There’s a wise saying in baseball: “You are not as great as you are, and you are not as bad as you are.”
The Mets and their fans would be advised to follow that adage with the way things are going right now. It hasn’t been great after they lost nine of their 11 games. They got swept by the awful Detroit Tigers Thursday afternoon at Comerica Park after taking a 2-0 loss in Justin Verlander’s Mets regular season debut.
They enter this weekend’s brief homestand against the Colorado Rockies at 16-16.
There are many problems plaguing the Amazins' right now. They can’t hit, as they mustered three hits on their way to being shutout in their recent game, and they can’t pitch. They are finding ways to lose games.
Good thing the Mets have 130 games to go. This is why there is no need to panic at this stage. A long season means sooner or later the Mets will eventually figure things out. Good teams stay good, and bad teams stay bad.
The Mets may not be a championship team, but they are not going to be this bad all season. This team earned the benefit of the doubt with the leadership that is in the clubhouse, starting with second-year Mets manager Buck Showalter and players such as Pete Alonso, Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor and Verlander. Eventually, they will figure it out and go on a run.
Remember, the Mets completed the West Coast trip by going 7-3. They lost the final two games to the San Francisco Giants out on the trip mainly because they were running on fumes after not having a day off during the 10-game road trip.
By the time they started their forgettable six-game homestand, they were out of sorts after trying to adapt their body clocks to the East Coast time zone, not to mention dealing with rainouts this weekend.
This sounds like an excuse, but this is reality. Physical limitations come into play here. It was hard for players to all of a sudden play at a high level after an exhausting cross-country trip. It would take a few games to get their footing back, which explains why they lost two of three to the Washington Nationals. They couldn’t get their pitching rotation in order and be back in the flow with the lineup after a rainout last Saturday along with the Mets taking a 4-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves in five innings last Friday when the rain started to come down at Citi Field.
These things happen in the course of the regular season. It’s how the Mets weather them that will determine how they do the rest of the season.
The Mets hoped to get everything fixed by the time they completed their 13 games against awful teams such as the Tigers, Rockies, Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. So far, they are not off to a good start.
They have to hope coming home can get them jumpstarted. They also need to get better against awful teams that they have no business losing to. This should have happened this week against the Tigers, but instead, they did not hit or pitch well in all three games.
Maybe getting back to playing more games will get them in a flow where things eventually even out. It has to start this weekend, or it could get ugly at Citi Field.
It has already gotten ugly from reading comments and watching videos on social media. Then again, social media has given fans the platform to act like fools whenever they want since it sells and promotes the individual.
Look, there are issues out there for the Mets. Max Scherzer may be a shell of himself after another lousy outing against the Tigers on Wednesday. In the Mets’ 8-1 Game 2 loss to the Tigers, he got battered for six runs in 3 ⅓ innings and gave up home runs to obscure players in Eric Hasse and Matt Vierling. He hasn’t been great if we are being honest about his time as a Met. In his first 22 starts as a Met, he allowed 11 home runs and pitched to a 2.13 ERA.
In his last seven starts, he has allowed 12 home runs and pitched to a 5.72 ERA. His spin rate, such as his curveball, is down 218 rpm and his cutter is down 222 rpm. His fastball velocity is down from 93.2 mph to 92.7 mph. Unless he reinvents himself by throwing more sliders, or developing a changeup rather than relying on his fastball, he could be a lost cause.
Carlos Carrasco was so bad that he apparently was on the injured list just to fix himself mentally, so who knows what to make of him now that he is back. He can’t be relied on mainly because he is a mediocre starter at this stage of his career. David Peterson offered nothing after registering a 7.34 ERA in six starts that had him demoted to Triple-A Syracuse after being tagged with 11 runs in his last two starts, including giving up four runs in the fourth inning against the Braves last Friday night.
Tylor Megill has been decent, but who knows if he can pitch for an entire season after being on the injured list last season with a strained shoulder a couple of times. The Mets are so desperate with their lack of pitching depth that they hope Joey Lucchesi can be the solution, and no one is going to confuse him for a great starter, ever.
Kodai Senga may as well be the team’s best starter at this point, and he has been okay at best. Yes, he struck out 32 hitters in his five starts this season, but he also has a 4.15 ERA, and he hasn’t gone deep into games yet.
Maybe Verlander can be that ace once he gets into a rhythm after pitching every fifth day. He pitched well after giving up back-to-back home runs to Riley Greene and ex-Met Javier Baez in the first inning in his start against the Tigers. He went five innings and only allowed two runs on five hits while striking out five. In a way, it was encouraging how he finished the game.
The bullpen actually has been decent, so that’s encouraging, too.
The offense for the Mets has been anemic so far this season. They have been shut out six times already, and they haven't scored a run in 22 innings. Once pitchers can pitch around Nimmo, Alonso and Lindor, they can get by since the rest of the lineup doesn’t inspire fear. Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez are getting their bearings, which hasn’t been pretty. This could be a problem. Still, these hitters need to get at least 100 to 130 at-bats before we start declaring them to be in a famine. Plus, once the weather gets warmer, the hitters should get it going. When Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio gets called up from Triple-A Syracuse soon, it can only help the lineup than hinder it.
While there are concerns, all of this is fixable. Baseball has a 162-game season for a reason. A long season can get a team to figure it out, or it will expose the team. There are peaks and valleys that come in a long season. Right now, the Mets are in the valley zone. It wasn't long they were 14-7.
We really don’t know what the Mets are yet after 32 games. They could figure it out before Memorial Day weekend or by mid-June.
Here's a history lesson for those doubting Thomases that are not happy with the Mets: The Philadelphia Phillies rebounded from a 21-29 start to make the playoffs as a wild-card team and parlayed it into a World Series appearance last season. Two years ago, the Braves rallied to win the World Series after being 52-55 and losing Ronald Acuna Jr. for the season with a busted knee. Also last season, they trailed the Mets in the NL East by 10 1/2 games at the start of June, yet they still won the division. Four years ago, the Nationals won the World Series after a 19-31 start.
It can definitely happen for the Mets.
Until then, as Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers would say, relax.
You can read Leslie's Jersey Sporting News columns on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays
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