The Kansas City Royals seemed to have laid out the template that the Mets hoped to follow. In year one you surprise the baseball world by making it to the playoffs and then getting as far as the World Series before succumbing. Then in year two you build on year one making it to and eventually winning the World Series.
The 1951 “Shot Heard ‘Round The World” New York Giants were 50-42 on July 22nd and sat eight games behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants started their tear eventually forcing the famous best of three games series that Bobby Thompson won for his team with his Polo Grounds’ home run off of Ralph Branca. Now that was one heckuva comeback but it was 65 years ago.
Last year’s edition of the New York Mets sat a mere three games behind the Washington Nationals on July 24th, the day they made the trade for Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson. The team was two games behind the Nats a week later when the big gun, Yoenis Cespedes, was brought in.
Comebacks big and small happen in baseball all the time so that it would be silly to think that the Mets, six games behind the Nationals (and even one-half a game behind the Marlins) after the disgraceful sweep by the Braves this past weekend could not possibly make the playoffs and do big things there.
But anyone who has watched this team through its first 68 games would be hard pressed to find even a glimmer of hope. Here are just some of the reasons why the club is pretty much cooked.
Injuries – The Mets didn’t come into the season particularly deep and would be depending on some older players and some players who were known injury risks. Few of us expected David Wright to go the distance this year but we thought he could at least get to the fourth furlong pole. Uh, no.
Travis d’Arnaud is a nice valuable player when he is healthy which he rarely is. And whatever happened to Lucas Duda? Is he in witness protection at this point? What’s ironic about Lucas’ situation is that we would all like to see him back on the field but when that happens all we will likely get is a helping of Lucas Duda. That’s probably better than keeping James Loney out there but not by all that much.
Then there is Juan Lagares who is ailing with a bad thumb.
Harvey – The master plan called for four young aces to pair up with senior citizen Bartolo Colon for an unstoppable best-in-baseball starting staff. Syndergaard has been as advertised. deGrom has been usually but not always solid. Matz shows flashes but he is not anywhere near ace quality at the moment. Colon has been good and has been entertaining at the bat and “running” the bases.
But who’s that guy wearing Matt Harvey’s number? This was the guy who was supposed to give Clayton Kershaw and Jake Arrieta a run for their Cy Young Award money. Instead he has been so bad that there had been talk of a refresher course in AAA Las Vegas.
Bullpen – The back end of the bullpen consisting of Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia has been fine. But getting to them has been dicey with Hansel Robles being sketchy and Antonio Bastardo being scarily bad. This has become an era where you need at least three if not four major assets in the bullpen and the Mets have just two.
Fundies – That’s Keith Hernandez’s term for fundamentals. It includes hitting behind runners, getting runners in from third base with less than two outs, throwing to the correct base, hitting the cutoff guy, getting bunts down when called upon to do so. You get the idea. This Mets team has one scoring mode: hit home runs. And when that mode is not working the offense grinds to a complete halt.
Teufel – I’m referring to Mets’ third base coach Tim Teufel. He’s not on everyone’s public enemies list but it drives this writer batty seeing his bad judgment on display game after game. He might as well use a Ouija board to decide when to send and when to hold a runner. His green light given to ponderously slow Wilmer Flores with no one out in the 9th inning of Saturday’s game was just the latest example of how terrible he is at sizing up and understanding situational baseball.
One can only hope that GM Alderson will make off season moves to address all of the above. The mathematics say the 2016 Mets are not done but really, folks, they are.
And the article was written before Bart Colon took a direct hit on his right thumb. The hits keep coming. Don’t they?
Wow. They should just trade everyone! That’s it guys, we’re calling it a season! There’s no way they can get better in the middle of the year!
Doom and gloom posts leave me lukewarm.
It’s very easy to see the darkness in the growing clouds around the Mets but I don’t think they are done and I don’t think they are out.
It’s still June and nothing is decided.
Try to not be such a Negative Nellie and cheer up you old bugger.
