Time for Mets to take realistic approach after another lackluster loss

You saw it in Jeff McNeil, still in uniform, angrily smashing something into his locker when most everyone else had hit the showers after the Mets’ 5-3 loss to the Cardinals on Saturday at Citi Field.

There was Kodai Senga, stone-faced and frustrated, saying he needs to be better. And there was Francisco Lindor, who watched his wife, Katia, give birth at 5:30 a.m. and was at the ballpark, getting drilled by a 102.2-mph fastball, by early evening.

It’s easy to say that there’s no spark in the Mets, no want-to. Especially when so many preseason projections had them winning the division. Especially with a $380 million payroll and an owner who has a whole luxury tax named after him. And especially when they were supposed to lean on those two aces with five Cy Young Awards between them.

But despite all the Twitter nonsense screaming otherwise, little in the Mets’ behind-the-scenes attitude indicates they’ve been lulled into false complacency.

What is true is that the Mets are stuck, and mostly, they seem stuck in the past.

Often, guys like Lindor or even manager Buck Showalter will profess optimism that a team so similar to the one that won 101 games last year is just one turning point away from reclaiming its former glory.

You know:

Once Max Scherzer starts dominating like he used to . . .

Once the lineup starts producing . . .

Once Jose Quintana comes back . . .

Once the defense gets to where it was last year . . .

But we’re all here now, and that translates to a lackluster loss to the worst team in the National League, a 33-37 record in an era in which every .500 team in the NL has a shot at the postseason, and the specter of irrelevance staring them straight in the face. It’s time to put the dream of “once things go back to normal” in the REM cycle. It’s time, too, to act as if the 101-win season was the exception, not the rule.

No, the realistic course of action — the one that has a real shot at making this team better — is not assuming that players who have performed well in the past are going to reach those exact heights again. That means being more willing to bench veterans (insert an obligatory “at least give Mark Vientos a shot!” line here). It also means conducting a brutal assessment of the team’s actual strengths over its projected strengths.

Once that happens, it’s that picture — not the rosy one everyone seems to want to paint — that should inform the trade deadline.

Forget being the team with endless millions: For the Mets to stay in this race, the deadline needs to be approached with the aggressiveness and rigor of a franchise that doesn’t have the cushion of throwing money at the problem in the offseason.

There’s a strong reason for that, too. While long-term plans are well and good, the playoffs are highly unpredictable. You can spend years building a team exactly the way you want it and still see it fall; you give yourself the best possible chance when you’re in the picture for as many seasons as possible, as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, general manager Billy Eppler’s past comments, along with his highly conservative approach to the trade deadline last season, have indicated that the Mets are pleased with a more relaxed approach.

“There’s a longer-term blueprint here that we talked about last year, this wintertime,” he said. “That hasn’t changed. So we’ll be very thoughtful as we approach those types of transactions and really have to weigh the short and long term.”

Thoughtful is good. But if Eppler and the Mets are preaching pragmatism, they need to commit to it: Be realistic about the fact that this team isn’t just one “moment” away from becoming the 2022 Mets. It needs reliable pitching. It needs a high-leverage bullpen arm. It needs a true power threat at DH. And maybe above all else, it needs to build a culture of quality over complacency.

“I do feel like it’s an unexplainable ‘man, we just lost this one,’ ” said Lindor, who literally left his newborn to get walloped in the arm by one of the hardest fastballs in the game. “What happened? We try to figure it out and come back the next day. At some point, we’re going to turn it around.”

It’s part of Lindor’s job to be optimistic, so his comments make sense. But for the Mets to succeed, it would behoove the front office to be far less certain that success is a given.

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.