If you had told me that the Mets would be in first place near the end of April, even if Juan Soto was having a typical post-monster-contract slow start and their closer had become questionable, I would have been shocked. The team had no starting pitching depth. Or so I thought.

Through 25 games, the Mets own the best record in baseball. They made an early season statement sweeping the Phillies. Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso are on historic early-season tears. And the Mets’ starting pitching staff, made up of spare parts and men of middling reputation, have the best collective earned run average in the majors?

The world is not supposed to work this way.