Can the Mets keep their cool after a turbulent split with the Braves?

To borrow Chris Berman’s quote about the Buffalo Bills from the 1990s: Nobody plays football like the New York Mets.

The Mets neither helped nor hurt themselves this weekend when they split a four-game series with the Atlanta Braves. While the Mets would certainly have preferred to win three of four or sweep the series, a split was a reasonable expectation given the stakes and the closely matched nature of the teams.

The split also allowed the Mets to end the weekend as they began it — in a wild-card spot, a half-game ahead of the National League’s seventh-ranked team and 1 1/2 games behind the Braves in the race for the top wild card — and solidify their status as buyers ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline. The Mets made two moves during the series, trading for Ryne Stanek and Jesse Winker.

Still, the manner in which the Mets split was uniquely frustrating and familiar. Settling for a split after positioning themselves for a potentially season-defining series win — a dramatic 3-2, 10-inning victory on Thursday set up an 8-4 rout on Friday that saw the Mets briefly displace the Braves atop the wild-card standings — was the equivalent of swimming back to shore, only to be carried back out to sea by an unexpected tidal wave.

The bitter split raised old and new questions for the Mets. First, as always, why can’t the Mets ever make a declarative statement against the Braves? Splitting this four-game series after such a seismic start was reminiscent of the four-game split the Mets settled for from June 29 to July 2, 2000, when their hopes of a first-place tie ended in a 10-2 loss in the Finals.

Watching Spencer Schwellenbach, who had never pitched higher than Single-A entering the season, emerge from the Braves’ lab and immediately look like an ace in Saturday’s 4-0 win was a reminder that the Mets are still a long way from Atlanta’s player-development machine. As has been the case for the past 30 years, the Mets will have to hope they can replace the Braves with a short-term endgame.

That path seemed a little more manageable before the tidal wave began to hit land in the sixth inning on Friday night, when Kodai Senga’s stellar season debut ended when he suffered a strained left calf while darting out of the way of an Austin Riley pop-up. Senga was placed on the 15-day injured list on Saturday and moved to the 60-day injured list on Sunday, effectively ending his regular season.

The Mets’ offensive slump following Senga’s injury — they didn’t score again until Pete Alonso’s meaningless two-run homer in the eighth inning on Sunday — underscored the fragile nature of their emergence as wild-card contenders and increased the pressure on David Stearns to handle a pitching staff that is the definition of middle-of-the-road. Entering Sunday, the Mets’ starters ranked 17th in the majors with a 4.23 ERA, while their relievers ranked 18th with a 4.02 ERA.

Given owner Steve Cohen’s desire to rebuild the farm system, it’s unlikely the Mets will have the best pitching talent on the market. Stearns has followed up a mediocre first winter on the job by handling virtually every acquisition and promotion during the regular season.

Can Stearns replicate the magic he showed in 2019, when the Brewers acquired Jordan Lyles, who had a career record of 72-107 and a 5.22 ERA, and watched him go 7-1 with a 2.45 ERA in 11 starts to help the Brewers clinch a wild-card spot? If he can’t, the Mets may learn sooner than they’d like what it’s like to not tread water in the most eventful way possible.