The Mets announced on Monday LHP Jerry Blevins suffered a distal radial fracture in his left arm, and will be in a splint for the next six weeks.
If all goes well, Blevins can resume baseball activities at that time. Based on that projection, it’s logical to conclude Blevins will be out at least two months.
So, what do the Mets do from here on the left side of the bullpen?
Alex Torres is not a natural left-handed specialist.
In his career, Torres has has held left-handers to a .215 average. But, his notorious command problems have led to 32 walks against lefties and a .332 on-base percentage. Most recently, left-handers had a .256/.415/.322 line against Torres in 2014, once again thanks to 25 free passes.
Torres also has held right-handers to much better marks over the course of his career. So, while lefties have trouble against him, he’s far more effective against righties thanks to his very deceptive change-up which works down and away from the right side.
There’s no question Torres is going to get chances against left-handers, but Terry Collins essentially said himself on Sunday his command issues make it difficult to totally entrust him against big left-handed bats.
Sean Gilmartin profiles as a left-handed specialist, but has no track record.
Gilmartin has been a really nice story so far for the Mets. He put together a strong camp and is off to a good start to his big league career. Historically, he has profiles as a quality specialist from the left side – he has a really good, over-the-top curve ball which runs away from lefties, and it’s worked to his advantage so far this season. Lefties are 2-for-9 with four strikeouts against Gilmartin so far in 2015, although he’s allowed one home run. Last year while with Triple-A Rochester in the Twins organization, he held left-handers to a .190 average with only three walks and 27 strikeouts.
Here’s the issue with Gilmartin: there’s no track record for success. All looks good 13 games into the season, but to be fair its a very small sample size, especially for someone who has no big league experience coming into the season. How does he respond to pressurized situations at this level? Is his success sustainable? All very fair questions.
Still, his game and repertoire play well to fit the profile of a lefty specialist, and if he’s successful, he becomes a nice story from the Rule 5 draft.
What about Jack Leathersich?
I talked about this a little bit this morning, which you can read here. By the sounds of it from Terry Collins, it seems as though they’re encouraged by Leathersich’s good camp and impressive start with Las Vegas, but want to see more from him. That’s fair. He has done nothing but show major command issues to this point in his career. For it to all of a sudden straighten out in the upper levels of the minors can be deceptive in a small sample size.
If Leathersich shows his pitching has matured, and he continues to miss bats at such a high rate, the Mets cannot ignore that progress.
But, as is the case with Torres, Leathersich hasn’t historically been as effective against left-handed hitters either. Early on, 2015 has been no exception to that rule.
The Mets are staying in-house, for now.
Sandy Alderson said on Sunday evening the Mets intend to stay in-house to try and resolve this problem in the bullpen. So for now, it’s up to Torres and Gilmartin to step up and adjust to the role Terry Collins installs them in, and for the manager to creatively piece together late inning situations and get the ball to Jeurys Familia.
Just Mets 