4 Up

1. A Significant Start

The Mets have pulled off there second straight sweep and eighth straight win, taking 4 out of 4 from the Miami Marlins. The Mets are now 10-3 on the season which has only happened twice before in team history, in 1986 and in 2006, when they won the NL East and and went to the playoffs. While post-season results were drastically different for both of those teams, it’s safe to say they were the most dominant Mets clubs in recent history, which puts this 2015 squad in good company.

2. Undefeated

There are only three pitchers in baseball right now who are 3-0. Two of them are NY Mets, Bartolo Colon and Matt Harvey.

Colon has pitched extraordinary out of the gate this season, living up to every last cent of the $11 million left on his contract. Barolo has kept the Mets in all three of his match-ups, being particularly dominant on Opening Day and most recently against Miami.

The 41 year old veteran has fed hitters a steady stream of fastballs (sinkers, two seamers, four seamers, etc.) to work his way through a total of 20 innings with a 2.25 ERA. Surprisingly, Colon has been apt in the art of striking batters out with a 8.10 K’s per 9 innings rate. All this compared to the fact that he’s been hitting his targets, rarely missing and giving up very few walks- as reflected in his stingy 0.45 BB/9 rate.

The Real Deal has looked real human at times this season, but it’s still unreal that he’s striking out 12 batters per 9 innings of baseball, while only walking 0.50 through that same number of frames. Matt’s also been unlucky in a small sample size. Hitters own a .326 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) against him this year, which may provide insight into the contrast between his 3.50 ERA and 2.05 xFIP (Fielding Independent Pitching weighted for ballpark factors).

Home runs actually reduce BABIP, so the fact that Harvey has surrendered two and his BABIP is still high compared to the rest of the league is telling. His high strikeout and low walk rates are excellent indicators for sustained success that put him among the best in baseball, so the .326 BABIP is likely a streak of poor luck for the Dark Knight. It’ll come down closer to the current NL average of .296 which may proceed even sharper performances out of the young ace later on in the season.

Seems like a trivial difference, but keep in mind Harvey isn’t allowing very many hits, just the ones that he has allowed are doing more damage than the average pitcher experiences. Any reduction, even 3% to the average (.326 down to .296), will mean drastically less output from the opposition. The fact that he’s producing such an incredible whiff rate while walking so few batters is a sign that if he stays healthy, he’ll dominate this game.

3. Early CY Young Candidate

As great as Colon and Harvey have been, Jacob deGrom has been the most dominant pitcher on this staff, perhaps the most dominant in baseball. Armed with a five pitch arsenal, the reigning NL Rookie Of The Year has only allowed 2 earned runs this season, both of which came on the same swing from Ryan Zimmerman back in deGrom’s first start of the season.

Still, on the season, deGrom owns a 0.93 ERA (7th best in baseball) and an astounding 97.1% left-on-base percentage (LOB%- 6th best in baseball). If the offense can provide the same run support they’ve given Harvey every time out, deGrom can easily be a 20 game winner.

4. Duda And d’Arnaud

This may be the last time I get a chance to write about this tandem for a little while, so why not commend their efforts. Lucas Duda (8 runs scored/8 RBI’s) and Travis d’Arnaud (5 runs scored/10 RBI’s) have accounted for 27.7% of the Mets runs generated this season (31 out of 112).

Duda went 5-15, posting a .333/.375/.533 slashline in the series. He knocked in an RBI and scored three runs en route to generating three doubles, two singles and a walk. D’Arnaud slashed out to a .273/.333/.545 line with a home run, two runs scored and two RBI’s. Despite not drawing a single walk, TDA only struck out once in three games played throughout the series.

4 Down

1. Travis d’Arnaud Fractures His Right Hand

The tragedy in TDA’s injury is that he was making lots of hard contact and really driving the ball to all fields. It wasn’t merely the fact that he was producing results in the short term, his production correlated with the success he’d been having since his recall from AAA Las Vegas last June. Repetition is the strongest indicator for sustained success. This year, d’Arnaud has hit for a plus average (.317), had an OBP that sat slightly above it (.365) and a slugging percentage that looked like that of a cleanup hitter (.537). He created plenty of scoring opportunities for himself and his teammates with two home runs and a team best 10 RBI’s (2nd among all catchers in MLB).

Most importantly, his defense improved vastly, posting a 43% caught-stealing rate on the season (6th best in MLB), with two of those outs coming off of Miami’s speedster Dee Gordon. Prior to getting hit on the hand, he owned a 3.06 catcher’s ERA (7th best in MLB).

2. Jerry Blevins Fractures Forearm Because Someone Had To…Right?

Blevins has pitched incredibly well for the Mets. In 7 games, he’s tossed 5.0 innings of relief, generating 4 strikeouts with 0 walks. Alex Torres has done well so far, but Blevins was pitching at an elite level and navigating this team through some tough innings. It’ll be up to the bullpen to bounce back, but the task will be tough.

3. Harvey Over-pitched?

Did anyone else feel as though it was time to pull Matt Harvey after five innings when the Mets had racked up 7 runs to the Marlins 1? It’s certainly difficult to convince a guy like Harvey to give up the ball, but the Mets have talked all off-season about finding opportunities to give their ace rest when possible and a 6 run lead after five innings of work seemed like a legitimate opportunity.

Harvey notoriously has trouble with the Marlins and after the fifth inning, it was clear he had to work harder to get through the lineup.

The Mets could still, theoretically, be trying to stretch him out since the season is still young, but these games where Harvey is pitching and the Mets are up by a ton may not happen too frequently. Perhaps the team should be advantageous in such situations going forward.

4. Injuries In General

Some of these guys aren’t coming back until next year, as in Zack Wheeler and Josh Edgin, but the Mets are fortunate to have kept the train rolling after losing those two players to start the year and suffering the loss of David Wright, Travis d’Arnaud and Jerry Blevins temporarily since. If the team can even maintain a .500 average from here until Wright returns, that’ll be incredible. A healthy return of the Captain will be an enormous boost for this team. Right now, Lucas Duda has essentially been carrying this offense along with d’Arnaud, a solid return for Wright will help keep the run mill churning with Michael Cuddyer continuing to heat up.

Lets! Go! Mets!