A FEW RECENT SPRING METS HIGHLIGHTS
On Monday, the Mets compiled 2 hits in a 1-1 tie.
But Peterson, Kranick and Senga were outstanding.
Peterson mentioned that his hip pre-surgery hampered his performances. Last year, post-surgery, he was 10-3. Monday night, he was exceptional over 3 innings. Ace caliber.
THEN i REALIZED...
THE PITCHING HAS BEEN SO SWEET
Do you remember the Account Temps commercial where the employee keeps calling in sick, and this time, his manager tellingly, and happily, says to him, "Don't worry about it, we've got Bob from Account Temps." And suddenly, the "sick" employee starts sounding a whole lot healthier?
Well, Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas have not faced a batter due to their muscular maladies, but the Mets through 10 spring training games (through Tuesday) had a 3.69 ERA, 4th best in baseball.
Even better, a relatively smaill number of hurlers (12) gave up most of the damage, 33 runs in 24.2 IP, the most notable name in that group being Blade Tidwell, who was dynamite in his last outing.
The other 33 pitchers so far had surrendered just 14 runs in 70 innings!
None work for Account Temps, but are nonetheless pitching like superstars.
If you're a Mets fan, you gotta be feeling good about that.
The combined stats of 22 of those other 33 guys totaled ZERO runs.
The Magnificent 8 had thrown 31 innings with 15 hits allowed and 36 Ks.
The Scoreless Mag 8 are:
Clay Holmes (6 IP)
Max Kranick (5.1 IP)
Justin Hagenman (4 IP)
Anthony Gose, Dom Hamel, Rico Garcia, Tyler Zuber, and David Peterson each logged 3 scoreless.
If they want to keep their jobs, Manaea and Montas better get well soon, because these temps?
They are AWESOME!
Heck, unlike 22 scoreless Mets pitchers, Pirates great Paul Skenes has already given up a run this spring.
Time to call Account Temps, get Bob to pitch instead.
So, relax, folks. Pitching will do just fine.
14 comments:
Six teams have an ERA above 6.00, and another 10 have ERAs above 5.00. Atlanta, though? 2.23. Don’t you hate them?
Tom, let’s talk seriously… there’s good performances and then there’s good pitching staffs. I don’t follow the Braves but following the Mets, I know that they have faced the Marlins twice, the Nationals, the Astros twice, and the Cardinals. These teams aren’t offensive juggernauts. Let’s pump the brakes a bit.
Gus, pitching to AA caliber teams does favorably skew things a bit. :)
My article tomorrow at 9 may cause some big Hurt.
Point taken about spring training and shiny stats against the less shiny players, but every team is in the same boat. If the Mets are 4th in overall pitching in spring training, that is still something to hang hope on. There are 26 teams below them that are not pitching as well against the same level of competition.
With that all said, I have been saying all winter and still say that I am not worried about the pitching staff. Kranick could be a diamond in the rough and I still think that Canning will give them a lot of good innings. Fans are ready to jettison him now as "Houser 2", but I think they'll be glad they had him by the end of the year. I could be wrong about this one, but something about Canning has me feeling good. The overall depth and the Syracuse crowd behind that MLB depth will sustain them through October.
like 69 said, the largest percentage of these innings were thrown against bench players and minor leaguers
The pitchers will face increasingly tough competition, and it will help the weeding out process. We only take 13-14 of them north. Still I am thrilled that so many guys are doing well. Excluding the 12 guys who have gotten roughed up, the other 33 have a combined ERA well below 2.00
One other advantage for Mets pitchers is not playing in the Cactus League, where the balls probably explode off bats more.
Saturday I suggest that Max Kranick should slide in ahead of Paul Blackburn and Griffin Canning, but hey, what do I know except seeing zeroes when he has pitched?
Point taken about the opponents, but so far the stuff they are throwing and the velocities they are reaching is encouraging based upon the analytics being published.
Kranick throws 5 MPH harder. I think he is the best of the 3
Good point.
Any way you look at it, the staff loos good so far.
Last night I was looking at this roster and Hagenman and Heighst stood out. Who are these guys? Where did they come from?
Well, it’s still early, and you can only face the hitters that step into the box, so great results are always better and more encouraging than non-great results. And, as Paul notes, they’ve thrown hard and thrown strikes and the analytics apparently look very good (i actually have no idea how to interpret those charts Mack’s been publishing, but the commentary around them says they’re outstanding).
To this point in the Stearns era, I feel like they have given us every reason to trust their judgement on the pitching side, and will be giving them the benefit of the doubt - even on guys I don’t know or who have had up and down journeys to get here - until proven otherwise.
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