Mets360 - The black hole of the Mets’ rotation after Seth Lugo

By Brian Joura September 10, 2020

Earl Weaver once said that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. So, you can see why the Mets might be in trouble here in 2020. Through games of Tuesday, the Mets’ starters had an ERA of 5.21 and since Rick Porcello gave up 5 ER in 4 IP on Wednesday, it’s not like that mark is going to go down. And the remarkable thing is that they’re performing so rottenly with Jacob deGrom sitting with a 1.69 ERA. Take him out of the mix and the rest of the Mets’ starters have allowed 110 ER in 153 IP. That’s a 6.47 ERA.

They say that one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Yet the Mets have given Robert Gsellman four starts, Steven Matz five, Michael Wacha six and Porcello nine. That quartet has combined for 88 ER in 99.1 IP, which is a 7.97 ERA. That’s 24 starts. Then throw in a poor spot start apiece for Walker Lockett and Ariel Jurado and you have 26 starts with 99 ER in 109.1 IP and you have an 8.15 ERA.

And somehow the Mets are 20-24 with a one-in-three shot of making the playoffs.

The past two years the lament has been how not only did the Mets fail to give run support to get deGrom wins, they didn’t even win half of his starts. This year they are 6-2 in games that he starts. Whenever someone else starts, the team is 14-22 and that’s with yesterday’s remarkable come-from-behind victory. And the majority of those 14 wins happened because of the offense, not the starting pitching.

In 44 starts, the Mets’ starting pitcher has amassed a Game Score of 50 (what’s considered an “average” start) or better 19 times. And two of those came in outings by Seth Lugo in which he pitched 3.0 and 3.1 innings. Lugo’s done it in all three of his starts, deGrom has seven in eight tries and somehow Porcello has four in his nine starts.

With how bad the Mets’ starters were doing, it was criminal to leave Lugo in the bullpen as long as they did. He’s easily the team’s second-best starter. After deGrom and Lugo, it’s hold your breath and hope for the best.

David Peterson is likely the third-best option but he was lit up in his last start. And given that he’s been on the IL recently, it’s possible he’s nowhere close to 100%. In normal times you’d seriously think about removing Porcello from the rotation but there’s simply not any realistic option out there for the Mets to do that.

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