Something has been percolating in my brain since my colleague Mike Vaccaro and I were trying — in real time — to put Francisco Lindor’s ninth-inning, playoff-assuring homer in Game 161 in perspective:
Where did it rank among the most important homers in Mets history, and where did the game, an 8-7 Mets victory over the Braves, rank?
And just as perhaps we were coming to peace with it all, the Mets’ first five postseason games all registered on the thrill meter. Pete Alonso’s three-run homer with one out in the ninth inning of Wild Card Game 3 against Milwaukee — and the game itself — now also had to go way up the charts. As did Division Series Game 1 against the Phillies.
In a way, it all has been magnified because so much of the Mets’ history is negative, especially in Atlanta and Milwaukee and against the Braves.
