DENVER — By late Saturday night, the vibe around the Mets was relatively dour. The team had split a doubleheader against the Rockies in precisely the wrong way — a win, followed by a loss — to engender good feelings. They were all eager, in Buck Showalter’s words, to return to their hotels, “go pack, get a little sleep, and come back and do it again.”
These Mets seem uniquely qualified to do just that: shrug it off, brush it away and turn the page. Baseball players speak in such clichés all the time. The Mets actually live them; when they returned to Coors Field on Sunday to beat the Rockies, 2-0, they won their 14th consecutive game following a loss — the longest streak in the Majors in nearly a decade.
“We just come ready to play every day,” said starter Taijuan Walker, who became the first pitcher to throw at least seven shutout innings at Coors this season. “[Saturday] was a really long day. For the guys to show up and play really good defense and get the timely hits and runs that we needed just says a lot about us.”
How the Mets have rebounded following losses says perhaps more about them than any other statistic. Not since the 2011 Phillies has a team won 14 consecutive games after a loss, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Mets are 14-1 total in those situations; they haven’t lost two in a row since their fourth and fifth games of the season.
Ask players in the clubhouse why this has been, and the answers tend to differ. Walker represents…