MINNEAPOLIS — OK, let’s get one thing out of the way right at the top: The Mets throttled the Twins, 14-4, Wednesday afternoon, and a lot of good things happened for the Mets, there was a lot of fun stuff for them to talk about and laugh about. It’s a second-straight road series win after going almost three and a half months without one.

In the minutes after the Mets shook hands and left the Target Field turf after handing the first-place Twins their first three-game losing streak of the year, the computers at FanGraphs started whirring and spit out this number: 8.9%.

As in: the Mets’ playoff odds.

And you know something? That still sounds like it’s a little on the high side, despite the fact the Mets are 4-1 out of the break, despite the fact they played some of their best baseball of the season against the Twins …

(Though it is becoming abundantly clear that whenever the Twins spot an interlocking “NY” on opposing hats — ANY interlocking NY: Yankees, Mets, Roy Hobbs’ New York Knights, the New York Mammoths of “Bang the Drum Slowly” — they immediately look like a team that should be sponsored by Chico’s Bail Bonds.)

… and, most of all, despite the fact they boarded buses bound for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and a plane bound for San Francisco after that a mere 5 ½ games out of the wild card. No matter how many times you look at that, of course, it feels like a typo. But the number is there. It’s real.

As is this one: 8. That’s the number of teams they still need to leapfrog in order to sneak into the wild card (though, for the first time in a while, it isn’t 9; they eased one skinny percentage point ahead of the Reds on Wednesday, .463-.462).

So, to be clear, we are not building a bandwagon here, one in the shape of a baseball ark, inviting Mets fans to hop aboard two by two. There is still a 91.1% chance against them making the playoffs (and that sounds a little on the low side).

Still …

For the first time all year, the Mets are playing good baseball. It sounds like a simple concept, but it has been an elusive thing. The only other time the Mets had a four-game winning streak it came against the Nationals, at a time when it actually seemed they had the worst bullpen in baseball history, a time before we saw the dark side of the Mets’ own pen that took a Zippo lighter to June. That felt like the kindness of strangers.

This feels … different. The bullpen has been professional so far in the second half. The offense continues to hum, a different hero every day. Wednesday it was Dom Smith driving in four runs, including a game-changing, three-run jack in the seventh, though all his teammates wanted to talk about was his strikeout in the ninth against Ehire Adrianza, a utility infielder moonlighting as a mop-up pitcher.

“I’m never gonna hear the end of that from these guys,” Smith moaned with a grin.

And Pete Alonso ended whatever worry there was among Mets faithful of a derby jinx by bashing a 474-foot home run that landed in Rochester (Minnesota and New York both; it traveled that far) and prompted the greatest deadpan response of the season when he was asked (playfully) afterward if the Home Run Derby had ruined his swing.

“No,” he said softly.

So yes, all of those are worthwhile things, and so, in truth, is that typo of a number — 5 ½ — which the Mets will bring to the Bay against a team that was as buried as they were a few weeks ago, and has now won 12 out of 14 and gone from 7 ½ out of the wild-card hunt to 3. The Giants have already done the kind of bulk winning the Mets still have ahead of them if they really want to alter the conversation, but suddenly they aren’t ready to shutter the summer at Oracle Park.

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That’s something the Mets have talked about ceaselessly for months, though they’ve rarely bothered to back it up by playing good baseball for more than a few scattered innings at a time.

“We’re inching closer and closer,” manager Mickey Callaway said, referring to the wild-card leaders, “and that’s what we’re focusing our sights on.” And for the first time in a long, long while, the words don’t sound like the product of hallucinogens.

The illusion may well end this weekend, and it could end any other time the Mets revert to the spectacular flop they’ve looked like for most of the season. Keep the bandwagon in the garage a while longer. For a change, the Mets aren’t just talking about playing better. They’re actually playing better. Let that be enough, for now.

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