When it comes to baseball, the length of the season can easily slip our minds. This tendency usually kicks in as we eagerly react to the first game of the season. Soon after, we start making exaggerated claims based on just the first week or month of games.

We always did this. We just do it more and louder now because of an ecosystem in which being first and outrageous is no longer scoffed at, it’s well paid.

We will have amnesia that the 2024 Opening Day starting left side of the infield for the Mets was Jose Iglesias and Mark Vientos — the Syracuse Mets. O-M-G was just three of 26 letters. Grimace was a facial expression. Tylor Megill and David Peterson were two of the least successful pitchers allowed to make at least 50 starts in Mets history — and Peterson was trying to make it back from hip surgery to boot.

“You learn over time in baseball, it’s a very, very long season,” David Stearns said. “We tell ourselves that all the time, and then as you go through it, you’re regularly reminded that there are seasons within seasons, and that no two-, three-, four-, five-week stretch is truly telling you the whole story about your team.”