Reese Kaplan -- A Positive If Somewhat Flawed Mets Start

As the Mets begin their 2023 season there have been a few developments both positive and negative that caught folks by surprise. Everyone knows that the team is not going to win every game just as they know they won't lose night after night either. It is just great to have the season begin again and to see the Mets with more wins than losses is obviously a great way to kick off 2023.

Starting Pitching

While the Justin Verlander injury was not expected, the substitute pitchers in David Peterson for Jose Quintana and Tylor Megill for Verlander are not exactly chopped liver and folks are willing to agree that allowing a pitcher sufficient time to recover makes a lot of sense. The early showing by Max Scherzer and by Kodai Senga were more good than bad. The only starting pitching shortcoming has been Carlos Carrasco who got nailed by Milwaukee for a loss, giving up 5 earned runs in 4 innings. It's a single game and no one should be pushing any kind of panic button.

Bullpen

Well, for the most part it's been outstanding. To date David Robertson, Adam Ottavino, Drew Smith, Dennis Santana, Brooks Raley, Stephen Nogosek and even Luis Guillorme have been pitching to perfect 0.00 ERAs. Veterans Tommy Hunter and John Curtiss have not been quite as fortunate with their early appearances but the pen has been pretty solid in the early going.

Hitting

While it's too soon to draw solid trends, the fact is that the hitting is not yet something to brag about. Omar Narvaez, Starling Marte and (surprisingly) Tommy Pham have posted positive stats with their bats, but the rest of the lineup has been pretty unspectacular. The fact is that you can't win every game with pitching alone, so the rest of the lineup needs to work itself into an offensive threat. No one is truly worried about Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor nor Brandon Nimmo. 

 However, the worrywarts among us are watching Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha, Daniel Vogelbach and others ready to break into prescription level antacids (or exceeding quantities of adult beverages) when they go 0-4 in a game.

Outlook

It's been less than a week for everyone and too soon to draw definitive conclusions about anyone nor anything. It was great seeing Senga manhandle batters. It was terrific seeing Peterson and Megill pitching effectively. It was nice to see that awesome game start by Pham just as it was nice to see multiple relief pitchers show why they earn their paychecks. 

One or two good innings or at-bats is not a trend and not reason to hoist statues nor build gallows for anyone. Relax, enjoy the game and hope the injured get healthy, the solid players perform as expected and the less well known or borderline players either establish themselves given opportunities to perform or get out of the way later in the year when others are knocking at the door for their chance to shine in the spotlight.