OK, show of hands. Back in February, who’d have taken ending April 15-8 and in first place by 4 1/2 games?
Yeah, I thought so.
And yet here we are in the opening hours of May and everybody’s unhappy.
The bullpen’s gone to pieces. The bats haven’t been productive. And most glaringly, the defense up the middle has fallen apart.
Thursday’s game started off happily enough. The Mets put two men on in the first but came up with nothing when Daniel Murphy scalded a ball straight at Bryce Harper in right. No matter: In the second they went to work against a discombobulated-looking Stephen Strasburg, following doubles by Wilmer Flores and Kevin Plawecki with a Curtis Granderson single for a 2-0 lead. Come the top of the fourth and Jacob deGrom was cruising, looking much stronger than he had against the Yankees. He walked Denard Span, giving the Nats their first baserunner of the game, but no worries: Yunel Escobar hit the Platonic ideal of a double-play ball to Flores. Five seconds later it was two out and none on, and —
SCREECH.
Ahem. Wilmer started to toss the ball to Murph while still corraling it and it squirted free. Two out and none on became its ghastly inverse. By the time the inning was over it was 3-2 Washington, all runs that shouldn’t have scored. Two innings later deGrom got whacked around and left down 5-2. Some shoddy bullpen work made it 8-2 if anyone was still paying attention. Meanwhile, Strasburg had settled in and the Mets were hitting balls with authority — and in woeful proximity to Nationals fielders.
So much for that unbeaten record at home — and for the giddiness of last week. I warned you it would happen, but it still hurts: That 11-game winning streak feels like something that happened a century ago, for fans in bowler hats to admire by the light of gas lamps.
The rest of this post was going to be an examination of Flores and a call for patience, albeit one made through gritted teeth: Can he play shortstop at the big-league level? (Too early to tell, but we all have a bad feeling about this.) Does he deserve more rope? (Yes — 40 games is generally considered a fair test.) Can he add more at the plate than he’ll subtract in the field? (Insufficient data but the early returns seem promising.) Was it fair for the cash-strapped, perennially Plan B-less Mets to thrust him into the responsibilities of shortstop? (No.) Are the fans who booed him tonight at Citi Field clueless cretins who should be kicked in the shins? (Definitely.)
With everyone still grumbling about the game, the Mets announced a roster move, and it isn’t one of their recent bench-dog-for-bullpen-cat swaps. Rather, they’re recalling Dilson Herrera.
Which made me happy, despite the attempt to be patient.
No, Herrera’s not a shortstop — putting him there would be unfair to two players instead of just one. But he is a second baseman, and Daniel Murphy hasn’t exactly covered himself with glory defensively in 2015 either. The smart money is that Herrera will spent the rest of David Wright‘s absence at second, with Murph moving over to third and Eric Campbell — who’s looked overexposed of late — going to the bench. (This isn’t meant to insult Campbell — he’s smart and a good asset, just probably not a big-league regular at this stage of his career.)
That leaves Flores at short, and we’ll see how that works out for the next week or so. So yeah, it addresses half the problem. But I find myself liking that the Mets aren’t waiting around until that hot start cools into nothing. They’re moving with a sense of urgency we haven’t seen for a while. Which isn’t the same as moving with a sense of urgency and the pocketbook of a major-market team, but one step at a time.
Dilson for a week and then we’ll see. Not the most stirring slogan, perhaps, but preferable to where we were a couple of hours ago. And hey, we are still 15-8 and in first place. You just said you would have taken that, remember?
And let’s not forget that Wright and d’Arnaud missing from the lineup is huge, no matter how admirably some of the backups have filled in.
Hopefully we have another Happy Harvey Day and feel better heading into the rest of the weekend. But to your point…it’s May and the Mets have the biggest division lead in MLB, which is beyond any of our dreams of how well the season might start.
Not that I’m defending the booing, and I wasn’t there, but are fans booing Flores, or are they booing the fact that he’s the shortstop? Ever since we first heard his name, we were told that he doesn’t project as a shortstop. He’s looking to me like a younger version of the man temporarily moving from Flores’ left to his right…a position player who is one position short of actually being a position player (unless you count DH).
And don’t think that there’s a Yankee fan anywhere who won’t gleefully and condescendingly remind us that the Mets were doing great until they played them. It’s May 1 and it’s already been a definitively Metsian season.
