The New York Mets and their entire fan base let out a great, big sigh once news broke of Jacob deGrom‘s lack of structural damage in that exciting right arm of his.

We could only hope that the good news Thursday morning would give this team a spark and they’d be able to salvage the getaway-day, matinee finale of their three-game set with the now-first-place Atlanta Braves. That did not happen.

Jason Vargas got finely tuned up by the Braves’ scary-good lineup and was chased after 4.2 honestly ugly innings of work. Kurt Suzuki crushed an 82 mph changeup that was right in his wheelhouse for a two-run blast in the first to give Atlanta a 3-0 lead that took the wind out of the sails of a fairly hyped-up crowd and even more so out of an already out-of-place looking Jason Vargas.

That course of events that took place in the first inning, the subsequent beating that followed, as well as his just-as-bad debut performance, were all awfully revealing.

His last two outings are more than enough evidence to show that Vargas simply was not ready to jump right into the Mets’ rotation after one rehab start, as was noted by the SNY booth during the game.

Whether Mets’ skipper Mickey Callaway will let him work through this ineffective patch of his, or whether another minor-league start or two is the route the team chooses to take (seems unlikely, but if he’s still not 100% isn’t that what the minors are there for?), remains yet to be seen.

The Mets face an offensively-potent Rockies team this weekend with Zack Wheeler, Steven Matz, and Noah Syndergaard taking the hill in that order against German Marquez, Chad Bettis, and Kyle Freeland, respectively.

Bettis (3-1, 2.43 ERA, 1.05 WHIP), and to a lesser extent, Freeland (4.24 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 7.94 strikeouts per nine) are formidable but attackable foes. Marquez is a guy this team has to beat up on, plain and simple, especially after Thursday’s debacle.

Both Wheeler (2-1, 4.09 ERA, 1.32 WHIP) and Matz (1-2, 4.98 ERA, 1.29 WHIP) have been inconsistent and Syndergaard is coming off arguably his worst outing of the season. Allowing ten hits and three earned runs to the Braves while only striking out three was certainly not on Syndergaard’s to-do list going into his last outing.

The New York Mets would benefit greatly from a couple of quality starts out of Wheeler and Matz, and then a strong Sunday performance from Thor to close out what we hope, wish, pray, etc. is, at the very least, the rubber game of the series.

A series win over a talented Colorado team would go a long way in boosting the morale of this Mets team and its fans. And it would surely help put the last few disappointing and extremely stressful days behind them and continue looking forward to what is still a very bright future ahead for this team.

Thank goodness Jake is OK.