The 30-30 club has been considered a benchmark individual statistic in Major League Baseball over the decades — highlighting the combination of power and speed tools — even if it’s proven to be an increasingly rare feat with just five players registering 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in the same season in the past decade.
Of course, 30-30 has a far different connotation within a team context, and that is the middling Mets’ record heading into a key divisional showdown against the rival Braves beginning Tuesday night in Atlanta.
Buck Showalter’s up-and-down club obviously needs to escape the inconsistency that has underscored the first two months of the regular season, especially considering the lofty expectations fostered by owner Steve Cohen’s wintertime spending spree.
Post columnist Joel Sherman typically made all the pertinent points in diagnosing how the team with the highest payroll in history could be exhibiting this many holes and warts, with lineup inconsistency at the head of the list.
And clearly, $341 million shortstop Francisco Lindor emerging from a prolonged skid — he garnered more boos at Citi Field during a weekend sweep by the Blue Jays — is an eventual necessity in that regard.
Much has to change, but once their three-game set in Atlanta is completed on Thursday — barring rainouts, that is, with some inclement weather in the forecast — the Mets still will have 99 games remaining.
That leaves them ample opportunity to rattle off a lengthy winning stretch or two to make up ground on the first-place Braves in the NL East race.
The Braves (35-24) hold a 5 1/2-game lead over the Mets, and the Marlins also stand between them at 33-28 after downing the Royals on Monday night in Miami.
There only have been three games played between the sides in 2023, meaning Tuesday night’s matchup between Carlos Carrasco and Bryce Elder marks the first of their final 10 head-to-head meetings. The division rivals are down from a 19-game season series to 13 games under MLB’s more balanced scheduling this season.
After squandering a double-digit division lead to Atlanta last season, the Mets were bounced by the Padres in a best-of-three wild-card series.
They’d prefer to avoid that path this October, though the Phillies emerged out of third place in the NL East (with an 87-75 regular-season mark) and the third wild-card playoff berth to reach the World Series last fall.
The Mets currently sit two games behind the Brewers for the final wild-card position, with each of the eight teams behind them in the NL pecking order under .500, led by the Giants a half-game back with a 29-30 record.
The Mets, for the record, have boasted three 30-30 players in their history: Howard Johnson (three times), Darryl Strawberry and David Wright, who did it most recently in 2007.
A 30-30 team is not what the organization had in mind to when this roster was constructed last winter.
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The Yankees’ 4-2 mark in a two-city trip out west has pushed them to a season-best 11 games above .500.
They have a chance to extend that number with three games at the Stadium beginning Tuesday night against the White Sox, who are scuffling along at 26-35 even after a three-game weekend sweep of the Tigers.
But that certainly could depend on the availability of their best player.
The Yankees, who then will change Sox and play six of their next eight against Boston, had the middle of the their lineup fortified over the weekend in Los Angeles with the returns from the injured list of Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson — only to see reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge forced to sit out Sunday’s win over the Dodgers due to a toe issue.
No. 99 was injured when he crashed into the outfield wall making a spectacular coach the previous day, and he didn’t rule out an IL stint one day before undergoing further tests on Monday.
The Heat have portrayed themselves as defiant and undaunted throughout their march through the playoffs, and on-court leader Jimmy Butler perfectly summed up that mentality after his team gained a split of the first two road games of the NBA Finals against the Nuggets with Sunday night’s pivotal win in Denver.
Before they headed home for an off-day back in Miami ahead of Game 3 on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center, Butler had this to say about the resiliency of the team trying to become the first No. 8 seed in league history to win the championship:
“I just think nobody cares on our team. We’re not worried about what anybody thinks. We’re so focused in on what we do well and who we are as a group that at the end of the day, that’s what we fall back on.
“Make or miss shots, we’re going to be who we are because we’re not worried about anybody else. That’s how it’s been all year long, and that’s not going to change.
“So that’s what I think it is. I think it’s the ‘I don’t give a damn’ factor.”