The New York Mets certainly didn’t expect to see two of their best hitters struggling so mightily after almost a month of regular-season play.
What’s even more surprising is that this team, seemingly in spite of the underperformances of some of their biggest cheeses, are still 14-6 and in first-place in the NL East.
Yoenis Cespedes, for all of his heroics and clutch-hitting so far, holds just a .195/.258/.354 slash-line in 82 at-bats. His 37 strikeouts lead the league by a fairly wide margin (six more than Paul DeJong of the Cardinals, 31).
Things haven’t gone any better for Jay Bruce, who the Mets signed to a three-year, $39 million deal in the offseason. Through 67 at-bats, Bruce, 31, is hitting .194/.280/.328 with one home run and only eight runs batted in. Even Bruce in right field for the Mets has become a bit of a liability.
In an embarrassing turn of events on Saturday night, at a time when even if he wasn’t dealing with plantar fasciitis he should have been out of the game for a defensive replacement, Bruce couldn’t get to a hard grounder that got past Asdrubal Cabrera at second base and eventually rolled to the wall, leading to a Braves walk-off drag bunt later in the inning.
As has been outlined many times by many fans over the last few days, Juan Lagares has to be subbed in at that point in the game. We can only speculate as to why Bruce remained in the game, but that’s neither here nor there at this point. Onward and upward.
The outstanding play of Asdrubal Cabrera, Todd Frazier and the Mets’ talented sophomore shortstop, Amed Rosario, along with some extremely clutch hitting when the team has fallen behind in games (.262/.336/.421 in 202 at-bats when the team is behind in games, with seven home runs, 29 RBI, and 11 doubles), has kept this team afloat after heart-wrenching losses like Saturday’s to Atlanta and last week against the Nationals.
The team’s eight come-from-behind wins are the most in the majors and the Mets pitching staff (3.76 earned-run average combined) ranks sixth in all of MLB. While the big dogs are still sleeping, it’s up to the other 20-something players in the clubhouse to pick up the proverbial slack, which is what those aforementioned statistics imply is happening.
Clearly, even with the uncharacteristically slow starts that Cespedes and Bruce have endured, this team is finding ways to win games and performing well beyond the realms that most had expected them to.
If this tough-as-nails group can keep the ship moving along at a steady pace until the guys who are paid to lead this team start doing so, the New York Mets will be just fine.
The underlying theme here is that, for the Mets, despite the slumps and the recent bullpen struggles and Matt Harvey‘s nightmare April, things are still most certainly looking up. There’s no reason to lose our collective minds with every single ebb-and-fl0w of a long MLB season.
The guys who are doing well now will slow down eventually, and the guys who are stinking up the joint now will come out smelling like roses in due time.
And Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and the newest Orange & Blue-clad superhero to the bunch, Robert Gsellman will, hopefully, continue to be rock-solid, becoming the anchors of this steady-paced oceanliner that’s been launched in Queens.
