The Mets aren’t the only ones in the division talking about stacked rotations, October baseball and winning a championship. Last week, Bryce Harper of the Nationals did some touting of his own.
“It’s absolutely stupid how good our staff is. To add a Cy Young, to add a guy that’s unbelievable in the postseason… Where’s my ring? I’m going to bring back a title to D.C. no matter what. And I’m getting chills thinking about it.”
Harper’s boasts didn’t escape Mets right-hander Zack Wheeler, who says he and his teammates can’t wait to thwart the Nationals’ and Harper’s plans to win a World Series.
“I guarantee you we all saw what Bryce Harper said,’ ” Wheeler said with a smile. “We’re going to make it hard for him to get that ring, I’ll guarantee you that.”
Harper and the Nationals might chuckle at any notion that they’ve fueled the Mets’ aspirations for a breakthrough 2015 season, writes Andy Martino of the Daily News.
“After all, they’ve owned Terry Collins’ ballclub in recent seasons, especially last year when they won 15 of the 19 games the two teams played.”
Wheeler admits he loves the challenge of trying to outpitch the Nats and shut them up.
“I’ve thought about it,” he said. “It’s like, ‘they’ve got a good staff, but I wonder if we can go out there and sort of put them to shame. A bunch of young guys against the older guys; put ’em to shame, you know.”
“Obviously they’re a good team, but that’s baseball. We’ve got a good pitching staff, so do they. We’ve got good athletes, so do they. Who cares? Let’s go.”
With 23 of the first 26 games this season coming against the NL East, Sandy Alderson was asked how important it is for the Mets to get off to a strong start this season?
“We played very well against the NL East last year, with one obvious exception. When they signed Max Scherzer, my response was, how much worse can we be?”
“It’s extremely important to establish a fighting posture against these newly constructed teams, and I think the first impression is critical, as is the last impression. We hope it goes reasonably well. We started off well last year but things tailed off. The beginning of the season is important.”
While getting off to a strong start would be great, I’d say it’s more important to improve our performance against the Nationals.
The Nats have owned the Mets in recent years, compiling a 41-15 record against them over the last three seasons, and they beat the Mets in 15 of 19 contests in 2014, outscoring them 95 to 52.
If you take away those 19 games (4-15) against the Nationals last season, the Mets were a surprising 75-68 against everyone else – seven games over .500.
Solving and beating the Nats will go a long way in getting to the playoffs. I’m hoping Terry Collins knows this and goes into the season opening series in Washington with a killer instinct mentality.
