As is customary, Eric McErlain joins to discuss the Washington Nationals and New York Mets. He has brought Off Wing Opinion on Substack.
The Mets took game 1, 9-7 by getting the Manfred Man err men, across the plate 6 times in the 10th while the Nats only got 4.
WFY: It looked like it was shaping up to be another forgettable season in Flushing. The New York Mets swept the Washington Nationals in early June. The real fun started more recently after core McDonaldland character Grimace threw out the first pitch on June 12. The Amazins won seven in a row and passed the Nats into third place. How much are you enjoying being a Mets fan during this stretch? Whether they stay hot or it’s just an interlude, it strikes me as one of the great things about a 162 game season – whimsical moments that sometimes happen in lost seasons or become part of something special.
EMc: In the month of May, the Mets went 9-19, which was almost as bad as the June 2023 mark of 7-19 that completely sunk last season. So, in contrast to just a month ago, this has been a lot of fun. It’s clear the players are enjoying it, so is the broadcast team — Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling are sullen but brutally factual when the Mets are losing — and so are the fans. After 81 games the Mets are 40-41, on pace to finish just under .500 if you take the entire season into account. But if you only take the recent streak of 16-8 in June into account, the Mets are on pace to finish 94-68 and more than likely in a Wild Card spot. At the start of the season, I projected the team at 84 wins, which still seems likely.
The fatalistic among Mets fans — and we are legion — would say that they’ve pulled us back in again only to dash our hopes once more. Then again, there are reasons to believe, both on the field and in the front office, that the current pace of play can be sustained through the remainder of the season.
WFY: Last year’s Mets flopped and had a fire sale that saw 40% of their rotation pick up World Series rings with the Texas Rangers. After practically begging for the job, Buck Showalter was out after two seasons. Is this the final confirmation that Bucko was the most overrated manager of the last 40 years?
EMc: I know you hate “Bucko,” but I’m at a loss to see how he could have turned around a season where everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. If the Mets had hired someone else to be President of Baseball Operations other than hometown kid David Stearns, there was probably a chance that Showalter might have returned to complete the final year of his contract and perhaps earn another one. While Mets owner Steve Cohen is the richest in MLB, even he admits he doesn’t like wasting money, and like Ted Leonsis, he’s not a fan of paying players not to play and managers not to manager. Stearns wanted his own hire, so Showalter was unceremoniously dumped with one game left in the season. Stearns went after Craig Counsell, his manager when he ran the show in Milwaukee, but the Chicago Cubs seemingly emptied the vault at the Mercantile Exchange and made Counsell the highest paid manager in baseball. Over in the Bronx, Carlos Mendoza came highly recommended and at a much more reasonable price.
WFY: Halfway through his first season, how is Carlos Mendoza doing as the new skipper?
EMc: After a disastrous month of May, Mendoza has the Mets just under .500 before first pitch with the Nats on Monday night. Could they be better? Of course, but you need to remember that the presumed #1 starter, Kodai Senga, has yet to throw a pitch this season as he’s sidelined by injury. Closer Edwin Diaz, who lost all of 2023 to a freak injury, lost significant velocity when he came back this season, and once he started to regain it, all of a sudden he was dinged for “sticky stuff.” The Mets have had to muddle through in his absence and haven’t been entirely successful. Relievers Sean Reid-Foley, Drew Smith and Brooks Raley are all on the IL, and set up man Adam Ottavino has been a hot mess. If they don’t sort things out with Diaz and the rest of the bullpen in the late innings, this team isn’t making the playoffs.
Catcher Francisco Alvarez tore a ligament in his left thumb. Losing his bat early in the season was huge, especially considering that free agent DH J.D. Martinez signed late and had trouble getting his bat going. But as it turned out, the pitching staff missed him the most, especially as a game caller and pitch framer. And then on Monday morning, Nimmo fainted in his hotel bathroom and hit his head on the way down, missing last night’s game.
So yeah, things could be better. But they could be a lot worse, and you have to credit Mendoza for keeping the clubhouse together, especially when things looked darkest in May.
WFY: Aside from contributions from fast food monsters, what’s powering the Mets run?
