3 UP
1. Walker’s Hitting Again
Heading into the Milwaukee series, Neil Walker was hitting just .218/.298/.347. Walker broke out of his season long funk going 8-13 with two doubles, two homers, and six RBI. He’s an important bat that’s hitting once again.
2. The Mets Continue Scoring Runs
In the three game set in Milwaukee, the Mets scored 17 runs. In the month of May, the Mets lead the majors in runs scored. For once, it’s not about homers either because the Mets are scoring runs in many different ways now.
3. The Series Is Over
There’s an axiom in baseball that you’re never as good as you are when you’re playing well, and you’re never as bad as you are when you’re playing poorly.
As angry as fans are right now, and justifiably so, the Mets aren’t as bad as they were in Milwaukee. There are some issues with the Mets right now, but they’re a better team than this. We should see that in Arizona.
3 DOWN
1. The Pitching Is Terrible
This team was built on pitching, specifically starting pitching. With the bullpen being heavily used Terry Collins asked his starters to go just a little longer in a game. Each time, it lead to runs being scored.
It’s more than that. Here’s the current Mets rotation by ERA:
- Jacob deGrom 4.07
- Zack Wheeler 4.18
- Matt Harvey 5.63
- Tommy Milone 5.88
- Robert Gsellman 7.07
This is the main reason the Mets have an MLB worst 5.07 ERA.
Another reason is this bullpen is starting to crack. Jeurys Familia is effectively done for the year. After heavy workloads, Hansel Robles and Jerry Blevins finally cracked in Milwaukee.
Top to bottom, this pitching staff is under-performing, fatigued, or both.
2. Is This Still A Slow Start
With Curtis Granderson’s disastrous April, you could hang your hat on the fact that he’s always been a slow starter that breaks out of it once the month is over. The good news is he’s been better in May. The bad news is that “being better” is him hitting .179/.273/.385 in May. At 36, it’s fair to question if Granderson will indeed get better.
3. Collins Never Learns
As reported by Matt Ehalt of nj.com, Collins does not believe the bullpen is overworked.
He says this despite his five main relievers being on a pace to make over 80 appearances apiece with Blevins and Salas on pace to make more than 90 appearances. Over the past four years, no reliever has made more than 82 appearances.
