At 11:10pm on July 31, 2015, Wilmer Flores hit a walk-off home run that seemed more fantasy than reality. Two days after almost being traded, and hours after the blockbuster acquisition of Yoenis Céspedes, the 23-year-old’s cathartic blast sealed a 2-1 victory over the Nationals, pushing the Mets to two games behind Washington in the National League East standings. Howie Rose would
later say, “I swear when that ball went over the fence it turned into pixie dust.” Little did we know, that moment was just a hint of the magical month arriving fifty minutes later.
If the 2015 National League Champion Mets were living a fairytale, August was when their supernatural pact with the baseball gods reached peak power. It was a month populated by record-setting performances, rally parakeets, quick-pitch quibbles, kick-save outs, motivational cookies, and all manner of mystical occurrences. By August’s conclusion, the Mets had gone 20-8, marking their first 20-win month in 15 years, while setting new franchise highs in home runs (45) and extra-base hits (121).
So ten years later, let’s put on our neon arm sleeves and take the seven train down memory lane to relive August 2015 — game by game, day by day, and play by play — as it too turns into pixie dust in our minds.
August 1-2, vs Washington
One night after Flores’ walk-off, the Mets’ storybook series against the Nats continued on Saturday. The Nats jumped ahead 2-0 in the first, but Jacob deGrom settled in, finishing with 6.0 IP, 2 ER, 7 K, and 6 H — a statline eerily mirroring the iconic performance he would later deliver in NLDS Game 5 against the Dodgers. While all eyes were locked on No. 3 hitter Yoenis Céspedes in his Mets debut, it was the man batting behind him who proved the evening’s star. Lucas Duda clubbed 2 home runs, reaching base four times and driving in all three Mets runs.
In the series finale on Sunday, the revitalized Mets got the opportunity to shine on national television. The team again fell behind early, with Anthony Rendon drilling a first inning home run off Noah Syndergaard, but the Mets’ bats wouldn’t be held down for long. With two outs in the bottom of the third, Curtis Granderson hit a two-run home run off Washington’s Jordan Zimmerman to retake the lead. Before ESPN cut back to the center field camera, Daniel Murphy had sent a solo shot into the Pepsi Porch. The next batter was Yoenis Céspedes, who recorded his first Mets hit by lacing a 1-0 breaking ball into the left field. Into the box stepped Duda, who promptly launched an inside fastball off the right field foul pole. In the span of just five pitches, the Mets had scored five runs, igniting Citi Field into an unprecedented frenzy and setting the tone for the rest of the summer.
Oh, and Syndergaard? He threw eight innings of two-run ball, blowing a 99 mph fastball by Bryce Harper on his 109th pitch of the night.
August 3-5, at Miami
The Mets rode their momentum into Miami, annihilating the Marlins by outscoring them 25-8 in a three-game set. Michael Conforto, recalled after previously being demoted to make room for Céspedes’ arrival, kicked off the barrage with his first major league home run on Monday night. The newly acquired Céspedes made history in just his third start with the franchise, becoming the 28th Met to record three doubles in a game — a mark only Brandon Nimmo, Dominic Smith, and Jeff McNeil have matched since then. On the mound, Bartolo Colón cruised through eight innings (warming up for the behind-the-back flip he would perform in Miami next month) as the Mets thwacked the Marlins 12-2. By the end of play on August 3, the Mets had moved into sole possession of the N.L. East for the first time since June 19. They would not relinquish their lead.
Jonathan Niese picked up the pitching baton on Tuesday, firing seven innings of one-run ball as a go-ahead hit by Eric Campbell catapulted the Mets to victory. The contest marked the fifth consecutive game in which the Mets allowed two runs or fewer — a feat the team accomplished three separate times in 2015, and have done only twice since (most recently in August 2022, when they tied a franchise record with eight such games). The streak almost reached six games on Wednesday with Matt Harvey tossing seven scoreless innings, but a ninth inning meltdown from Eric O’Flaherty in his Mets debut allowed the Marlins to come dangerously close to overcoming an eight-run deficit. Still, Jeurys Familia was able to hang on and seal the Mets’ second-straight series sweep.
August 7-9, at Tampa Bay
Next, the team made the intrastate journey north to Tampa, where their six-game winning streak bent but did not break in the series opener on Friday night. Trailing 3-2 with one out in the top of the ninth, the Mets mounted a rally. Conforto continued to impress with a game-tying, opposite-field double, before the burgeoning legend of Wilmer Flores grew as the shortstop slashed a go-ahead single to right. Familia worked around a leadoff single by future Met Asdrubal Cabrera in the bottom of the inning to earn his 30th save of the season, joining Jesse Orosco, John Franco, Armando Benítez, Billy Wagner, and Francisco Rodríguez as the only members of the franchise’s 30-save club (Edwin Díaz has since joined the club as well).
