On the heels of the Mets’ exciting win last night – their third straight over the hated Marlins of Miami; another game’s worth of daylight put between the two teams, who had both been competing for the second Wild Card berth in the National League – word came down that slugging second baseman Neil Walker has opted for surgery to relieve the herniated disk in his back, thus ending his pretty terrific 2016 season. To say that losing Walker at this point is a blow would be the understatement of the year. Despite a month-long slump in May, Walker is one of the main reasons the Mets are still in this race at all. His 23 home runs and .853 OPS have been crucial to the Mets’ success thus far – one of the bilge pumps keeping the good ship 2016 afloat. It’s tough to wrap one’s brain around how this will affect the team going forward. The Mets have able replacements on hand, for sure. Some combination of Wilmer Flores, Kelly Johnson, and T.J. Rivera will most likely get the lion’s share of playing time and perhaps, just perhaps, they might be able piece together some semblance of Walker’s production. The shame of it, though, is that the surgery will probably cost Walker a very nice payday from the Mets or some other team, as he has been playing out his contract year and playing it out well. As for the team, the key will be how they respond psychologically to the loss of a quality bat and another clubhouse leader. The way things have been going this year, there may be no team better equipped, mentally, to sustain this kind of loss.
I’m being serious.
All year, Mets players have been falling like dominoes. David Wright, Lucas Duda, Matt Harvey, Juan Lagares. Now, Walker. We’ll see none of them the rest of the year. When you consider that four of these guys were key cogs in the 2015 NL pennant machine, you’d have to figure the Mets stood no chance at October baseball in any way, shape or form. But the Cardinals lost last night, and so did the Pirates. As a result, the Mets – the Mets – find themselves on the cusp of September a bare game away from that second Wild Card spot. Venerable baseball writer Peter Gammons – this generation’s Shirley Povich — made an appearance on WFAN radio in New York yesterday afternoon and opened his comments with a musing on what a resilient, spunky kind of team the Mets have become. “They haven’t been able to live up to all the pre-season predictions and they probably won’t make the playoffs,” he said, “but look where they are in the face of all these injuries. Sandy Alderson has done a nice job in finding the right guys to step in.” He was referring to Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo, specifically, but he could just as well have been talking about Jose Reyes and James Loney. The title of this was originally going to be something like “Watching the Mets has gotten fun again.” The injury to Walker doesn’t change that sentiment much, believe it or not. The stretch run has arrived and the Mets are still running.
Let’s see if they have the stuff to get over the finish line.
Follow me on Twitter @CharlieHangley.
Walker’s hitting of late is a reason why we are still in the playoff hunt. His summer disappearance is also a reason why we don’t have a wildcard spot sown up. Solid second baseman defensively but one streaky hitter. Too bad. Seems like a good guy and the back surgery is going to cost him a bundle.
One possibility is that Walker goes with a one-year deal — maybe with the Mets — establishes his health — and gets opportunity for big contract a year from now.
Tough loss, but you make a great point about the Mets being a team that has dealt with adversity all year. You forgot Zack Wheeler in the list of fallen soldiers too.
Now that Walker is out, Flores is our #2 RBI man. He also has 155 less Plate Appearances than Walker, but is only 8 RBI behind him – he is also only .034 percentage points behind Walker in OPS (Walker is actually .823 not .853, Flores is .789). Wilmer is also the youngest guy on the team excluding Conforto, Gsellman, and Syndergaard. I think if Wilmer can play a solid glove at 2B, ultimately the loss of Walker is negligible.