All of this trade talk was fun and entertaining, and in a lot of ways exciting and distracting.
But something which has gotten lost in the hoopla of the trade deadline is the Mets just lost two out of three to the floundering San Diego Padres in their home ballpark, pushing them 4 1/2 games out of the second wild card and three games behind the Nationals for the lead in the National League East.
They’re 5-8 since the All-Star break, down to two games over .500 for the season.
The club has acquired four new players ahead of the trade deadline: Yoenis Cespedes, Tyler Clippard, Juan Uribe, and Kelly Johnson. The roster is now October-caliber, on paper anyway. And, they’ve done it while retaining their five big arms, and all of their top position player prospects.
All of that is fantastic and very impressive, but the whole point is these guys are here to help the team win games, like the one they lost on Wednesday when they were leading 7-1 in the seventh inning.
The Mets have a monumentally large series facing them against the Nationals at Citi Field beginning three hours after the trade deadline passes on Friday night. As it stands right now, even if the Mets acquire a transformation bat, the Mets will be three games behind the Nationals with 60 games to go, and 4 1/2 games behind the Giants with the same number of games to play in the Wild Card race.
What’s more, they do not have to face Max Scherzer this weekend, and the Mets have their three best starting pitchers going.
Of course, they had their three best starters going last week in Washington, and they still lost two out of three to the Nationals.
Even so, the Mets have to prove they can play with the big boys in the league, even with the new talent and now healthy talent (Travis d’Arnaud) on the roster.
They’re 19-30 against teams with a .500 record or better in 2015, 4-6 against the Nationals, 1-3 against them at Citi Field. What’s worse, the Mets have lost 15 of their last 16 games and 6-26 over the last four years against the Nationals at Citi Field.
There are tremendous implications in this weekend’s series. If they get swept, they’re six games out. If they sweep, they’re tied. Winning two gets them two back, losing two gets them four back.
A lot is on the table for the Mets in the next three days.
But the front office and ownership have shown they’re all-in with these moves ahead of the trade deadline, despite a ton of negativity surrounding them this week. Now it’s time to put the pedal to the metal, and go win the baseball games.
Today, coming close to the playoffs became no longer good enough. The pressure is on.
Just Mets 