Tom Brennan – INJURIES AND JINXES

Tom Brennan – INJURIES AND JINXES

It was a feel great story for a while.  Mets winning, and winning, and winning some more, eleven straight and the talk of baseball.  

All the while, guys were getting injured, or not coming back from injury quickly, or in the case of guys like Wheeler and Edgin, out for the year and beyond. Even Jennry Mejia getting his 80 game suspension - Reese Witherspoon called him a total bonehead.  

Miraculous start, frankly, all things considered.  How long could it last?

Until the Yanks, I suppose.  Interleague play has generated some weird things between the Mets and Yanks, usually not in good ways for the Mets.

A jinx seems to be in play.  For the World Series ball hit by the Mets that hit off the top of the fence and stayed in, likely turning the course of that series , to the recent A Rod homer that hit off the top of the fence and did go over.  From Jose Reyes’ injury in the Yank series in his last year as a Met, when he went from the hottest hitter in baseball to hamstring-disabled in a 90 foot sprint to first base.

Several Mets seasons with some hope, then Mets play Yanks, then Mets lose, then hope vanishes. The next year, same script, rinse and repeat.

But this year, it would be different.  The scorching 13-3 Mets traveled to the approximate location of the House That Ruth Built without Wright, Wheeler, Edgin, Blevins, d'Arnaud, Parnell, Mejia, and Black.  So, what? They expected to just keep on winning, with miracle time, led by Matt Harvey.

Well, other than Harvey (2-0 since then), the Mets have lost 7 of the other 8 games since.  So the injuries did catch up, and while the pitching has remained stellar, the hitting has staggered badly.

When Wright got hurt, and needs rest and rehab, I criticized him for not realizing that his “Job 1” in 2015, especially in the face of all the missing players, was to be in that line up, healthy, every single doggone day. My guess is if he stayed healthy, they'd have a few more wins in close games.  May this be a lesson to him: ease up.

His hitting and leadership is vital. He takes pressure off.  My guess is a guy like Flores, for example, would somehow be performing better if the Captain were next to him on the left side of the infield every day instead of rehabbing on a treadmill or hitting on a tee.  

Offensive call ups have not gotten the job done, either. Hitting against elite major league pitching rather than AAA pitching is an entirely different animal.

Reggie Jackson was the Straw that Stirred the Drink for the Yanks, back when.  Wright is that straw for these Mets, but the straw has to be in the drink to stir it.   Instead, it is lying in the trainer’s room.

So, get back soon, David, because that lead over the Nats suddenly feels like it has a short remaining shelf life.  And when you get back, David, remember that those that play the cautious way live to play another day.

I looked at his player page, no middle initial.  Hmmm…I wonder if his middle name is Larry, as in "DL" Wright.  

Let's hope by the time he returns, and is back in the groove, our post-season posture has not taken too much of a hit.  Let’s hope the new guys who are subbing are enough to run off some wins.

We need our injured warriors back, most notably Mister Wright.