3 Up 3 Down: Impressive Series For Mets Over Cubs

The Mets put in a dud of a performance Thursday, mustering two hits–none in the final seven innings–against the Cubs.

But that performance is easier to swallow when you win the first three games of the series behind great starts from David Peterson, Taijuan Walker and Jacob deGrom, who had to leave his start yet again with an injury worry. (More on that in a moment.) Marcus Stroman pitched wonderfully, too, with nearly an identical stat line to Walker, but did so on the night the Mets’ offense faltered.

Still, three of four from the Cubs is a major plus, so let’s get into the ups and downs of the series.

3 Up

Performing Against Good Teams

The Mets started a recent stretch against the Padres and Cubs just 2-10 against teams over .500. The Mets went 7-4 against those two teams over the last two weeks, bringing that plus-.500 record up to 9-14–a little more respectable among the teams leading their division. (MLB.com reports the Mets as 15-17 total against teams at or above .500 because of their 6-3 records against the Phillies this year.)

The injury-depleted Mets were winning against teams who likely will end up missing the playoffs. As the Mets are still hammered by injuries to key guys, the team is winning against teams who may end up winning their respective divisions.

They only play six games against teams over .500 (at the time of publishing) over the next four weeks until the All-Star break. (This could change if the Braves or Phillies get hot.) Nevertheless, it’ll be a critical four weeks as they’re playing 16 straight against the NL East followed by the Yankees and Brewers. Their record and competitiveness on the other side of this stretch, where they’ll be largely healthy by the end of it, could indicate their true potential for the playoffs this season.

Dom Smith is Heating Up Again

After having a nice week-long stretch in late May and early June that saw Dominic Smith hit a couple of doubles and homers–his first sustained power output of the season–Smith was 0-for-his-last-20 entering the Cubs series.

He came out on the other side of the four games hitting 4-for-11 with two home runs, a double and three walks. His OPS jumped over 50 points, and he’s once again knocking on the door of a .700 OPS–a benchmark that once he crosses it, you hope it’s the new low for Smith. Dom thankfully hasn’t fallen to injury over the last two months, but with the rest of the team getting healthy, specifically other outfielders, Smith will have to produce to stay in the lineup–not just be a healthy body.

Is Trevor May Righting The Ship?

Trevor May has really struggled the last couple weeks. He chalked it up when the the streak started to batters getting used to his stuff. It happens once a year, he says, that hitters catch on, and he needs to make some adjustments. (Between May 17 and June 14, May allowed five home runs and eight runs in 7.2 innings.)

It took a couple weeks, but it seems the adjustments were made.

May pitched three times in the series versus the Cubs. The first went poorly, the next two were wonderful. They’re his best two outings in nearly a month.

Over his last two innings, he got 10 whiffs over 18 swings (including seven of seven in his Wednesday outing). He had four strikeouts in this two innings, and he didn’t allow a base runner in consecutive outing for the first time April 27 and 28 versus the Red Sox.

Getting May back to form along with the addition of Seth Lugo could cement the bullpen as the best in baseball.

3 Down

Figuring Out What’s Wrong With Jacob DeGrom

Jacob deGrom left his start Wednesday with shoulder soreness. It’s the third time he’s left a start this year for the third different reason (his lat muscle and elbow the culprits the other time).

This all begs one of many questions: what the hell is wrong with deGrom? What is so different from previous years?

Are these injuries just classic wear and tear from pitching catching up to him? DeGrom is sure mechanically nothing was wrong his last start when he struck out eight of the only nine Cubs he faced. He knows there were slight mechanical fallacies that caused his previous inflammations, and he said he wasn’t overcompensating from those injuries during his latest start to cause this one.

His wildly consistent release points across all of his starts leads you to believe that there really isn’t anything mechanically wrong, so is this from throwing faster, and doing so more often, than any pitcher in baseball? Can this really happen from throwing fastballs at an average of nearly 100 miles per hour 70 percent of the time he throws a pitch, even as mechanically sound as deGrom is?

Then there’s the latest revelation that one of his recent issues stemmed from hitting. So do you ask deGrom, who currently has MORE RBI THAN EARNED RUNS ALLOWED, to stop swinging? Just bite the bullet for an at-bat or two a game? That’s certainly not in his DNA, but it’s something you might want him to do.

No one is more annoyed about this than deGrom himself. He said as much in the press conference following Wednesday’s start. Yet here I am in a McDonald’s parking lot finishing this article typing away about how annoyed EYE (spelled phoenatically for emphasis) am about this, as I’m sure the rest of the people reading this are.

Ultimately, you just want deGrom to be healthy the remainder of the season. Is taking a month off what does that? Is dialing back the fastball a mile or two per hour what does that? Is that even possible give the fluidity of deGrom’s delivery?

There are a billion more questions to ask, and they’ll hopefully be answered by the best medical experts inside and outside of the organization.

David Peterson Discourse

I’m cheating, as “people aren’t talking down on David Peterson as much after his start this series” is really an up, but it was pleasant to see the “David Peterson can’t pitch in the majors right now” discourse die down for a couple days.

Peterson blanked the Cubs Monday over six innings, a wonderful bounce back from his two worst starts of the year where he allowed nine runs over three innings total. Peterson has been hot-and-cold for his entire 25-plus start tenure in the majors so far, with just about evenly split good and poor starts.

This is probably the kind of pitcher Peterson will be as he learns the craft at the major-league level, and the hope is he starts to trend more toward having consistently positive starts. But should that not happen, Peterson has been a perfectly viable end-of-the-rotation starter for this team and will continue to be if he drops gems like Monday’s every other start or two.

End of the ReplaceMets?

The Mets could have a lineup in the next series or two that has: Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Kevin Pillar and James McCann. That’s two-thirds of the team’s Opening Day lineup. (Then there’s Dom Smith, too, of course.)

That lineup will probably be the healthiest the team has been in six or seven weeks.

The ReplaceMets, featuring the likes of José Peraza, Billy McKinney, Mason Williams, the Triple-A call ups (like Johneshwy Fargas and Khalil Lee), Brandon Drury and plenty others, may return largely to their bench roles. And with all due respect to them, I’m hoping it’s on a permanent basis, where members of the group get spot starts to relieve the primary starters.

Should the Mets have any success come the postseason, the ReplaceMets will be a massive reason they got there in the first place. They’ve gone 26-15 since May 1 (right around when Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Davis got hurt and triggered a litany of injuries) and bolstered a lead in the NL East. Wildly impressive, and the ReplaceMets are to thank.