The New York Mets are in Colorado for series with the Rockies. They enjoyed an offensive explosion and a no-hitter bid from Matt Harvey against the Minnesota Twins, but the finale was postponed. Now, with a Rockies team that many perceive as young but potentially sub-par, the Mets have a chance to add to their win column before the level of competition gets tougher.
The team has enjoyed a good start by beating bad teams. The Padres, Marlins and Twins were not exactly expected to be World beaters this season. The Mets have had a lighter schedule to this point, thus they have not really been tested too much. They had one series that really could be considered a test and they failed it. The Phillies were expected to be better than they have been so far, but they took two of three against the Mets. If this is any indication of how the Mets perform in divisional games this year, the next month will not be fun.
The schedule gets much harder after the Mets leave the frozen tundra of Denver for their more familiar home surroundings. They begin with a nine game home stand where they host the Washington Nationals, the L.A. Dodgers and the Phillies. That Nationals series is especially intriguing since the Friday night match-up is projected to be Harvey vs Strasburg.
After that home stand, the Mets travel to sunny Florida to play the woeful Marlins before taking on the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves and then returning home to play a rare two-game Inter-league series against the Chicago White Sox. That will be followed by a four game set hosting a young and very good Pittsburgh Pirates team then going on the road to St Louis for four games and Wrigley Field to face the Chicago Cubs for three.
Do you see a pattern here? The Mets do not have a lull in the schedule for the rest of the season. There is no point in which they play two bad teams back-to-back. They had the bulk of their light schedule in the first two weeks and from this point on, things will get tougher. The cream always rises to the top. So the question remains, is this Mets team capable of rising to the top? Will they be the team that trounced the Twins or the team that flopped in Philly?
Fans are excited about the start the Mets have gotten off to, but we have to keep in mind that the level of competition is about to be lifted a notch or two. The Mets have to be ready for that. While all the good vibes of the past week are fun to enjoy, the moment to enjoy them is almost over. We will see what type of heart and grit this team really has in the next few months. The schedule doesn’t favor the Mets at all. They have to take advantage of their home stands and win at least half of their road games.
That, and that alone will show they could handle the schedule admirably. Time will tell.
I don’t believe that the schedule is truly that hard, but rather that there is much more parity in the game (so far) so no team is that dominant.
Right now, the teams seem to be pretty normally distributed.
For the stinkers, you have the Marlins and Pads.
The only true dominant team are the Braves.
Everyone is in the middle of the pack, which means 80% of the games you play figure to be pretty even/competitive.
Of course as we play more games, we get a larger sample size so we can start to separate “the middle” group into more categories of talent.
The schedule is only a proxy for who we know the ’13 Mets are: a sub .500 club with major problems with the starting rotation and bull pen. Our wins have been against poor teams, and the second we play a team with a marginal competitive edge, the bottom unhinges. Its simply because outside of Harvey and Niese, practically no one can be counted on to throw a ball consistently, and certainly not of the remaining starters. None of this is new news of course, and the results as the sample size increases will show that this is not a year where we can expect to fight the Phillies, but more in competition to remain out of last with the Marlins. We will have some magical possibly heroic moments for individuals, like last year, and we need to celebrate them as they come.
Its caused me to reflect on all this Giancarlo Stanton for d’Arnaud/Wheeler (and whoever else). Stanton could not offset the issues associated with a shallow rotation. I wouldnt trade our soon-to-be promotees for him, because the thought of adding Wheeler and Syndergaard and ________ (you fill in the blank) far outweighs a guy with 180 Ks that plays 120 games.
The Mets need to put out a solid starting rotation before they even should think of trading one of their stud pitching prospects, Wheeler,Syndergaard or Montero. A solid 5 man rotation and some young live arms in the bullpen and you are competing everyday. Put an above average player at each position through trade or free agency and you have the formula for success. I would rather have three 10 Million dollar OF’s (the cost of an injured Santana)than one expensive stud that if he gets injured flushes the season away.(or costs compensatory money and picks in the draft). Good pitching, good defense and depth should be the formula.
Once again Chris, you are solid in your thinking.
“The Mets need to put out a solid starting rotation…”
Truer words have never been spoken.