3 UP
1. Jake Still Great
Last year, Jacob deGrom out-dueled Max Scherzer all season to claim his first career Cy Young Award. Both aces received the Opening Day start in the best Opening Day pitching match-up in recent memory.
Scherzer was great striking out 12 over 7.2 innings. As great as he was, once again deGrom was better. Over six shutout innings, he struck out ten, and he got out of one jam by flat out making Juan Soto look foolish at the plate.
With the start, deGrom extended his own Major League record of starts allowing three earned or fewer. He’s now one behind Bob Gibson for the Major League record for consecutive quality starts.
With the run deGrom is on, at some point, we will have to stop talking about him as just an all-time great Met and start talking about him as an all-time great pitcher.
2. Rumble Young Men, Rumble!
Last year, Pete Alonso and Jeff McNeil began the season with Double-A Binghamton. Alonso was a middle of the order hitter, and McNeil batted ninth.
As we know, McNeil forced his way to the majors, and he proved he belonged. He’s proving it again. So far, he is 4-for-9 with two runs, a walk, double, triple, and two RBI.
You may not have noticed because of how great Alonso has been. Since going 0-for-3 against Scherzer (which everyone does), Alonso has been 6-for-9 with a run, two walks, three doubles, and three RBI. The best way to put it is he’s been awesome.
Alonso has not been over-matched, but rather, he was the team’s best hitter in the series. He has also been able to pick it at first. Overall, he’s making the Mets look like geniuses for calling him up to start the season.
3. Nationals Bullpen Is Terrible
Death, taxes, and the Nationals having a bad bullpen.
The Nationals seemingly do whatever they can do to win. They call up 19 year olds who have played just eight games above the Single-A level. They’ll defer so much money it makes the Bobby Bonilla deal look like a rounding error. Yet despite all they do, they continue to have a terrible bullpen.
The Mets spent the series hitting that Nationals bullpen hard. In the three game set, 13 of the 18 runs the Mets scores came against the Nationals bullpen.
Looking at the National League East heading into the season, there isn’t much separation between the top four teams. If the Nationals have a weakness like this bullpen, the Mets chances of winning the division is that much better.
3 DOWN
1. No Reason to Smile
With a 149 wRC+ last year, Brandon Nimmo was the second best hitter in the National League. It’s just been three games this year, but he’s been one of the worst.
Nimmo started the year going 0-for-8 with six strikeouts before registering his first hit. This is all the more troubling when you consider he jumped out of the gate last year hitting .313/.488/.563 in April.
There are many reasons why Nimmo could be struggling. He dealt with injuries in the Spring, and there are some who will believe last year was a fluke for Nimmo. The most likely explanation is it’s just three games, and no one should overreact.
2. Curious Callaway
Sometimes, a manager is a victim of circumstance like Seth Lugo losing it and putting a seven run lead into jeopardy.
A manager could make an unpopular decision for the right reasons like sitting McNeil after a four hit game to have him avoid a bad pitching matchup (McNeil hit .255/.331/.390 off left-handed pitchers in the minors last year).
Other times, a manager could just flat out make the wrong decision and repeat mistakes.
With Callaway starting J.D. Davis against a right-handed pitcher and his bullpen management (for example, leaving in Justin Wilson), Callaway is showing he hasn’t quite had the growth as a manager he needs to have, especially with the bullpen already starting to get a bit taxed.
3. Starters Struggled
The strength of this team is their starting pitching. If they want to win the division, they need their starting pitching to be great.
Noah Syndergaard struggled again at Nationals Park. With him giving up a run and lead in a difficult sixth, he’s now 0-3 with a 5.86 ERA in six starts there.
With respect to Zack Wheeler, he had a better ERA than deGrom in the second half. He would struggle yesterday allowing four earned in five innings.
The Mets got away with it in this series winning two out of three. They may not be so lucky the next time.