The Mets jumped ahead 3-0 in the first inning on Saturday, but the Rays rallied against Noah Syndergaard to retake the lead and finally serve the Mets a loss. Sunday’s rubber match played out in similar fashion, with the Mets seizing a 3-0 lead against Top-5 Cy Young finisher Chris Archer before Colón coughed up the lead, surrendering three RBI to John Jaso and a go-ahead home run to Richie Shaffer — one of only five in Shaffer’s 51-game big league career.
August 10-13, vs Colorado
Returning to Flushing for the first time since their swatting of the Nats, the Mets put on a Broadway-worthy show. On Monday night, fans were treated to a vintage 2015 Mets win: starting pitcher Jonathan Niese turned in seven stellar innings of two-run ball, while the offense eked out four runs on four hits to pave the way for a Tyler Clippard hold and Jeurys Familia save. On Tuesday night, Matt Harvey stole the spotlight with 8.0 IP, 0 ER, 4 H, and only 97 pitches thrown, bidding for a second career complete-game shutout (the first coming almost exactly two years earlier, also against the Rockies at home). Though no one would have predicted it at the time, the game marked the last time in the Dark Knight’s career he would complete eight innings, excluding Game 5 of the 2015 World Series.
Jacob deGrom followed Harvey’s brilliant performance with a gem of his own, twirling seven scoreless innings and fanning ten Rockies to notch the eighth of his fifty-eight double-digit strikeout efforts with the Mets. deGrom allowed just two hits: one to former batting champion Jose Reyes, and one to future batting champion DJ LeMahieu. Later that night, Carlos Gonzalez — himself a former batting champion — called deGrom
“the best pitcher in the game, hands down.”
In tandem with deGrom’s dominance, Wednesday’s contest was forever enshrined in Mets folklore for the appearance of what Gary Cohen dubbed “The Rally Parakeet.” The small winged creature camping out near the Citi Field diamond appeared to match the color of Yoenis Céspedes’ neon arm sleeve, a connection Cohen made just moments before Céspedes fittingly launched a solo home run.
On Thursday, the Mets pulled no punches by handing the ball to another young ace in Syndergaard. Just when the Rockies finally mustered some offense with a pair of solo homers from DJ LeMahieu and Nolan Arenado in the first inning, the Mets’ bats broke out, piling on 12 runs thanks to homers from Curtis Granderson, Kelly Johnson, and Juan Lagares. By the time the four-game series was over, the Mets had outscored the Rockies 23-5, won 11 of their last 13 games, and built a 4.5 game lead over the Nationals in the N.L. East. Meanwhile, in Port St. Lucie, their captain David Wright had begun a rehab assignment…
August 14-16, vs Pittsburgh
Even fairytales have moments of failure, and in the middle of August, the Pirates arrived to pillage and plunder Citi Field. On Friday and Saturday night, Pittsburgh stole a pair of heartbreaking extra-inning games from the Mets’ clutches. Friday’s contest concluded in the tenth after Bobby Parnell gave up a pair of runs, while Saturday’s reached the fourteenth inning with the Mets failing to score in extras. On Sunday, a strong effort from Harvey was spoiled by Parnell, who crumbled to allow four runs in 0.2 IP two days before being placed on the I.L.
Despite the sweep, Yoenis Céspedes showcased his skills on both sides of the ball, slugging a solo home run on Friday and gunning a runner down at third base on Saturday. Michael Conforto also displayed an early penchant for clutch hitting with a game-tying two-run homer against Charlie Morton late in Saturday’s game. Like all great teams, the 2015 Mets would respond to Pittsburgh’s gut check in resounding fashion.
August 18-19, at Baltimore
The Mets’ most memorable road trip of the decade began with a quick two-game stop at Camden Yards. In Game 1, deGrom was dominant once again, allowing one run and striking out six in 7.2 innings to lower his season ERA to 1.98. Curtis Granderson led the charge, clubbing two home runs and making a leaping catch in the bottom of the eighth as the Mets held on to win 5-3.
In a back-and-forth Game 2, the Mets suffered their only walk-off loss of the month on the only home run of left fielder Henry Urrutia’s career. Juan Lagares made one of his patented highlight-reel catches and Wilmer Flores hit his first homer since July 31, but it wasn’t enough to escape a split with the O’s.
