Kevin Kernan
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There were good times for the Mets at Citi Field yesterday, and even a surprise celebration for Terry Collins from his players as they turned off the lights in the clubhouse and sang Happy Birthday to their manager.
With the return of Banner Day, R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball doing dances that even surprised him and the punchless Padres on the menu, the Mets gave 28,361 fans a 2-0 win over San Diego to move six games over .500.
But now the Mets need to knuckle down as the schedule becomes more difficult.
The Mets have won five of six, but with the next eight series, there are no Padres or Pirates in sight. Starting with Cole Hamels and the Phillies on this Memorial Day, the Mets have their work cut out for them as they face the Phillies, Cardinals, Nationals, Yankees, Rays, Reds, Orioles and Yankees again.
“We’ll get to see how good we are,’’ Collins said. “You want to play against the best.’’
All seven opponents between now and June 24 — even the last-place Phillies — are over .500.
To make matters more difficult, David Wright has finally hit a cold spell.
“We’ve been confident from the get-go. You win some games and you feel pretty good about yourself,’’ Wright said, “but we have a tough stretch coming up so we are going to need all that confidence and momentum that we built this last week going into the next couple of weeks because we know we’ve got some big tests.’’
Collins celebrated his 63rd birthday yesterday. For the last 41, he has been in pro ball. His common sense guidance has been a big reason for the Mets’ surprising success.
One of Saturday’s hitting heroes was Vinny Rottino, who was going to pharmacy school before getting a tryout with the Brewers a decade ago. That was just about the same time reliever Tim Byrdak, who was terrific again yesterday, was working the overnight shift at Target.
This is a persistent group that knows the value of hard work.
This is also a different group. Closer Frank Francisco, who picked up his 13th save yesterday, admitted he is doing better now because he is throwing his bullpen sessions from the mound as opposed to doing his bullpen work solely on flat ground. Yes, pitching from the mound in practice does help you pitch from the mound in games.
Now that Johan Santana and Dickey are putting back-to-back efforts together, the Mets have a starting pitching base that is essential to any team’s success. Dickey has fanned 29 batters over his last three starts, the highest three-start total of his career. Santana was magnificent on Saturday.
As some of those banners proclaimed, “You gotta believe.’’
To really understand these Mets, just look at yesterday’s battery: catcher Mike Nickeas, who hit the first grand slam of his career Saturday, and Dickey. Flash back to six years ago, when Nickeas was a young catcher trying to learn his craft with the Texas Rangers and Dickey was trying to learn to throw the knuckleball for those same Rangers.
“I’d be the first one in the cage in the morning, because I was the young guy there,’’ Nickeas told The Post. “And R.A. would be two cages over with buckets of balls, just trying to throw knuckleballs. People don’t understand how much effort he put into this to learn how to throw the knuckleball. It was the right personality to be able to do this. His knuckleball was crazy today.’’
Now that the schedule toughens up, people expect these Mets to knuckle under. Yes, they are 27-21, but let’s see how they fare against these quality teams coming up, especially the Yankees and Rays.
“That’s fine,’’ Nickeas said with a smile. “People have expected a lot of different things about us throughout this whole year. ... We believe in ourselves. We can play and play well together. That’s really important.’’
Never more important than these next four weeks.
kevin.kernan@nypost.com
Phillies, the Mets, Terry Collins, R.A. Dickey, Mets, Yankees, Padres, knuckleball, knuckleball, Mike Nickeas
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