For six months the trumpets meant the game was over; in October, the whole season ended before they could matter.