Seeds Of Hope On The Horizon For Mets

It is natural to be a pessimist when it comes to the New York Mets. Being negative and looking at things with a glass half empty approach comes with the territory.

Therefore, you can hardly be blamed if you are feeling a certain level of frustration with how things have panned out for the Mets recently. After what was a long but productive West Coast trip, they dropped their final two games to the Giants before starting out the homestand with back-to-back losses to the lowly Washington Nationals.

It is the nature of those last two defeats that have been concerning, for sure. The offense has stalled and is flashing alarming signs of the same fatal flaws that proved to be the Mets’ undoing in 2022. Then there is the pitching. Battered and depleted, the starting rotation is sinking faster than the Titanic and the entire staff is one big hot mess right now.

Nothing is going right and injuries have really hurt this team in the early going, particularly when it comes to the rotation.

You’d be right to say typical Mets too. After going an impressive 7-3 on the California road trip, the visit of the Nationals to Citi Field presented the ideal opportunity to fatten up the record ready for a mouthwatering showdown against the Atlanta Braves.

Instead, the Mets have dropped two straight to what was a 7-14 team, the bats have completely disappeared and the pitching continues to provide daily scares.

With high expectations comes the risk of crushing disappointment, and some Mets fans are already starting to fear the worst possible outcome.

It’s what we do.

However, it isn’t time to panic yet.

Not The End Of The World Yet

There’s a handful of reasons to be positive and there’s more than a few signs as to why things could and probably will get back on track for this team very quickly.

For starters, and the most obvious reason, it is only April and there’s a lot of baseball to be played. Every team, even the best of the best, will hit road bumps along the way and it is probably for the best that the Mets are getting a lot of their adversity out of the way early. After all, you’d much rather encounter these kinds of setbacks now as opposed to in August and September.

Secondly, a lot of the current problems ravaging the Mets are fixable. The offense, like form, comes and goes and, while the current struggles are far from ideal, the track record and recent history suggests that the bats will get going again sooner rather than later. The likes of Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Starling Marte are too good to be mired in slumps for a substantial amount of time.

Plus, with the more reps they get at the Major League level, the more comfortable Francisco Álvarez and Brett Baty will become in their current environment and the more they will start to produce. Every prospect develops at their own pace and both players have the raw skills and the power needed to be successful offensively in the bigs. It shouldn’t be long before Álvarez and Baty both become big time contributors for the Mets. As long as they are given ample opportunities, of course.

And, with Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio raking in the minors, the front office still boast one or two wildcards that they can call upon in order to inject a spark into this lineup. Once the first offensive explosion happens, bats will be gripped less tightly, everyone will start to play with a little bit more freedom and the runs and results will follow.

Again, offensive ruts happen and, like most other teams, the Mets will find a way through it and this offense should then deliver as it is supposed to. If not, there’s enough prospect capital at their disposal for the front office to go out and make a move-the-needle type trade down the road.

When it comes to the pitching, there is no covering up the cracks. It hasn’t been good and Max Scherzer was largely underwhelming before being handed a 10-game suspension by MLB for having a foreign substance on his hand during a game. There were sizeable concerns over the starting rotation before the season even started, and we’d all be lying if we said there wasn’t.

There were question marks over Kodai Senga and, while the stuff is there and the filthy “ghost forkball” has largely come as advertised, command has been an issue and there was always going to be an adjustment period. Senga is trying to adapt to a new country, a new team, a new league, a new way of doing things and he needs to be given the time to adapt and settle in.

What hasn’t helped Senga’s case is that Justin Verlander and José Quintana went on the shelf before Opening Day, and Carlos Carrasco was also recently placed on the 15-day IL. As a result, Senga’s margin for error was wiped out and an already thin starting staff was stretched to breaking point overnight. There was an argument to be made that the Mets needed another middle-of-the-rotation starter, and that could be high on general manager Billy Eppler’s list of priorities the closer we edge to the Trade Deadline.

However, help is on the way. Verlander is scheduled to make a rehab start for Double-A Binghamton on Friday and, provided there are no setbacks, the three-time Cy Young winner will make his Mets debut against the Tigers in Detroit next week. Quintana is also making progress and the Mets are hopeful he will be cleared to start throwing. Carrasco threw a bullpen session on Thursday and felt good after throwing.

If the rotation can get healthy, and then stay healthy, and if Scherzer can use his suspension to his advantage by coming back as the Max Scherzer we all know and not the one we’ve seen so far in 2023, then hopefully he and Verlander can deliver and lead the way. The starting pitching for the Mets in 2023 will live or die based on how their two aces perform.

Granted, it feels like the end of the world right now because it has been so long since the Mets dropped four in a row. It hasn’t helped that the overall product has been tough to watch at times, and there hasn’t been too much to really get behind and get excited about.

If we were having this discussion in September, there would be real cause for concern. Of course, a lack of power in the lineup was a major issue in 2022 and it was never addressed. Eppler can’t whiff on adding a big bat again. He may also need to trade for another starter depending on what happens over the coming weeks. But, with all that being said, we’re still in April and there’s enough there to suggest that this team as it is currently constituted will get going sooner rather than later.

Or maybe I’ve drank too much Kool-Aid and need to empty my glass a little bit. Only time will tell.