The National League finally figured out a way to stop Dillon Gee from picking up a win.
All you need is copious amounts of rain, lightning and wind to halt the game that he's pitching in the early innings and you'll be able to keep him from adding to his win total.
That's what happened on Wednesday night in Atlanta, which is why Dwight Gooden, Terry Leach and Pat Mahomes stand as the only Mets rookies to start their careers with eight straight wins.
Unless, of course, all that rain was just a way to slow down Jose Reyes on the basepaths. Either way, someone up there was looking out for the Braves.
Merely keeping Gee from picking up a stat isn't enough to stop the Mets, though. Gee was forced from the game after four innings, but the contest resumed and the Mets finished off a 4-0 shutout with ease to finally end their monthlong chase of a .500 record.
They sit at 34-34 with a winning road trip assured and a sweep in their sights in a building that has normally been a place where Mets trains go off the rails. As in so many other things this season, however, these Mets aren't following the script that we've grown accustomed to in recent years.
Wednesday night saw them play nine innings of baseball that were largely free of mistakes both physical and mental. The team has had their moments of ineptitude -- they're playing .500 baseball, not .650 baseball -- but more games have looked like Wednesday's than they've looked like ones of the 2009 or 2010 vintage.
That's the best way to make it through the minefield of injuries that makes every step so fraught with peril. Not beating yourself goes a long way, something that Gee has proven to this point.
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He was doing his thing again on Wednesday night as he hit his spots with every single pitch, leaving the Braves just as clueless as the rest of the NL about how to hit his offerings. There are plenty of numbers that tell you things will turn for Gee (and you need only look back to Mahomes's name to see how things can work out), but he's already defied the odds thus far and maybe his success is nothing but a Gee thing, baby.
After all, amazing things can happen on a baseball diamond. Jason Bay had two hits in the same game on Wednesday night and that's usually a week's worth of work for the left fielder.
It is strange to feel like fortune favors the Mets, so just accept that the team is making its own luck. In past years that would be a terrifying notion, but this year it's something you'd gladly buy for a dollar.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