August 21-23, at Colorado
As if they hadn’t endured enough embarrassment the previous week, the Rockies played host to the Mets at Coors Field. In the series opener on Friday night, the Amazins crushed five home runs including a trio from Yoenis Céspedes, who became the only Met in history to record five hits, three homers, and seven RBI in a single game. On Saturday, the Mets got an RBI from every member of the lineup (including two from starter Jonathan Niese), erupting for an eight-run third inning and defeating the Rockies by the exact same 14-9 score as the previous night.
The Rockies seemingly received a break in the series finale, evading a workload-wary Matt Harvey in favor of rookie Logan Verrett. All Verrett did was deliver perhaps the greatest spot start in recent Mets memory, recording 8.0 IP, 1 ER, 8 K, 4 H, and notching his first major league win at baseball’s most hitter-friendly ballpark.
August 24-27, at Philadelphia
When the Mets arrived in Philadelphia, they found their captain dressed in full uniform and waiting with a tray of Insomnia Cookies in the hotel lobby. David Wright was back from back injury, and in a self-aware act of selflessness, the 32-year-old emphasized to manager Terry Collins that he would happily serve in any roster role so as to not affect the team’s momentum.
Wright did affect the team’s momentum, only not the way he feared: batting out of the cleanup spot, Wright blasted a home run into the second deck at Citizens Bank Park on his first swing in four months. It was the first of a franchise-record eight homers hit by the Mets on Monday night, with dingers from Juan Lagares, Travis d’Arnaud, Michael Cuddyer, Daniel Murphy, Yoenis Céspedes, and a pair from Wilmer Flores. Their absurd total of fifteen extra-base hits didn’t just set another franchise record, but also represented the second-most for a team in MLB history. Where Jacob deGrom faltered, getting tagged for seven runs in just his third non-quality start of the year, lefty reliever Sean Gilmartin shone with 3.1 shutdown innings to help the Mets take a historic 16-7 victory.
Before the Phillies could record an out the following night, Céspedes clubbed yet another long ball, though the Mets would have to settle for a measly six runs in the win. While one would think the Phillies might wish to be put out of their misery swiftly, a premature quick pitch from Hansel Robles to Jeff Francoeur in the bottom of the seventh sent rivalry tempers flaring, causing both dugouts to empty. With his team struggling to hit at the Mets’ pace, Phillies bench coach Larry Bowa threatened to hit Daniel Murphy with a pitch to the helmet instead, earning himself an ejection.
The Mets kept their foot on the pedal Wednesday, scoring three runs in the first inning before Bartolo Colón began befuddling the Phils with seven scoreless innings. Michael Cuddyer had his best game in a Mets uniform, going 3-for-5 with a two-run homer. On Thursday, the Phillies looked to flip the script, jumping ahead 5-0, but the Mets clawed back with home runs from d’Arnaud, Céspedes, and Kelly Johnson to send the game to extras. As if Francoeur’s relationship with the Mets bullpen wasn’t contentious enough already, in the bottom of the tenth he drilled a pitch off reliever Carlos Torres’s foot. In what can only be explained as an act of the baseball gods, the ball ricocheted off Torres to a diving Murphy, who spun on the ground and flipped it back to Torres at first for the out. Three innings later, Murphy drove in Torres as the go-ahead run. The Mets had one seven in a row for the second time in four weeks.
August 28-August 30, vs Boston
Back home after their electric homestand, the Mets dropped a pair to Boston with their best pitchers on the mound. On Friday night, Matt Harvey threw six shutout innings before the bullpen relinquished the lead, allowing David Ortiz’s 493rd career home run in the process. Yoenis Céspedes drove a ball to the warning track with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the tenth, but it descended into the glove of 22-year-old Mookie Betts. On Saturday afternoon, Jacob deGrom allowed two runs and struck out ten in six innings, but he was outmatched by future reliever Joe Kelly.
On Sunday, homer No. 494 from Ortiz wasn’t enough for the Sox to sweep the Mets, with Jeurys Familia blowing a 100 mph fastball by Betts for the final out. While the team dropped two out of three, the weekend still felt like something of a celebration in Flushing, with over 38,000 fans attending each game for the second straight home series.
August 31, vs Philadelphia
Two days after making his first relief appearance of the season, Bartolo Colón threw eight more scoreless innings against the Phillies as the Mets cruised to a 3-1 victory. Curtis Granderson and Michael Conforto each delivered homers off future Met Jerad Eickhoff, and Jeurys Familia became the fourth Met to record 36 saves in a season.
The team was now 73-58, 6.5 games up in the N.L. East, and brandishing the best momentum in baseball. As the calendar flipped to September, the Mets had their sights set on October for the first time in almost a decade.
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