Ruby Thomas was 9 when the Mets last won the World Series. It was 1986, the year she fastened her unyielding devotion to the team. In the decades since, Ms. Thomas never lost hope that the Mets would win another championship, not even this year, when they were 11 games under .500 at the end of May.

“It’s part of being a Mets fan,” Ms. Thomas, a health care executive from New York, said on Monday at Citi Field, the team’s home in Queens. “You can’t lose hope, no matter how bad things look. You still believe it can happen.”

Ms. Thomas may be different from legions of more fatalistic Mets fans, who brace for disaster on any given pitch. But maybe her time is finally here again.

In the 62nd anniversary of the team’s inception in 1962, the Mets are engaged in a surprising and entertaining playoff race, just as they could become unburdened by the franchise’s most ignominious record. In Chicago, the White Sox are threatening to break the ’62 Mets mark of 120 losses, a fitting parallel to the 2024 Mets resurgence.

Since it is the Mets — and many Mets fans would be the first to point this out — it comes with a warning label.

“We haven’t accomplished anything yet,” outfielder Harrison Bader cautioned before the Mets won for the 14th time in 18 games on Tuesday. “We’re not happy yet because we still have a long way to go.”

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