Mets aren’t giving up hope on 2026 — here’s what it would take for Amazin’s to make miracle run into playoffs

PITTSBURGH — Francisco Lindor sometimes reflects on his 2017 season in Cleveland to remind himself that anything still can happen. 

From Aug. 24 to Sept. 15 of that year, the team assembled a 22-game winning streak, the second-longest in American League history. It transformed an already solid club into a runaway AL Central winner. 

“It just reminds you crazy things like that can happen,” Lindor said Friday before a 6-4 win over the Pirates. “It’s almost like it’s real, not this foreign concept of like it didn’t happen.” 

It’s that kind of attitude Lindor will carry until the Mets are mathematically eliminated from the postseason race. The tiniest seeds of hope were planted with a three-game sweep of the Guardians that immediately followed Monday’s trade deadline.

The sweep was the Mets’ third of the season and first since May. 

Realistically, the Mets — who moved to 51-66 and 10 ½ games behind for a National League wild card berth with Friday’s win — need a miracle. Fangraphs on Friday computed the team’s postseason chances at 0.1 percent, and maybe that was too kind. 

Francisco Lindor of the New York Mets celebrates with first base coach Gilbert Gomez after hitting an RBI single in the fourth inning during the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park on August 7, 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Getty Images

What would it take for the Mets?

Probably nothing less than a 32-13 finish if you use last season as a guide. The Reds earned the NL’s final wild card berth last year with 83 victories, winning a tiebreaker against the Mets. 

Luke Weaver, whom the Mets traded to the Pirates this week, was asked Friday whether his former team was capable of such a run. Weaver pointed to the Red Sox — who appeared dead in the AL postseason race until assembling a 15-game winning streak last month.

The Red Sox had a 36-game stretch in which they went 31-5 to vault them firmly into contention. 

“You [lose] these next three and then you go on your run,” Weaver said in the Pirates clubhouse. “As someone who did care, I think we look at a team like the Red Sox, and we see it’s really cool from a distance and what is possible. We have history books to show other reasons, and they are creating their own history right now. 

Jay Bruce and Francisco Lindor were part of a 22-game win streak with Cleveland in 2017. Getty Images

“It’s just amazing how you can go from one really bad moment to one exceptional one, and I think our game in particular, with how many games there are and how it’s every day, the momentum can be such a wave. I think you hold onto that. You feed into that. You don’t let it consume you, but you just acknowledge it and then you just kind of keep going. The next thing you know, you look up and you are on the [winning] side.” 

Only adding to the Mets’ challenge is trying to win with a rebuilt bullpen consisting largely of unproven pieces, following trades that jettisoned Weaver, Huascar Brazobán, Brooks Raley and A.J. Minter for prospects. 

And the starting rotation includes two pitchers in Zac Thornton and Robert Stock who are still unknown quantities to some degree. Thornton made his seventh major league start Friday, and Stock had surgery this season for thoracic outlet syndrome before getting recalled to the Mets on Sunday.

He is in line to start again Saturday. 

“Nobody has been a great team and been under .500 and gotten to the playoffs for free,” Weaver said. “It doesn’t work like that. You have got to have some résumé, but there is a lot of great potential over there, and they should be excited for the future. I know it’s a pretty tough deal right now, but you can win no matter what, and you cherish and realize how hard winning is sometimes, and when you are doing it, you don’t take it for granted.”