The Mets have 10 games before the trade deadline on August 1st. Either the team wins at least 8 or they trade expiring contracts at the deadline.
If the Mets sell, the season is effectively over. All the hopes, dreams, and positive spirit we rode into this season will die by the end of July. Like a great poet of our age said, “it’s a cruel summer.”
Still the Mets may be rounding into form. The starting pitching, the rock from which the front office built this church, is getting more consistent.
Justin Verlander was lights out in his last start. Kodai Senga only gave up a single run in 6 innings against the Dodgers. Max Scherzer was damn near unhittable in his last start, surrendering only a hit and 3 walks to the same lineup. Plus, Jose Quintana will make his first start of the season today.
All good things. If the Mets are going to make any sort of run, they need, I repeat, NEED, their starting pitching to carry them.
The bullpen is emaciated. The only dependable reliever, David Robertson, has started to falter. Ottavino can still make hitters look foolish, like he did on Wednesday night, but he’s been less than reliable.
Once the starter is removed from the game, all Mets fans can do is hang on and pray. Baseball is tense enough. But it’s straight white knuckles getting through 9 innings with a lead nowadays.
Part of the anxiety is because the Mets haven’t shown the ability to come back and win games this season. Once the Mets are down, they stay down.
Now the law of averages will tell you this can’t go on. This team is too good to fail that often. But statistics don’t mean dink against what our eyes actually see.
My eyes tell me when the Mets are losing in late innings, they take poor at bats. Guys swing at pitches outside the zone or good pitches within it.
Case in point was the bottom of the 8th inning against the Dodgers on Saturday. 1st and 3rd with no outs. Mets down 2-1. Then:
Canha — pop out on the first pitch, a strike on the edge.
Baty — K on 3 pitches. Completely overmatched.
Guillorme — K. Swung at strikes 2 and 3, both out of the zone.
I wrote in my game notes, “This has to be rock bottom.”
But the Mets, my favorite team, the one I live and die with every night, the one I’ve spent countless hours, months, and years with, proved me wrong. Brett Baty couldn’t catch an infield pop up. The baseball world snickered LOL Mets while the angels wept.
In my notes, “Nope this is rock bottom.”
The bottom-line is if the Mets are gonna be competitive this season, that damn well better have been rock bottom. Time is running short.
There are positive signs. The Mets have won 3 games since Saturday. Francisco Alvarez continues to be rake. Jeff McNeil is hitting line drives again. Brett Baty is trending up with homers in consecutive games along with better defensive play. The starters ERA is 2.81 in July, good enough for 2nd in the league.
But all of that doesn’t matter if the Mets don’t make serious noise in the next 10 games. We’ve heard all season from manager Buck Showalter some version of, “we’re better than this.” Okay fine. How much better then?
We’ll find out in the next 10 games.
