The New York Mets won another game yesterday behind a strong performance from Marcus Stroman. A storyline that has taken a backseat given all of the postponements so far in April is the spring training injury to Carlos Carrasco and the worries of how the New Yorkers would hold their rotation together until he returned. Thanks to Stroman, Taijuan Walker, and David Peterson, the Mets are surviving Carrasco's absence quite well. Unlike 2020, Jacob deGrom doesn't find himself a one-man show in the rotation. Seriously, if I told you before the series in Colorado that the Mets would score 4, 2, and 2 runs in the three games, how many would you have expected them to win?
As frustrating as it can be to watch the Mets offense continue to sputter, how much more would it be if they weren't getting the effective starting pitching and losing most of their games? Certainly, the staff of the 2020 Mets couldn't have carried them through an offensive stretch like this one.
Of course, it's not just the pitching. I thought the game-ending play last night was significant beyond the already meaningful fact that it was — you know — the game-ending play. I remember watching it unfold, seeing how far along Trevor Story was in his attempt to steal second base while catcher James McCann was beginning his throwing motion. Based on previous seasons, I honestly thought Story was going to be safe. Even with McCann's quick release and precise throw, I still thought Story would beat it, but Francisco Lindor sealed the deal with a lightning-quick, perfectly executed tag.
While the play's success was still sinking in, it occurred to me how things would have gone last season. With Wilson Ramos or any other of the Mets' catching crew from last season behind the plate, it's a given that Story would have stole second. Then, if he had scored on any sort of bloop hit, the story after the game would have been all about Edwin Díaz blowing his first save of the season instead of a great starting pitching performance and a series win.
Sometimes the differences between a good ball club and a bad one are obvious, like the Mets' roster improvements from last season to this one. Sometimes they're more subtle, such as the lift a team gets from getting a marvelously executed defensive play that allows them to walk off the field feeling good about themselves. Speaking of feeling good, I loved Lindor's celebration after the play.
Over the last few seasons, we've become used to seeing opposing teams stealing bases at will against the Mets in key situations such as the bottom of the ninth yesterday. At least it won't be quite that easy going forward. In many ways, both big and small, the Mets are making themselves tougher to beat in 2021. That will translate into more wins and a team that's more fun to watch.
I don't believe that the Mets starting pitching will continue being quite this good all season, but I expect to see them producing much more offense soon. Eventually, they will be playing games on most days, and that will certainly help things along. Today was a scheduled off day, but it was still the 9th time in 19 days this month they didn't play. And one day they did play, April 11 against the Marlins, they didn't even make it through the top of the first inning before the game was suspended by rain. We've still yet to see what the Mets might look like once they have the opportunity to settle into the baseball season.
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