The terrific bullpen start, Francisco Lindor’s defense, Gary Cohen’s Walter Cronkite moment

The first 10 days or so are the toughest ones of the season to write, at least for me. Everyone is picking the same stories to write about and it’s tough to come up with something unique in this time frame. And as of right now, there have been three games played. Three. It’s way too early to make any conclusions because everything is a small sample. With that being said, here’s what’s jumped out at me in the first few days of the 2023 season:

BULLPEN IS TERRIFIC – Too many people were letting their heartbreak over losing Edwin Diaz for the season cloud their judgment, both over the significance of any one reliever and the need for multiple guys to perform well to have a good bullpen. But three games in, the Mets’ bullpen has been terrific. Now, we can ask if it’s good bullpen pitching or bad Marlins hitting. And we won’t know that until a bunch of more games are played.

But we can toss out that the pen has given 10 IP, with 1 ER, 1 BB and 11 Ks. And that’s outstanding. The relievers have combined for an .800 WHIP and a .522 OPS allowed. The only blemish came by a homer allowed by John Curtiss. David Robertson already has two ninth-inning appearances under his belt and has struck out half of the six batters he’s faced. Brooks Raley is off to a strong start and appears to give the Mets a much better lefty reliever than they’ve had recently. Seven of their eight relievers have gotten work this season and it’s likely Stephen Nogosek will see action later today.

BATTER STRIKEOUTS ARE DOWN – While the Marlins may not be a very good offensive team, they have some good young pitching, especially with their starters. Many fans worried that the Mets were making a mistake by essentially running it back with their offense. The worry is that they wouldn’t be able to match their offensive output from a season ago, that they needed another bopper in the lineup to help protect Pete Alonso.

But the offense has been just fine, putting up five and then six runs in games started by RHP. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that aside from Francisco Lindor and Eduardo Escobar, the Mets as a team have been making great contact. They have 18 Ks in three games – half of them by the two previously named players – and as a team the Met have a 15.3 K%. In 2022, the Mets had a 19.7 K%. If we take away Lindor and Escobar, Mets hitters have fanned just nine times in 92 PA, which is a 9.8 K%.

DEFENSE HAS BEEN GOOD – While Lindor may be struggling to make contact here in the early going, his defense has been excellent. Lindor had been vocal in the past about wishing the shift wasn’t such a big factor, believing that it took away some from his athletic ability to make plays other shortstops can’t. And we’ve seen him cover a lot of ground, both horizontally and vertically, here in the early days with aggressive shifts banned.

Early last season, Lindor had some trouble with the accuracy of some of his throws. But this year, his throws have been strong and true, even when he’s ranged deep in the hole to make a play. Add it all up and Lindor already has a +2 DRS, which can’t be easy to amass in 26 defensive innings. There have been good defensive plays all over the diamond by the Mets, with the only real gaffe coming on a misjudged fly by Starling Marte.

THIS COULD GET UGLY – With all of the strikeouts, Escobar is not off to a good start at the plate. It’s bad enough when fans can see your .167 OPS. But when Gary Cohen is giving in-game offensive updates for Brett Baty up in Syracuse, well, that makes Escobar’s slow start even worse. The announcers generally don’t sugar coat things for the players. But neither do they hype a potential replacement.

Many fans thought Baty merited the starting job over Escobar due to his fantastic performance in Spring Training. But the generally prospect-shy Mets’ organization wanted Baty to reach “markers” in the minor leagues before giving him a job in the majors. Saturday, Cohen gave updates on Baty’s big day, one where he went 4-5, with 2 HR, 5 RBIs, 4 R and a SB.

Many like to think the U.S. lost in Vietnam when trusted newsman Walter Cronkite declared the conflict a stalemate in 1968. Allegedly, President Johnson told his Press Secretary, “that if he had lost Walter Cronkite he had lost Mr. Average Citizen.” That’s been updated in public parlance to – if I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the war. Cohen is the Mets fans’ Cronkite. And if the Mets have lost Cohen in the Escobar-Baty battle, it’s hard to imagine them keeping Baty in the minors for very much longer.

ROTTEN REPLAY REVIEWS – Twice in the first three games, Showalter has challenged a call early in the game. Both times, replays seemed to indicate the result would be a successful challenge. And both times, the umpires have upheld the call.

The first came when Brandon Nimmo was called out an infield hit. The replay took forever – especially given that it was the only active game at the time – and the call was upheld. And the second was another call at first base, one that appeared Alonso was safe because the first baseman was pulled off the bag in order to corral the throw.

In my biased Mets fan eyes, Nimmo beat the throw. That was my impression in real time and one that appeared to be validated by replay. The second one seemed not so cut-and-dried. SNY showed a replay with the fielder’s foot clearly off the bag. My opinion was that wasn’t the exact moment the ball was caught. Rather it was two beats later. Was he on the bag initially? Maybe, maybe not. That seemed to me the type of play where since you can’t tell for sure, you go with the call on the field.

Still, we’re not used to having challenges end up unsuccessful. Some fans even hinted of conspiracy theories, that the replay officials (or the league itself) was out to “get” the Mets. Was Joseph Heller a baseball fan? I don’t know. But in “Catch-22,” Heller wrote, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”