Just eight games into the season, manager Terry Collins was pushing the panic button and using Jeurys Familia for a five-out save against the Marlins.
As kooky as the move seemed at the time, the Mets won that game to complete an awful homestand and have since been close to unstoppable. It starts, of course, with a dominant rotation that features Noah Syndergaard and his array of 100 mph gas, but the Mets’ bullpen was terrific in April, and the lineup purred at last-August level — with Yoenis Cespedes, Neil Walker and Michael Conforto as the focal points.