I will plead guilty to the old bugger tag but you can’t watch this team play the putrid Braves without realizing that they lack what it takes to reach or do anything in the postseason.
This is the funny thing about baseball–it’s part statistical analysis and part touch/feel. Statistically, the Mets are three games behind Washington in the loss column. Common sense indicates that they can’t be this poor with RISP all season and that Mr. Murphy won’t stay this hot. Balance that against what has mainly been poor and uninspired play to date.
If you had told me on June 22 of last year that the team would capture the division, sweep the NLCS and get into the World Series, I would have never believed you. So anything is possible.
The coming games with Washington and the Cubs will be telling.
The projection was for Perfecting the team at the Trade Deadline….Now, they need to establish the Core of the team before they’re eliminated.
with an imperfect mix and subtract lots of Guys….. some new names will need to step up/be added in
Larry, as unhappy as I am with the fundamentals and production, as terrible as I think Collins and some of his coaches are, are pissed off as I am about the state of the roster and having a SS play left field today for the first time in his life (I think TC is expecting a five run homer because with the bases loaded and two outs what if he misplays a flyball? I mean really, would it kill him to actually put a lefty out there and put Reynolds at third and Flores at first instead of Loney?), I haven’t given up. Too much talent on this team.
We just need a clue in the dugout and some speed at the top.
Gus…
“…..Too much Talent on This Team…..” ??? Wow! Where?
The Starting Lineup has been a Major Leaguer or two short for a couple of weeks…. Their available Bench Bats are .171, 222… 145….
we disagree!
Eraff, the bench stinks but that’s because the bench players are starting. Flores, Loney and Rivera are backups normally, that have been playing regularly until now. Further, the best starting staff in baseball will keep you in every game. Teams don’t need 8 all-stars to win. Look at the Dodgers: Haven’t won squat. Look at the Giants: Always winning with good, not great players that play the game correctly all the time.
The Mets have the players, but injuries are less of the problem and execution has always been the problem. If these guys were more worried about execution and less about their headlines, pretty sure they would be about 4 or 5 games better in the standings at least, and your opinion of them would be much more positive.
Want to take it a step further? The Indians lead their division. Name five players.
“Matz shows flashes but he is not anywhere near ace quality at the moment.”
Are you serious?
He had the best 7 game stretch (4/17-5/25) by any Met starter since RA Dickey’s memorable run in 2012…
His ERA sans his first start is 1.91… which is what Noah’s ERA is for the season. Even with the first start his ERA is 15th among 99 qualified starters…
You still want to talk about Matz’s dominance after watching the 5th inning of Friday’s game?
Your statement is still completely a farce even with the bad start. His peripherals are still elite and near ace-quality post meltdown and his counting stats are at worst, #2-worthy.
Transcript of Nationals broadcast from tonight’s bottom of the ninth in Los Angeles, Kendrick on first and Puig at the plate, LA losing 3-2:
– Ground ball up the middle and it’s a base hit into center field, and Michael A Taylor misses the ball;
– It goes to the wall and Kendrick will score the game is tied, Puig is coming around third and runs through a stop sign to score as Murphy never got off a throw!
– Like his night at the plate has gone, Taylor misses the ball (Taylor was 0-5 with 5 K’s);
– Unbelievable! Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable!
LOL, we aren’t the only ones with problems, huh? What a gift!
It feels like the Cubs year, but I’m not ready to concede. We always seem to stink in June. With Duda, Wheeler and hopefully Conforto coming back next month plus promotions in waiting in Edgin and Herrera, and maybe a trade or two, this could be a much better looking team in a month. Challenge is to not let the wheels come off over thia tought stretch.
I don’t know what makes you think you’ll be seeing Lucas Duda any time soon. On Tuesday’s telecast it was said that he is doing nothing more than riding an exercise bike. It would be very surprising to see him back on the field for the Mets in July. August is a possibility I suppose but no one connected to the team will even hazard a guess.
I very much liked the ouija remark by El Smith. However, I feel compelled once again to correct the use of “mathematics” by you civilians when the word you actually needed was arithmetic.