The 2014 season is all of eight games old. The Mets are 3-5, having been humiliated at home by the presumptive NL East champ Nationals and gained a measure of redemption vs. the Reds. That homestand was marred by ineffective hitting and woefully sub-par bullpen work. These themes had already been beaten to death in the blogosphere and by the MSM alike by the time the team’s plane touched down in Atlanta for the inaugural road trip of the season. The outlook for the season has not been brilliant for the New York Mets. However, Atlanta – of all places – might go down as the place where the future of the franchise was launched.
In game one, Bartolo Colon gave a master class in how to be a savvy, veteran pitcher. Throwing barely hard enough to break an egg, Colon — in combination with fellow youngsters Kyle Farnsworth and Jose Valverde — kept the Braves off-balance, en route to a 4-0 shutout. That was nice; a good, solid professional win. Game two was the polar opposite of the opener, but by the time it was over, it seemed loaded with portents. Zack Wheeler started and was immediately rattled. He had Braves’ leadoff hitter Jason Heyward struck out on a 2-2 pitch, but the home plate umpire disagreed. Wheeler had to throw an additional five pitches before Heyward picked out the one he liked and deposited it over the fence in right center. After another base hit, newest Met nemesis Freddie Freeman launched another rocket to the deepest reaches of the park, but Juan Lagares flattened himself against the wall to pluck the ball out of the ether and thwart another extra-base hit and possible run. Wheeler then burned through the next three innings like a kid with something to prove, only surrendering a harmless single by Heyward. In the fifth, though, all that work backed up on him. One double, a bushel full of singles and a wild pitch later, the Mets faced a 4-0 deficit of their own. It started to look suspiciously like a “same ol’ Mets” kind of loss – meek, desultory and unintimidating — especially with the daunting specter of the famous Braves bullpen looming.
Before long, the ninth arrived and Braves’ ‘pen went to work. But it didn’t work all that well. Jordan Walden walked Eric Young, Jr. leading off, but struck out Daniel Murphy. David Wright followed with a base hit. Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez would take no chances, summoning the near-unhittable Craig Kimbrel to quell the uprising. Apparently, it was not your typical Kimbrel night. He walked Curtis Granderson to load the hassocks, but then struck out a less-than-patient Lucas Duda. Every Met fan watching could write the script themselves: Lagares wouldn’t be able to cash in a single tally and the shutout would be returned. Except that Lagares laced a grounder into left, scoring Young and Wright, setting up first-and-third for the struggling Travis d’Arnaud. The young catcher was able to post a safety to right field, most improbably bringing the Mets to within one. That left the tying run on third for Ruben Tejada, the vilified shortstop who had emerged as the most consistent hitter of this infant season.
Tejada ended up striking out to end the game – engendering some more vilification – but this loss was actually a triumph of process over result. The Mets were actually in a position to win this game and a little more patience by Duda or Murphy might have sent us home giddy. The potential was visible. Once Wheeler gets a little more experience and cool under his belt, once d’Arnaud shows a little more consistency, once Lagares can raise his offense to the level of his defense, once Chris Young returns from quad limbo, once the first base quagmire is resolved once and for all, we actually might see a little bit of the payoff of the vaunted Sandy Alderson plan. Then we can welcome Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero properly.
Then we can see even more of the future.
Follow me on Twitter @CharlieHangley.
Tejada got beat on a nasty high fastball, but the first pitch strike was bs. It was below his knees. Murphy and Duda’s at bats, however, were very weak and hurt us more ultimately. One key note – just before the first pitch to d’arnaud, Gary and Ron were wondering if it would be a good idea to send Lagares from first to try to steal a base and get into scoring position. Kimbrel doesn’t hold anyone on. Who knows if he would have made it, but had he, d’arnaud’s single ties the game. It’s a play i bet Davey Johnson or Wally Backman would have called, but not Collins. We need a lineup adjustment tonight.
Excellent points Eric. Duda though, had two hangers to hit in the first two pitches. He let one go, the other one he timed bad. It would’ve been interesting to see Lagares take a chance, but it’s hard to criticize any manager for that.
And you’re right. That first pitch to Tejada was shoelace high. Umps are having a really bad series. Heyward should’ve been struck out in first and d’Arnaud looked safe on the butt throw by Simmons
FWIW, Moneyball is *not* “finding guys who can hit home runs and get walks”. Moneyball *is* exploiting merakt inefficiencies by finding guys with skills that contribute to winning, but who other teams undervalue.So, like fifteen or twenty years ago, when other teams were fixated on batting average, the moneyball/sabremetric way of doing things included getting dudes with strong secondary averages (ie on base % – average (walks), and slugging % minus average (power)). But then the rest of the league got hip to that. So, the Moneyballers switched to other skillsets – it was defense for a while (which meant getting slick-fielding guys who actually were often quite bad at walking or hitting homers), or players with a low single-season babip (batting average in balls in play – which means your % of hits on at bats where you don’t walk, strike out, home run, get hit by a pitch, sacrafice, or sac fly – you want guys who are low in that, since it evens out over time, and, if it’s low one season, it will generally regress up to the mean the next). They also have looked for stuff in pitchers that is complicated, and that I don’t fully understand (a lot having to go with groundball vs flyball rates, %-home-run-on- fly-ball rates, strikeout-per-walk %, etc).It’s worth noting that Beane’s A’s have not had a winning ore playoff season in five years. To my eyes, the book Moneyball coming out, which gave people a peek inside how Beane had been doing things, basically evaporated the power of his methodology, and his ability to gain competitive advantage. The Red Sox (with, yes, Bill James as adviser) have been making it work, but they also have the second highest payroll in the game to play with.