3 Up
1. Mets Are Fired Up!
Mets ace, Matt Harvey, not only elevates the play of his teammates, but he elevates their passion to win as well. Tuesday night’s match-up was a contest to see who had more fire, more of a burning desire to win. As important as it was for the Mets to take a W the day their young stud took the mound, it was equally important for Philly to knock him down a peg.
In all fairness, Philadelphia made Harvey look human more than once in that game. The Amazin’s #1 did struggle with his location, as many experts noted would happen coming off of Tommy John surgery. The difference is Harvey’s mental make-up. No matter what was going on with his physical abilities, there was zero doubt in his mind that his team would find a way to grit it out. The best part was seeing him still get an opportunity to retaliate and close out the inning after loading the bases.
Oh, and all this non-sense about Utley being tough too? It was cute how he stared back at Harvey after he made his way 90 feet down the line to first. Interesting how he had no desire to even look up from the ground when Harvey trotted up with his glove already coming half way off ready to brawl.
To be clear, I’m in no way promoting violence, but this isn’t little league and no one is handing out ribbons for effort- sometimes the game gets ugly and the team that backs down might as well hand over the win. I want to see my team play with some heart and some guts.
2. Duda and d’Arnaud
These two gentlemen combined to go 8-25 in the series (.320) with four doubles, two home runs, eight RBI’s and four runs scored to go along with some excellent defense. The driving factor for both of these players is their ability to work the count, look for good pitches to hit and driving those pitches hard as hell when they do see it. Plate discipline + exit velocity in motion folks.
3. Cuddyer and Granderson Heating Up
This is crucial for the team’s long term success. With the way Duda and d’Arnaud are playing, they can carry this offense until the Captain returns from his hamstring injury, but over a full season, the homegrown hitters will look to the free agent vets to provide added juice at the top and in the middle of the lineup.
Granderson batted .364 in the series with a .500 OBP and two runs scored. The Grandy man has yet to drive in a run (less RBI’s than Bartolo Colon or Jon Niese), but he has absolutely lived up to expectations out of the leadoff spot.
Michael Cuddyer was slow after a hot spring training, but has steadily picked up his pace, now climbing his way up to a .273/.351/.455 slashline on the season. He went 4-9 in the series (.444) with a double and a triple- yes you read that correctly, driving in a run and scoring two himself. Right now, I still believe d’Arnaud is a better candidate for cleanup, but that production will generate quite a bit of value as well.
3 Down
1. Lame Delay
Ron Darling voiced his frustration over the challenge, that wasn’t a challenge, during Harvey’s outing on Tuesday. Honestly, it’s hard not to agree with Darling here because Harvey was just settling back in to his game when he was forced to cool off. The result, a hit and run scored in the very next batter. As great as it is to get a call overturned in your favor, it isn’t worth stifling the performance of a guy like Harvey unless the team is absolutely certain it’ll go in their favor.
2. The Captain Is On The DL
The Mets should be able to weather this storm, but some plan has to be put in place when David Wright returns to action so that these “tweaks” are avoided. If that means that the Captain no longer steals bases, than that’s acceptable. As a commenter pointed out in one of yesterday’s threads (is2015theyear?), it was a 3-2 count and runners were in motion, but maybe even sacrifice getting in scoring position in that situation for the sake of keeping a .300+ average/20+HR/100+RBI/100+ run scored ball player in the lineup? Seems worth it.
3. The Flores Experiment Is Still An Experiment
As someone who writes about the team he loves dearly, I’m always careful to wish the best for each and every player, but also point out the reality in every situation. Many players in the lineup are either already hot, or starting to heat up, so the need for offense out of Flores hasn’t been as crucial as earlier projections may have indicated.
That being said, the Mets will the shortstop position to start generating some form of value soon. Flores is a ball player, I want to be clear that like many others, I’ve seen an ability in him to be an everyday player- just not a shortstop. He’s been exposed on defense for having a lack of range, fundamentals, etc.- all the things we already knew- the caveat being that his offense has been equally as unproductive. Something has to give with this position by the July trade deadline.
The reality is that either Wilmer Flores gets it going quick (as in the next few series) or Ruben Tejada resumes the starting role. We know Tejada’s ceiling, practically zero offense, but there’s a floor to his overall value stabilized by his excellent defense- and he does play good defense. The pitching staff needs his range controlling the left side of the infield, especially since d’Arnaud and Juan Lagares are playing so well with their gloves. In theory, adding Tejada at the moment creates little to no loss on offense, yet maximizes the defense up the middle, a strong attribute for a team dependent on their pitching to get to the post-season.
There’s also Matt Reynolds waiting in AAA and to be honest, it’s difficult to see him being a long term solution at shortstop as well, all these guys are second basemen. However, when looking for value, Reynolds is an excellent ball player who could hold the position down with some valuable on base skills and speed to spark the top of the lineup.
As I’ve said all along, I truly hope Flores can get it going and prove me and the rest of his critics wrong. Trust me, there’s no pleasure in being right on this one because it’s doubtful the Mets will act swiftly in fixing the situation.
Lets! Go! Mets!
