Terry Collins told reporters last night he would probably give an edge to the Nationals rotation over his team’s rotation.
“When you’ve got [Jordan] Zimmermann who’s got that time, and you add Scherzer, whose got a Cy Young. We don’t have that animal,” Collins explained to reporters in Viera last night. “They’re very good. They’ve got a good staff. Gio [Gonzalez] is very good. Plus you add a guy who throws 225 innings and won a Cy Young and won a lot of games in the last couple of years, that’s a huge upgrade,” Collins said.
Collins noted the Mets cannot play as poorly against the Nationals this season as they did in 2014.
With that said, Collins noted his staff can be excellent too.
“I like our pitching a lot. We’re not afraid to go head to head with [the Nationals],” Collins explained.
“We can’t go 5-14 next year,” Collins said. “You’ve got to play better. I think our bullpen has settled down a little bit and I think we’re in a little bit better shape.”
He’s right. The Nationals completely outclassed the Mets last year, especially at Citi Field where they flat out embarrassed the them. While the Mets really weren’t a playoff team last year, it can be argued their season could’ve looked a lot different if the Mets had played better against Washington last year. I mean, if they had just two more wins against them, they’re a .500 team. Three more and they’re over .500. If they had gone 9-10, which still isn’t good, September might have been more interesting. Terry seems pretty confident they’ll be at least competitive against Washington this season. I hope that’s the case.
By the way, for what it’s worth, between these comments from Terry and Zack Wheeler’s comments about Bryce Harper in the Daily News yesterday, the Mets are all of a sudden doing quite a bit of talking early about their division rival. As I wrote yesterday, I love the attitude and swagger, but they’re going to have to back all of this up…
Just Mets 