The Mets winning Tuesday night’s opener against the Yankees really took a lot of pressure off of the rest of the week.

The London games with the Phillies, the San Diego series, and this week against the Yankees and Astros looked like the only real bumps in the road of this stretch where the Mets were hopefully going to turn things around.

(I guess at one point the Rangers and the Cubs might have fallen into that category but turned out to be different teams in reality than on paper.)

But the point is, instead of chasing a split on Wednesday the Mets put the pressure on the Yankees.

And we’ll get to that.

But I want to start by saying I was wrong about Mark Vientos.

I just was not buying the Mark Vientos hype this spring. I saw flashes of his potential last year but I didn’t see enough where I thought he could be a good major leaguer.

I didn’t think he had the upside of a guy like Francisco Alvarez, who looked great from all angles.

I wasn’t 100% confident Brett Baty was going to be a major league star, but I wasn’t too disappointed when the Mets broke camp with Baty at third base and not Vientos.

I thought Vientos talked a major league game that he didn’t quite have.

And I think I had it all wrong.

I think, well, at this point I know, Mark Vientos was so disappointed at the end of spring training because he knew he was better this year than what he showed last year. He knew he had worked hard enough to get better and he had earned a spot.

And all he’s done since he’s come back up is prove that.

You can talk a major league game about yourself if you can back it up with your bat.

Sometimes I’m glad when I’m wrong.

Vientos made a great defensive play to kick off Wednesday night’s game two against the Yankees. The defense is also much better than I was expecting…but that’s not what’s going to make him a good major leaguer.

I am not sure how late I’ll wait out this rain delay but as I write this the Mets are currently up 4-0 in the bottom of the 5th inning.

If they win, obviously 2-0 against the Yankees is great. If they lose, I’ll take 1-1 against the Yankees. (But that would mean blowing a 4-run lead, so that would be worse than feeling a split was OK entering the series.)

And the Mets have the upper hand in this series right now mostly because of Francisco Alvarez. (Well, Mark Vientos’ two home runs, which helped spur me to write the preceding words singing his praises, were a big part of Tuesday’s win. But I’ve already written about him.)

Alvarez has homered and doubled in a run for a total of 3 RBI tonight, but it’s really his behind-the-plate presence that makes such a difference. The booth tonight talked about how Sean Manaea responds to Alvarez…but Alvarez did it last night with David Peterson as well.

After Peterson loaded the bases with nobody out in the first inning, Alvarez goes out there, talks to him, and he comes back and retires the side.

The bat is a nice bonus. Alvarez as a game manager behind the plate is difference-making.

As for what lies ahead, Houston is playing better, so to be honest, if the Mets took a step backwards this weekend that’s not the worst thing. As long as they don’t get swept.

Then we’ve reached the Washington-Pittsburgh-Washington-Colorado stretch that takes the Mets into the All Star Break.

A month ago it was wishful thinking they’d hit that stretch at .500.

But that’s exactly what the Mets are doing.

At this point it is not wrong to expect the Mets to enter the All Star Break over .500 with a firm grasp on one of the wild card spots.

The second half of this season might be about playoff positioning. Which is what I was expecting all along…just not the path it took to get there.

Just a couple of quick other things:

*Man, that Edwin Diaz suspension was such a bummer. Sitting there watching the game Tuesday night the Mets did exactly what you’d want when the closer is not available - build a big lead…but then they almost blew it. Might be a few more shaky ones like that over the next nine days.

*To top it off, Drew Smith ended up on the injured list today which seems like it stems from him having to enter the game and warm up when he wasn’t expecting to be needed after Diaz got ejected. Last year that would have buried the Mets. This team seems capable of plowing through this.

*Most of my Mets tickets have been day games but I’ve also been to a couple of night games, and the game presentation is very good. I think I need to write soon about the Citi Field experience - maybe I’ll do an All Star break post about it.

*I was a little surprised the Mets didn’t wear their City Connects for one of the home games against the Yankees. I suspect they wanted to stress the ‘Mets’ and not ‘New York’ while playing the Yankees.

*It is amazing to think about this turnaround from a month ago. I was not feeling great about things at the end of May. Who was? But I’m so glad they turned it around.