A quarter of the Major League season has passed, and in the NL East, the New York Metropolitans have reigned supreme. Their superb 28-15 record stands alone atop the division standings, with a healthy eight game lead over tied second place teams in the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies. They’ve just taken two of three games from the Colorado Rockies, and tonight they’re in San Francisco for a three game bout with the Giants. There’s so much to celebrate so far this season; They’ve already had a combined no-hitter, have the longest streak of winning games following a loss, their all around production is elite, and the list goes on and on. While challenges are mounting, the most critical stretch of games this season starts on June 2nd and lasts until the 29th, with an absolutely brutal west coast trip at the start that would have most teams losing all series at preview. How do the Mets stack up and survive?
As their schedule currently stands, the Mets June schedule consists of a west coast trip of ten games; four against the Dodgers, and three games against the Padres and Angels successively. Then they go home to face the Brewers, before having a stretch of seven games against the Marlins and four against the Astros, shared between home and the road. Perspective wise, they face five teams above .500 that are first place or contending teams, and then the Marlins for the first time this season, that look better than what their record reflects.
As it stands, the biggest problem plaguing the Mets is that their pitching staff is dwindling. Jacob deGrom won’t be on a Major League mound until July and Trevor May is sidelined until the end of next month from a stress reaction. Sean Reid-Foley suffered a partial UCL tear that requires season-ending Tommy John Surgery, Max Scherzer was shut down for six to eight weeks with a high grade oblique strain, and Tylor Megill was placed on the IL for biceps tendinitis, but is expected to return with caution. While this does mean that the team is left in good hands in Carlos Carrasco, Chris Bassitt, and Taijuan Walker for the rotation, it also means that the Mets must utilize arms like David Peterson with inconsistent success and relying on bullpen pitchers to open games and/or act as long game relievers. Those kinds of bullpen games have also become more frequent for a bullpen that is becoming increasingly more taxed by the concurrent injuries to various pitchers in the organization, and the continuous doubleheaders that seem to be popping up for the Mets for one reason or another.
Upon other injuries, James McCann had wrist surgery last week and is expected to miss about five weeks from this point on, leaving Tomas Nido and Patrick Mazeika as the shotcallers behind the plate. And then there’s the other elephant in the room of Mets just continuously getting hit by pitches this year; they lead the league in HBP with 28 and have already had a couple of dust ups this year as a result of some close calls with head high pitches. Hopefully that epidemic ceases before any Met becomes seriously hurt, since being taught to duck, cover, and cringe at any high and inside fastballs should not be the norm and recurring theme over the course of the season, especially as the Mets look more likely to be playoff bound.
That being said, the Mets not only have a pitching staff that will perservere, but they’re assisted by the offense that the Mets position players are providing. They lead the league in hits at 365, are 7th in the league in RBI, 6th in the league in runs, have a 21-3 record when scoring first in games, and have a team average and OPS at 3rd and 2nd in the league respectively. The homegrown Mets especially are the biggest providers for this team, as Pete Alonso is tied for the league lead in RBIs at 37, Jeff McNeil is having a bounce back year hitting .306, and Brandon Nimmo has a 13 game hitting streak and 27 game on base streak leading back to last April. The Mets are also just well disciplined at the plate by being one of the better two-strike and two-out ballclubs in baseball and has helped them have a run differential of plus 42 on the year. Combine that with a solid defense that’s committed close to the least amount of errors this year (15), and the Mets are on pace to win at least 100 games this year.
There’s so much against the Mets right now for this brutal month of June. That being said, this is not a Mets team that will “Met”. They have a well-rounded group of guys that will grind any team until they break, an experienced manager that never hits the panic button, a great front office with solid baseball decision making, and an owner that will do whatever it takes to win. Even if they so much as only go .500 in the month of June and prepare for the key returns of Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, it’ll be a small price to pay for a team determined to win it all.
The Mets still have some series to play against the Giants (22-18), Phillies (19-22), and Nationals (14-28) before then, so it’s up to them to expand their cushion of an eight game lead before heading into the hardest month of the season.
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