The Mets fell to the Rockies at Coor’s field this evening 5-2, dropping their road trip record to 4-5. At least it started before 9pm?
- It was the same old story for Matt Harvey this evening, as he held the Rockies scoreless through the first three frames and simply fell apart in the middle innings as he hung slider after slider. Sure, Michael Conforto probably should have gotten the error on that triple in the fourth, but in the end Harvey went 5.2 innings with five earned runs and 11 hits. Not a good performance, but perhaps not catastrophic at Coor’s. The bigger concern was his dip in velocity. He sat around 92-93 with his fastball, bottoming out as low as 90mph. Should we be concerned? I honestly don’t know.
- The 1-through-5 spots in the lineup went 3-20 with 8 Ks tonight. That’s simply not going to cut it. Maybe it was a Kershaw hangover. Either way, no homers seems to translate to fewer runs, at least on the surface, in the early going here. Jon Gray had to get his first big league win some time, though. Why not against the Mets, I guess?
- Kevin Plawecki continues to look like he’s making incremental improvements at the plate. He went 1-4, but had a two run double in the second inning that put the Mets ahead, however briefly. He’s managed to drag his OPS up to .663, and maybe he’ll continue to get better as he gets more playing time with Travis d’Arnaud on the shelf. He kind of has to.
- Was that an actual shift against Neil Walker? And Tony Wolters? Baseball has gone shift-crazy.
Harvey clearly did not have good stuff tonight. But he battled and his defense did him no favors, beyond the one play you highlighted. If we could combine the stuff from his last outing and the tenacity from this one, that would be good.
I was glad to see Robles pitch two innings.
It must get tiring trying to spin a negative into a positive start after start. At some point you have to realize what you have is fool’s gold and not real gold.
I’m sure glad we don’t need to single home runners on second and third. It was awesome seeing those HR in Colorado.
Should we be concerned?
Um, yeah.
I have a very simple rule. When very good pitchers suddenly fail to meet their established standards, the first question I ask myself is: I wonder if he’s hurt?
I don’t know what’s going on with Matt, but damn. He is a great (in all caps) pitcher. A dominant arm. And that guy on the mound these days is not Matt Harvey. He had TJ surgery, he threw 220 IP last year, and something just isn’t right.
In some respects, Jake is suffering from similar problems after a long season last year. He’s just managing it better. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, if Jake and Matt will find themselves halfway through the season, recover their lost abilities, or if this is going to continue all year. It could be that it’s a bit of a lost year for these guys, pale duplicates of their former selves. Only to return to full greatness in 2017?
From afar it is obvious Harvey is physically impeded in some way, whether that be a throwing arm injury or some other issue. It’s also a mental issue. He’s no long the dark knight, but more like an average joe that lost his super powers. I mean he was out pitched by who? Of course that last statement doesn’t quite lay enough blame on the offensive malaise. Right now I could out pitch Harvey with our offense incapable of delivering any sort of consistent runs.
The Mets offense is what it is, apparently; one based on power, but not getting full advantage of its power because of a shortage on men on base. It will look very good, at times.
I have often thought that a team with truly elite pitching might be better served with some version of a small ball offense, the thought being, fewer runs, but a more equal distribution of runs, keeping the team in more games and so forth. I haven’t actually stated this anywhere before now, not wanting to relinquish my Earl Weaver fan club membership, but so far I haven’t convinced myself otherwise.
Harvey is pitching like a fith starter. Fatigue may be the reason he can’t get a clean middle inning after he starts off some games so strong. In game fatigue may be the cause of his decreased velocity and his tendency to hang his slider. Him and deGrom don’t seem to have the arm strength they used to. Instead of pushing forward, the Mets should be pulling back. Pitching while fatigued could lead to an injury. The Mets would be better served to be overly cautious.
It is a nice to see Plawecki beginning to hit. Cabrera continues to have a solid year on the field and with the bat.
The Mets bat are as a cold a a cool mountain stream, they are Coors Lite. Heat them up and take the next two games.
Ice-filtered Coors lite at that.
It is a very good offense. They miss Travis, because he could be a force. and the Wright issue is troubling, so many red flags. I hope SA has a Plan B that isn’t spelled S-O-U-P. Btw, there’s no advantage hitting in Coors if you don’t put the ball in play. But again, this is the way the team is built. It’s like complaining that someone isn’t faster. It’s not going to change unless you alter the roster.
Players dread these long West Coast road trips. If Mets can come out of this 6-5, they will be thrilled.
The real season starts when the Nationals come to town.