Addressing the media before Monday nights game, Sandy Alderson once again discussed the status of his young pitching staff. He focused on their use in September and the way the team can monitor their innings, pitch counts and health as the season winds down.
Alderson had this to say about the situation:
“We’ve got a lot of young pitchers, we’ve tried to be as competitive as we possibly can, so sometimes the tendency is to go with a couple of additional pitches on the part of a starter or another day out of the pen for a reliever, but all in all, I think he and Dan have done very good job monitoring the workload” (Daily News).
The two pitchers that seem to be the focus of these discussions are Zack Wheeler and Jacob deGrom. Both are very young, very talented and figure to be a big part of the teams future success. Both have now pitched more innings than at any time in their major or minor league careers.
What’s balancing out the pitch counts and innings limits is Terry Collins and Dan Warthen‘s hope that the young arms learn to battle through adversity and get through games when fatigue is setting in. “I think getting somebody through the seventh inning so they know they can do it can be a very positive thing” Alderson said, “but we have to be mindful of the number of pitches.”
Alderson concluded that the most important thing is finishing the season as healthy as the team is right now. This can not be stressed enough. The Mets need their entire rotation heading into next year and that includes deGrom and Wheeler. Rafael Montero will make the start on Wednesday, adding a sixth starter to the rotation for at least one go-around.
