The Kids are Alright: The Youth Movement in the Citi.

The Kids are Alright: The Youth Movement in the Citi

Ah, the Mets. Could they win their first road series since April? Could they move within a game and a half of second place and tie the Phillies? Could the bullpen respond and preserve a 3-2 lead going into the 9^th at Wrigley Field? The questions abound. But the lingering, most important query of them all stands. 

Is there hope for the 2019 New York Mets?

Is the house that Brody built falling apart? The Mets would squander their lead. That hanging slider from a pitcher who probably should not have started the inning. Of course, hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20, as the adage goes. And, of course, Mickey would have made a “gutsy” call if Lugo were able to complete a scoreless bottom of the 8^th and 9^th. 

Amidst reports of Mickey yelling and cursing and Vargas putting on his best Mike Tyson, is seems that the season is plummeting into irrelevance. The Mets do not seem like a team with enough starting pitching depth, nor an adequate bullpen. The offense, while at times showing glimmers of firepower, often sputters like a push mover running out of gas, twirling ineffectively and inefficiently on a humid summer day. 

There is hope, however. 

Pete Alonso. Just Pete. NOT Peter. He reported to spring training in a haze of question marks and uncertainties that were supposed to be more “defined” that his spot in the roster. Would he be able to handle major league pitching? Could he become an adequate defensive first baseman? Would management decide to hold him in the minors in order to gain more long-term “control” over his contract? 

Pete, not Peter, Alonso, has obliterated the uncertainties for the 1^st half of his inaugural 2019 major league season. Yesterday, Pete broke Darryl Strawberry’s single season rookie home run record. 

He has hit consistently, and with power, batting .276 with 27 home runs and 61 RBIs at just about the halfway mark. He has proven to be more than an adequate defensive 1^st baseman, not the liability that many in the organization thought he might have been. 

Jeff McNeil came up last year from Triple AAA and played 63 games for the Mets in 2018. He hit .329 and played an exceptional 2^nd base (in my humble opinion). He was a highlight, along with Jacob deGrom’s Cy Young pitching performance,  in yet another disappointing Mets non post-season experience. 

Jeff McNeil, although not in the Sunday’s lineup, continues to “rake”, as we say in the baseball vernacular, hitting 5^th in the NL batting title race, with an average in the .340s. With an affinity for clutch hits, “hard” play, and the ability to play multiple positions, he conjures images of Ron Hunt and Bud Harrelson. 

Are these guys “saviors” by any means. No, dare I say. Are these performances supposed to “undo” my feelings of doom, gloom, despair, and “here we go again?” Probably not. 

But just like 1983, when Keith came, and Darryl was brought up, they seem like precursors to something yet coming. Like the reinforcements riding in over the desert horizon, bringing water, food, ammunition, relief for parched lips, sustenance for starving bellies, and…hope…”

As we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the 1969 World Series Championship, is this the “new” 1984? Are these guys what we can “build” around? Or are they seen as trade fodder for the new era of free agents that we pay big bucks to for big disappointments and unrealized dreams of playoffs and championships? 

It would be easy for me to forget the Jason Bay/Carlos Baerga/Mo Vaughn signings if I didn’t feel like Robinson Cano is stomping on my dreams with every “ground into a double play saunter to first base.” It would be easy for me to forget these free agent signings if most of our free agent signings led to more playoff appearances and World Series championships. 

I’m tired of the “what could have been”, “what should have been”, “why can’t we’s”. 

It is time for the Wild Card, the playoffs, the World Series, EVERY year. 

These kids are alright…and so are MY expectations.