Fortunately for the Mets, their pitching is so good, they’ve somehow managed to stay at the top of the standings through 75 games of the season with an offense that sits at or near the bottom of every significant category.
But it’s starting to slip out of the grasp of both the manager and front office. It was inevitable. Posting a lineup full of minor league players and major league backups is not sustainable for success over 162 games. Five studs in the stable – which they arguably have right now with Zack Wheeler – cannot win 1-0 or 2-1 everyday.
Especially against the elite clubs in the league, those they will be facing with regularity beginning Tuesday evening at Citi Field when the Cubs – a team that swept the Mets in Chicago last month with good enough pitching, good defense and an above average offense – roll into town.
“We’re going to need more than that on a nightly basis,’’ Terry Collins said after his club won for the second consecutive day with just four runs combined.
Following their series with the Cubs, the Mets will fly to Los Angeles for a July 4 weekend series against the Dodgers, than to San Francisco to face the World Champion Giants, a team who no-hit them just three weeks ago and outclassed them in pretty much everything that is baseball.
Then, after a reprieve against the gritty Diamondbacks, most of the Mets will get a four-day break before starting a ten-game stretch which includes the Cardinals, Nationals and Dodgers.
“We’re at a critical point,’’ Collins said. “You look at who we play in July, it’s critical. We’re playing all division leading teams in the month of July, you better believe it’s critical. We better pick up the way we play.’’
It may take more than improved play among those that are here and the return of Daniel Murphy, especially if many of them have reached their peak.
The industry’s trade deadline might still be a month away, but the Mets trade deadline might be much sooner than that.
Of course, how the industry defines their trade deadline and how the Mets defines their are two different things. The industry’s definition is simply procedural in that any player traded after July 31 must clear trade waivers before being eligible to be moved to any team. For higher priced talent, that usually happens.
But for the Mets, their trade deadline is more about defining their summer and saving their season, because by the time the industry’s deadline arrives, the Mets season might already be well outlined.
And not in a good way.
In just a week and a half, the Mets have lost five games in the standings to the Nationals, going from 1 1/2 games ahead of Washington on June 18 to 3 1/2 behind them on June 27. Washington, who once looked uninspired and was meandering around .500 themselves seems to have hit their stride with seven consecutive wins. It was just a matter of time – the Nationals have an outstanding and deep roster, their injuries not withstanding.
Sandy Alderson expressed perhaps as much emotion and desire about improving the club in public as he ever has as General Manger of the Mets on Friday afternoon at Citi Field, going so far as to say he is willing to overpay in a trade under the right circumstances.
“Are we prepared to overpay? Me personally, I’m prepared to overpay. But there has to be something to overpay for,” he emphatically explained on Friday.
Besides external talent (which is the true context of what he meant), could that something also be his team?
He knows the offense he has constructed for Terry Collins is sub-competitive. He knows a team cannot – and will not – win on a regular basis with a home run, a triple and a run scoring walk.
That means its time to do something. Now. The Mets deadline is approaching.
“Right now it’s a thin [trade] market,’’ Alderson warned.
Yes, it is. But that doesn’t mean their deadline isn’t approaching. That also doesn’t mean there aren’t interim moves to make while the market develops for upper-echelon talent.
“We need to get the job done with what we have,’’ Alderson said. “We have talked about having money available at the deadline, but we’re not going to be making two, three, four, five moves.”
The former is certainly true. Unless Curtis Granderson remains consistent, if Lucas Duda and Michael Cuddyer get on track, and Travis d’Arnaud gets back on the field and stays on the field, there isn’t any one, two or three acquisitions Alderson could make to get the club back on track, anyway.
But they can’t hope people who are what they are to suddenly transform into big league catalysts, either.
That’s why something needs to be done. One bat and some lineup rearrangement could help provide them just enough to squeak by in these games with this pitching staff and All-Star closer.
It’s just a matter of finding and acquiring that bat. Sooner rather than later, before it’s too late.
Just Mets 