Paul Articulates – Bad Timing

Back before the days when every car has electronic ignition, there used to be a component of the engine called the timing belt.  When your timing belt fell out of adjustment, the engine ran very rough.  When the timing belt broke, the engine just would not run.

The New York Mets are having a timing problem.  It is time to get this team into the shop.  There seems to be a timing problem everywhere you look lately.

First of all, it is bad timing to fall into a team-wide hitting funk when you are lined up against a soft schedule but here we are losing 7 of the last 12 games to teams that are well below .500.  Even with less than stellar pitchers on the mound, the Mets hitters just can’t string enough hits together to put up the runs to win these games.  By the way, they have put a few double digit run totals on the scoreboard during that streak, but those were the games that they only needed a few.  When Scherzer or deGrom pitched solid games, they could only muster a few. Bad timing!

The unstoppable Atlanta Braves have suddenly hit a little skid themselves, losing 4 of 5 on their west coast trip.  Great time to put some distance between our first place club and the charging Braves?  Bad time to get swept by the lowly Cubs!

Early in the year, the Mets astounded their fans by consistently delivering key hits with 2 out and runners in scoring position. Good timing!  In this September swoon, hits with RISP are few and far between.  It also seems like they are grounding into more double plays with bases juiced and zero or one out.  Everyone hits ground balls, but does it have to be THEN?!  Bad timing!

Even when you examine the lineup, there seem to be several cases of bad timing.  Nimmo fouls off pitch after pitch in many of his at-bats, but then comes up empty.  I guess his timing is just a little off.  Lindor was on a great stretch in July and August, piling up RBIs by delivering hits at just the right time.  Now it seems like his hits are coming with bases empty.  Pete Alonso has gone long stretches between home runs as his balance seems off – he is lunging at pitches and Keith seems he is “just a little ahead of the pitch”.  Chalk it up to bad timing.  Then we get to the bottom of the order.  Escobar and the catcher duo of McCann and Nido have suddenly found their missing swings.  When they get on base, there’s no one to deliver them home because the top is struggling.  Bad timing!  Well, maybe if we had Marte things would be different.  He is on the 10-day injured list with a fractured finger.  Bad timing!

I guess you get the picture, so I will no longer belabor the discussion.  My point is that this is just bad timing.  Not bad players, not bad call-ups, not bad managing, and although there have been a few bad calls along the way the Mets are not getting robbed.  Timing has a way of turning around when you least expect it.  The Mets will turn it around, and our only worry is whether they will turn it around soon enough since there are now only 18 games remaining in the regular season.