After winning 11 straight games and opening their season 13-3, the Mets have proceeded to drop seven of their last ten games and have a record of 16-10, the same number of wins they had through 26 games in 2014.
Despite the recent struggles, the Mets remain 3 1/2 games ahead of the Nationals for first place in the National League East, who defeated the Marlins last night in Washington for their third win in a row and sixth of their last ten.
“If you’d have said to us, ‘Hey, May 3rd, you’re going to have a 3 1/2 game lead, you’re going to be seven games over .500, six games or whatever it is, would you take it?’ Well the answer is of course,” Collins explained on Sunday afternoon. “As we said when we won 11 in a row, ‘Hey, we’re going to have a down time.’ We didn’t think it was going to be right away, but we were going to have one, and we’re just going to play through it.”
Mets GM Sandy Alderson is also pleased with the way his club has played in general.
“I’m happy with the way the team has played,” Alderson told Zack Braziller of the New York Post. “We were never as good as 11-0 and we’re not as bad as 3-7. We’re somewhere in between. We still have to find that point.”
To an extent, I agree with Alderson. However, the. Mom on denominator through the first 26 games – even during the 11-game winning streak – has been shoddy defense up the middle. It was the chief concern heading into the season, and in large measure it has already watered down their record. Sure, they haven’t hit lately, but unfortunately defense never slumps or gets on a roll. So, especially when the bats go cold – and they do for every club at some point – it’s that much more important the defense makes the routine plays.
Too often, they have not.
Even so, Alderson remains confident his club will start playing better, and doesn’t foresee making a trade in the short-term.
We have to do better and we expect we will starting with Baltimore,” Alderson explained to Brazziler. “We’ve got several guys who we expect [to get] more offensive production from. There’s no reason to go out and get more players. We’re still happy with the ones we have, and we’ll see over a somewhat longer period of time how they perform.”
In fairness to the Mets, there are no meaningful trades for them to make at the moment. Everyone is a believer this time of year; in fact, most clubs seem to be believers these days at the trade deadline thanks to the advent of the second wild card. It’s great for baseball, but it narrows the market and limits the choices to improve all over the diamond for a lot of teams.
The one area right now the Mets could (and maybe should) eventually change is shortstop, and sooner rather than later. It’s clear they’re already trying to shore things up on the middle infield, evident by the recall of Dilson Herrera and the shift of Daniel Murphy to third. And no matter what they say, I find it hard to believe they would re-pair Murphy with Wilmer Flores once David Wright returns.
What that means for either Flores or Murphy is unclear right now. I could see a scenario where the Mets bring up Matt Reynolds regardless of what happens to Murphy. That would at least give them a chance to see if Reynolds can play the position here while the external markets begin to develop.
No matter what happens, the front office has to find players who can make the routine plays up the middle, and that includes double plays, which are considered routine and vital at this level.
Otherwise, it’s hard to expect anything other than the same.
Just Mets 