5/25/21

Metstradamus - The End Of The Adrenaline

 


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The 3-6 road trip looks disappointing when you’re just looking at numbers. But of course you know that when you look at the context of the injuries, and the pure adrenaline that was injected into the team by big hits from Johneswhy Fargas and Khalil Lee, you understand that 3-6 at this juncture is a … forgive me … net positive.

But what I’m scared of now is that you have the adrenaline wearing off a bit, combined with the sobering news from Zack Scott that Michael Conforto’s and Jeff McNeil’s hamstring injuries will most likely keep them out for another month. Now you have a little bit of reality setting in and realizing that this lineup may not be as temporary a thing as originally anticipated. That’s something that, if the leadership in the room doesn’t keep things light and breezy, reality could permeate in that room quick. Sure, Jacob deGrom comes back tomorrow, but if he has trouble getting wins with full lineups, imagine how many scoreless innings he’d have to throw to get a 1-0 victory tomorrow?

Hell, at this point, I’d consider batting deGrom sixth tomorrow.

Monday’s game certainly had reality written all over it. David Peterson gave up two solo homers in the 2nd inning. The Mets had problems with Rockies starter Austin Gomber (a guy so notable that I almost called him Adam … which says more about me than about him) for eight innings. And they most likely lost another center fielder for a while as Fargas slammed into the wall hard in the 4th inning chasing Garrett Hampson’s RBI triple.

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2 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Fence vs. athlete: Athlete loses almost every time. Sometimes, as Trump might say, lose very bigly.

Jack Strawb said...

"Hell, at this point, I’d consider batting deGrom sixth tomorrow."

---Odd. I just posted the exact same thing in the NYPost three minutes ago. And thought I was being too kind to the lineup, as hitting deGrom cleanup would hardly be out of order. It's surely absurd to bat him eighth or ninth when you're playing Maybin, Lee, and Peraza, and deGrom, whose eye-hand coordination is probably in the top 99.999%, is seeing the ball well and hitting 1.000.

Fwiw this lineup is only capable of playing .350-.400 ball for the next month. Have you seen their record against teams playing .500 or better? It's ugly. This is a squad barely better than replacement level, and that's only thanks to deGrom and Stroman. The Mets will need a real OFer badly next season, so a big trade for someone like Haniger risks little.

The NL East is weak enough that it's unlikely to yield a wild card team, meaning the Mets had better aim for first place in the division. This is no time to continue patching and filling with the Maybins of the world. Go big or spend October fly fishing, gentlemen.

Funny thing, the Mets might luck out with the timing of their pitching injuries: Imagine squeaking into the postseason but then having four of deGrom, Carrasco, Stroman, Walker, and Syndergaard healthy and still with a couple of dozen innings each left in the tank.