A years-in-the-making organizational rebuild emphasizing the in-house harvest of dominant starting pitchers has started to generate genuine excitement among the Met fandom.

You could feel an elevated level of anticipation in the sold-out stands on Flushing Bay Monday afternoon as the Metropolitans opened their 2015 home schedule under beautiful blue skies.

Last year’s rookie of the year Jacob deGrom was mid-90’s on the gun. His long hair fluttered out from the back of his cap. No runs allowed by Jake over 6.1 and the Met lineup scraped together a couple of runs.

Mets GM Sandy Alderson made a great swap right before the regular season started to shore up the pen. He acquired Jerry Blevins from the Nats for Matt den Dekker, a speedy, young outfielder who could turn out to be a good player. It was a risky move but could prove to be really important given what Blevins can do to neutralize dangerous lefty bats. So far, left-handed sticks are 0 for 8 against Blevins. In three of his four outings so far, Blevins has helped preserve narrow leads. With the half-season suspension of Met closer Jenrry Mejia – and the team’s effort to limit pitch counts for their young starters – it’ll be a lot of Blevins and Familia in the final frames. That’s what is was Monday and both guys did their jobs.

2-zip the final. Put it in the books.

I attended the game with five co-workers. We sat on the porch. The families of murdered NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were honored before the game. Liu’s widow and the Ramos boys threw out the game’s ceremonial first pitches.

NYC Mayor Bill deBlasio was at the game. He was booed worse than Chase Utley and Cole Hamels when introduced to the crowd in Queens. Two days earlier, deBlasio refused to join the parade of Democrats who quickly lined up behind Hillary Clinton after she threw her hat in the ring.

The refusal to offer an immediate endorsement was viewed by the Clinton camp as full-on betrayal given the boost both Clinton’s gave deBlaz during his mayoral run. Had he been a little more nimble with his reaction to Hillary‘s entry to the presidential race, deBlasio could have preserved his neutrality without looking like a traitor. All he had to do was say something to the effect that Hillary is a formidable candidate with great experience and talent. He didn’t need to attach conditions to a possible future endorsement.

But back to the game. It was a perfect day out there in the sun. The nicest opener I can remember in a life full of them both here and in Chicago. On the way out, one of the guys in our group suggested walking down Roosevelt Avenue for a slice and a beer to let the traffic thin out. As we were walking down Rosie towards Corona, we saw Jerry Seinfeld in the front passenger seat of a SUV stuck in traffic. He smiled a bit but attempted to ignore the attention. He probably said something funny to his friends in the car.