“The Mets are exactly who I thought they eere”
Get swept, sweep someone else, get swept again….That’s pretty much the theme of a .500 baseball team.
If you look back at the Mets schedule since their 4 game series against the Padres at the end of May, these are the results. L,W,W,W,L,W,L,W,W,W,L,L,L,W,L,L,L,W,W,W,L,L,L. 12-12 with three 3-game winning streaks and three 3-game losing streaks.
As a whole, we can all agree that this team has overachieved. But at 35-32, I have a bad feeling this team is in for the all too familiar summer swoon. When a team is as streaky as the Mets have been, they are always 1 loss away from the season spiraling out of control.
That loss can be a game, or in the Mets case (more often that not) a player. The injury bug has ravaged this team once again, but the only consistent pieces in the lineup have been David Wright, Lucas Duda, and to a certain extent Cpt. Kirk. But aside from these three, the lineup has been anemic. Jason Bay in now on his 2nd DL stint after crashing into the fence over the weekend, Ruben Tejada isn’t close to returning, 1/2 of the bullpen has been on the DL, and we have had 5 different guys try to secure the 5th spot in the rotation.
For me, these next 6 games in the home stand could make or break the Mets season. With three games each against the Orioles and the Yanks, the Mets must win at least four of those six games. They can’t keep giving games away at home. Those are the ones you need to win.
The Orioles come into Citi Field with 3 real mediocre starters going. Jake Arrieta 5.89 ERA, Tommy Hunter 5.58 ERA, and Brian Matusz 4.94 ERA. If there is a set of starting pitchers for the Mets to “get healthy” on, it’s this crew. With the Yanks lurking after the O’s, we need wins. There’s no way the Mets can afford to take on another sweep at the hands of the Bombers and possibly dip below the .500 mark.
For the “success” to continue, Ike needs to keep hitting like he has the past week, Murph needs to put some balls in the seats (jeez, it’s now after father’s day and he’s yet to homer), and the bullpen needs to find 6-9 outs every once in a while. Obviously we need Dickey and Santana to carry the starting staff as well, but the starting pitching clearly hasn’t been the problem. For a .500 team, that’s the way life goes. They need a lot of “ifs” to go right.
77-81 wins were my expectations going in, and to this point the Mets are showing me that “they are exactly who I thought they were.”, in the words of the “great” Dennis Green. A streaky team that is relying heavily on fill-in guys while starters continue to fall by the wayside due to injury.
