Phew — the New York Mets’ most recent homestand was rather entertaining, don’t you think?

Between sweeping the Miami Marlins and winning two of three from the Washington Nationals in thrilling fashion, manager Mickey Callaway‘s club has all the momentum as they pack their bags and head south to face the Atlanta Braves.

While the situation itself and the current ride the Mets are on is inherently different than many things we’ve seen from them in the past, it’s hard to not draw comparisons to other recent squads. Following Saturday night’s dramatic win, Noah Syndergaard at least made me feel like I wasn’t crazy for thinking about 2015 when watching what these guys have been accomplishing:

This past weekend’s series against the Nats felt awfully familiar, too. Let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Rewinding to 2015

On the eve of the non-waiver trade deadline, New York had just finished up a series against the San Diego Padres, which included an absolutely horrific 8-7 loss on the Thursday afternoon. Despite this defeat dropping them to 52-50 on the season, the Mets were just three games behind the first-place Nats in the National League East with them coming to Citi Field for a three-game weekend series.

Although he didn’t make his debut until August 1, the stadium was buzzing around game time because Sandy Alderson and company had acquired Yoenis Cespedes for the stretch run right before the deadline passed. The game went 12 innings that night, punctuated with Wilmer Flores‘ walk-off homer. Let’s take a quick peek at that because why not, right?

That was the kind of momentum they needed to get going. New York would go on to win the final two games, putting them in a tie for first place with Washington. However, these three victories were the start of a seven-game winning streak.

It also spurred an incredible run through August and September, which resulted in a 37-22 record over the final two-plus months of regular-season action before reaching the World Series. Although they were a different team from that moment forward with a red-hot Cespedes in the middle of the lineup, sweeping Washington very much catapulted them into the next stratosphere with regard to their collective performance.

Fast-Forward Back to 2019

Heading into this past weekend against the Nats was similar, but still a little different. The biggest difference was that the Mets were already on an incredible roll, winning 13 of 14 between July 25th and August 7th. Of course, the biggest knock from others was citing the competition in which they accomplished this against (San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates twice, Chicago White Sox, and the Marlins).

Washington would simply be the first “legitimate” challenge since this streak started. They entered this head-to-head matchup in the early part of August at Citi Field (can’t you already see some of the similarities?) with plenty on the line. The Nats weren’t leading the NL East, but with a 61-53 record prior to Friday’s game, they held a 2.0-game lead on the first wild-card spot, which included a 2.5-game lead over the Mets.

Although New York couldn’t finish off the sweep, they’ve managed to get even closer to a wild-card spot in the process thanks to those two dramatic wins on Friday and Saturday (one game behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the second spot, 1.5 behind the Nats for the top spot entering Monday).

Looking Ahead

The soft part of the Mets’ schedule is certainly done for the season — this final month-plus of games will be a test to see if they’re truly contenders or just got hot at a convenient time. However, what they’ve done thus far is what playoff teams do — get healthy against the game’s worst teams and hold your own against the game’s better teams. Now it’s just a matter of keeping the momentum going that Pete Alonso mentioned following Sunday’s loss.

Could this series against the Nationals be viewed as a launching pad for the Mets if they do end up playing in October? Not particularly since they’ve been on another level for a while before facing Washington. But this performance was the kind they needed psychologically — to know that they could hang with other playoff contenders.

If New York continues riding the wave and plays postseason baseball this year, I will at least circle this series against the Nats and note it as a turning point. Even if they already believed in what was happening before all the late-inning heroics against Washington’s bullpen, it could very easily be a time when they started gaining believers outside of Flushing.