Houston Astros and New York Mets Are Making History With Epic Turnarounds

The Houston Astros and New York Mets have been two sides of the same coin this year.

Sep 2, 2024; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Houston Astros outfielder Jason Heyward runs to third on a double. / Katie Stratman-Imagn Images

The Houston Astros and New York Mets are very different teams, but they're still having surprisingly similar seasons.

The Astros got off to a horrendous start, beginning with their season-opening sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees. With virtually their entire starting rotation on the IL, they quickly tumbled to last place in the AL West and were 12-24 through May 8.

The Mets had a similarly rough start, dropping their first five games of the season. They recovered and actually finished April with a winning record (15-14), only to completely fall apart in May.

New York went 9-19 with a minus-42 run differential, and that was only after closing out the month with back-to-back wins. At their worst, the Mets were 11 games below .500.

Things weren't looking too great for either team around Memorial Day, but they righted the ship over the summer and now find themselves in good shape in early September.

Houston has returned to form over the last few months, going 50-31 since the beginning of June. It now holds a comfortable five-game lead over the second-place Seattle Mariners and is on track to win its fourth straight AL West title.

Meanwhile, New York has also surged into contention. The Mets are 52-31 since the start of June and are riding a seven-game winning streak after sweeping the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox at home. New York is still 7.5 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East, but it trails the Atlanta Braves by just half a game in the NL Wild Card standings.

The Astros-Mets parallel isn't just interesting, it's also nearly unprecedented. If they keep it up and both finish at least 11 games over .500, this would be only the third season in MLB history where multiple teams swung from 11+ games under .500 to 11+ games over .500.

Both the @astros & @Mets have gone from 11 games under .500 to 11 games over .500 this season.

The only other seasons in MLB history where multiple teams did this were 2005 (Astros/Athletics) and 1916 (Browns/Giants). pic.twitter.com/RIui9lTZh9

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) September 4, 2024

Interestingly, Houston was part of the most recent occurrence in 2005 as well along with the Oakland A's. Before that, one has to go all the way back to 1916, when the St. Louis Browns and New York Giants pulled the trick.

Baseball has a long season full of streaks, but it's still remarkably rare to see two teams go from such extreme lows to extreme highs in the span of a few months. Given both teams' volatility, however, their fans may want to wait a bit before popping any champagne.