There has sure been some Amazin’ doings going on at Citi Field of late and it just might be, at the most opportune time, that the Mets have suddenly morphed into one of the best teams in baseball right now. Before Friday night’s 12-2 whopping by the Phillies (which was somewhat softened by the Braves losing to Miami), the Mets had won 15 of their last 20 games, including a franchise record three straight games of scoring 10 or more runs last week, and were 24-10 since Aug. 13 to move from third to second in the NL East and into a tie for the second wild card spot. It is all out there for them to secure a place in the postseason (unlikely as that may have seemed two months ago). After the completion of this weekend series with the Phillies there’s three games in Atlanta against the Braves Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But this much is already clear: A team that was supposed to be in a transition year while waiting for the money from the departed Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to come off the books, became a second half force due in large part to baseball operations chief David Stearns’ financially conservative acquisitions of Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, Jose Iglesias and Luis Torrens among others. And yet, as much as Mets fans are clamoring for playoff baseball at Citi Field for only the second time since 2017, they have to know it increases the likelihood they will not be pursuing Juan Soto in the offseason. There are a lot of reasons for this, starting with Stearns, an analytics-heavy baseball exec who after eight years of running the small market Brewers, has been weaned on fiscal responsibility — and one of the principal tenets of analytics is to eschew long-term multi-million contracts taking players deep into their 30s. I believe Mets owner Steve Cohen learned his lesson on the crazy money Scherzer and Verlander contracts and moving forward, with Stearns as his guiding light, will see the reasoning in not investing $500-600 million on one player when his team is already pretty damn good — especially when you can invest half of that on a No. 1 starting pitcher in Stearns’ former Milwaukee ace Corbin Burnes and another bat on the free agent market. Soto is already just adequate defensively in the outfield and scouts have always questioned how his body will age when he reaches his 30s. And there is also the matter of Pete Alonso, the Citi Field favorite you would think Cohen needs to sign, making a $50 million-a-year contract for Soto even more prohibitive. On top of that, all of the Mets’ top prospects — Jett Williams, Drew Gilbert, Ryan Clifford, Nick Morabito, and even probably Ronny Mauricio now — are outfielders. You can see the case Stearns can lay out against signing Soto. Even the Yankees are privately conceding the 12-year, $500-600 million contract Soto’s agent Scott Boras is seeking is a bad investment, but unlike the Mets, they need the player — and in truth Soto needs them just as much. Where else can he go with Aaron Judge hitting behind him and the guarantee of almost every year playing in the postseason? Before he holds out — as Boras is wont to do — for every last dollar, he might want to consult Robinson Cano. IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD Suffice to say while the Mets were surging with Francisco Lindor on the sidelines, Shohei Ohtani, in one historic and phenomenal game, ended all debate over the National League Most Valuable Player last week. What Ohtani did on Thursday in becoming the first player in major league history to attain 50 homers and 50 stolen bases in the same season, was simply not to be believed: 6-for-6, three homers, 10 RBI, four runs, two stolen bases and a total of 17 total bases. The three homers enabled Ohtani to break the Dodgers’ all-time season record of 49 by Shawn Green in 2001 while the 10 RBI were the most in one game for a Dodger since RBI became an official stat in 1920 and likewise the most out of the leadoff spot by any player since 1920. Was it the greatest game by a hitter ever? The three best comps the Elias Sports Bureau could come up with were the Reds’ Scooter Gannett (5-for-6, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 17 total bases) in June 2017, Anthony Rendon (6-for-6, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 16 total bases) with the Nationals in April 2017 and Green (6-for-6, 4 HR, 6 RBI and 19 total bases) in May 2002 with the Dodgers. But none of them had any stolen bases.… Both the Dodgers and the Orioles were forced to come to grips with costly mistakes last week, neither of which should have been surprises. The Orioles announced they had designated deposed closer Craig Kimbrel for assignment after the 36-year-old former All-Star was battered for a 13.94 ERA over his last 11 appearances and had an overall 5.33 ERA and six blown saves. But even though Kimbrel had 23 saves before the All-Star break, he was not nearly the dominant closer of 5-6 years ago and there were plenty of raised eyebrows when Orioles GM Mike Elias signed him for $13 million last winter as a stopgap replacement for Felix Bautista, who’s out for the season following Tommy John surgery, after three teams, the White Sox, Dodgers and Phillies all found him wanting in recent years. At the same time the Orioles were cutting ties with Kimbrel it was announced by the Dodgers that Tyler Glasnow, who hadn’t pitched in a month, was out for the season with a sprained elbow. It can now be said the Dodgers decision to give Glasnow a five-year, $136 million extension after they acquired him from the Rays last winter was one of the dumbest contracts ever, if only because Glasnow has been one of the most oft-injured pitchers in baseball with an assortment of injuries that have prevented him from surpassing 120 innings in any season before this one. At the time, Dodgers GM Andrew Friedman said: “We spent a lot of time looking into that and that’s a bet we’re making.” A really bad bet as it turns out. Glasnow has since cleared out his locker at Dodger Stadium, with his nameplate removed, and left the team without informing manager Dave Roberts where he was going.