“Are the fans who booed him tonight at Citi Field clueless cretins who should be kicked in the shins? (Definitely.)” – I booed him, too, from the comforts of my couch. I was in dire need of a scape goat and him and Murph just keep stepping forward. Murph is still using up credit he earned for being a very worthwhile batter in the past, but Flores’ presence is just annoying.
“Some shoddy bullpen work made it 8-2 if anyone was still paying attention.” – Nope. Had already cried myself to sleep.
Since they took off CC’s skin and played the drums on it the last time we had ourselves a Harvey Day, this team has come over remarkably toothless. We have managed all of 15 runs over five games, and lost four of them, and would have lost them all if not for some sudden murphyful spark off Cishek. Not batting a ton might work out more often than not only for a team that enjoys strong pitching (check, at least the rotation, even including Niese and Gee) and solid fielding (NOPE. No, really, NOPE!).
I may be beating the oldest drum still lying around in some dark, wet corner of the clubhouse that not even #5 gets to visit to talk encouragement to, but why not mix in a little Tejada at short or second from time to time? He might not bat more than .240 either, but I don’t remember him to break games open repeatedly in the field.
i found the booing to be totally useless. Not really fair to be blaming the kid who isn’t a shortstop for playing crappy at shortstop. Reminds me an awful lot of sticking Duda in the OF and then being shocked when he sucked out there. And then expecting someone to hit well when they are placed in a constant position of being uncomfortable in their fielding and then getting booed on top of that.
Again the problems that were evident to everyone on the off season are shockingly coming to head. I’m happy to see Herrerra up but I think it’ll take more than that.
Wise words Jason, thanks for soothing the stress. To be honest from the across the pond I’ve always felt Met fans to be too eager to boo/criticise on occasions, far less supportive than certain(not all) other fan bases. The past few games have disappointed, most notably when we’ve contributed to our own downfall. I’m still confident we can get at least a 2-2 split from the Nats series which to me would be satisfactory against a team tipped to walk the division. Read a “soccer” players comment earlier in the week about best advice he’d been given “never too high, never too low” is how I’ve tried to deal view the Mets, this season and before.
Wise words yourself, BlackCountryMet! It’s easy to finger Flores here, and he will have to step it up defensively, but this is still a young player just one month into a tough transition. He deserves more than one month to pull it together.
The bigger issue here right now is the sleepy offense…they still give away key at bats and let reeling pitchers off the hook and have these stretches of futility within games that you just can’t do when you play close games. To be fair, as Jake said, they are depleted, and that IS huge on a team like this. Also, if you haven’t noticed, Duda has vanished this past week.
If they were seven games over .500 on Sept.1 we would be thrilled. We’re seven over now and it’s May 1….that was a really good, and really encouraging April. All teams hit bumps in the road, GOOD teams figure out a way to get past them. And this team will, but all the development they need to happen isn’t going to happen in April. But for all the bumps, I’ll take this April EVERY year!
Quick question….do the 50 games Wilmer played at SS last year count toward the 40 games we’re supposed to give him before judging his ability? I like both Flores and Murph, both able to hit around .280 with 35 doubles and 75 runs/RBIs. But having both booting balls and innings up the middle is too much for a playoff contender to bear. How long before the pitching staff rebels (can’t wait for Harvey’s reaction the 2nd or 3rd time one of these two cost him a game)? Hate to say it but Murph’s time at second is done, if only because we have an option at second, but not at SS.
Jason…you definitely captured the “heart” of the Met fan (and the “soul” of the media!) in that headline! Nicely done, Sir!
I like Wilmer and I very much want him to succeed but geez, he looks like he’s trying to catch a garden snake out there at SS, it’s brutal.
Chill people! We are in first place by 4/12 games at the end of April! Did you foresee that? Did you also think we were going to win every game?
It’s called a losing steak. Remember when we won 11 in a row? It happens its baseball.
This team is not as good as the 11 game streak and not as bad as they have been playing recently.
Baseball is a marathon-not a sprint!
My thoughts as well. The 11 game win streak and fast start provided a cushion for spells like this. There was nothing worse for the Mets over the past few seasons to start off poorly, have to grind to get back to .500, only to then hit another rough patch of games to fall under that mark again.
HAPPY HARVEY DAY!
Flores had a brutal HarveyNight. 4 Ks, a throwing misplay the first batter of the game that was scored a hit and a for-real throwing error when Harvey was nursing a 1-0 lead.