A. The offense turned around. All of the big bats started slow, especially the big three of Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso. Give credit to Mendoza for juggling the lineup. He put Lindor at leadoff spot and Nimmo in second spot and everything started to click, in part because Martinez got going. He’s a professional hitter, and exactly what the team has been lacking in the DH spot since the NL adopted the position permanently. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Harrison Bader, who the Mets acquired to shore up their outfield defense. He’s the best centerfielder the Mets have had since gold glover Juan Lagares, and he’s provided a lot of timely hitting toward the back of the lineup. During May, when the team was taking a dive, it looked like he was showcasing himself for a deadline trade. Now he looks like a keeper.
Moreover, the front office wasn’t afraid to make changes and hold players accountable for their performance, something that rarely happened when the Wilpon family was in charge. Brett Baty won the 3rd base job in Spring Training over Mark Vientos, but Baty’s bat deserted him early in the season. He was sent down and Vientos, who thought he’d earned a spot on the roster either at 3B or DH before the Mets signed Martinez, was brought back up to the big club. He’s been a monster since his return, hitting near .300, delivering extra base power and making tough plays at 3B. At the start of the season, I said there was no help in the minors, but Vientos proved me wrong.
The Mets signed utility infielders Joey Wendle and Zack Short in the offseason, but neither survived the month of May after failing to hit the ball and making unforgivable errors in the field — especially with Wendle who famously threw to first on a play when he could have easily gunned down a runner at home. Enter Jose Iglesias, who the Mets had stashed at AAA Syracuse. He’s hitting .425, has spelled Jeff McNeil at 2B, Lindor at SS late in games, an has made everyone forget Wendle and Short. McNeil, who won a batting title two seasons ago, has started to sit when the Mets face left-handers. When Alvarez was hurt, the Mets had to turn to the platoon of Omar Narvaez and Tomas Nido. Neither of them could hit, they famously couldn’t throw out runners and the pitching suffered. Narvaez was released and the Mets made a trade with the Yankees for Luis Torrens, who stabilized the game calling and has hit .385. When Alvarez returned, Nido, a Met his whole career, was released. Most infamously on May 29th, reliever Jorge Lopez was ejected from a game against the Dodgers, prompting a personally troubled Lopez to launch his glove into the stands in frustration. He wasn’t a Met for much longer.
Those sorts of moves don’t happen unless the manager and the front office are in sync and the owner is willing to spend some money to address a need in the midst of the season. If that’s not the case, I don’t think they climb back into the race.
WFY: Edwin Diaz is the latest Met to get ejected for sticky stuff – why does this keep happening?
EMc: Seven pitchers in MLB have been suspended for “sticky stuff” and three of them have been Mets: Diaz, Max Scherzer and Drew Smith. I’m at a loss as to why. Perhaps we ought to be asking Pitching Coach Jeremy Hefner?
I don’t think there’s a conspiracy here. The only place to be suspicious like that has to do with replay. In 2022, the Mets were incredibly successful in challenging calls under replay analyst Harrison Friedland. In 2023, the ratio reversed and hard. I don’t think it was a coincidence. I guess the umps don’t like getting shown up.
WFY: Is the Pete Alonzo story coming to an end in Queens?
EMc: At the end of May, I would have said definitely. If the losses had continued to pile up, we’d all be waiting for the trade deadline and the end of the Alonso era. But now, with the team reviving its fortunes, he’ll be here for the balance of the season barring any major disaster. Of course, his agent, Scott Boras, has already said Alonso will test free agency to see what his value is, and you can’t blame him. Alonso didn’t come up as a major leaguer until he was 24, and this is his only chance to get a huge contract given his age. That’s a big deal because he’s been seriously underpaid from the second he put on a Mets uniform. If the Mets catch fire and go on a postseason run, Stearns will feel the pressure to retain Alonso. But if they fall short of a Wild Card, Alonso is as good as gone, as I don’t see a Boras client agreeing to a hometown discount.
WFY: At two games back of the Wild Card, can you see the Mets swinging any trades to try and get in?
EMc: To stay in the race the Mets will need pitching. Senga still isn’t healthy and only Luis Severino and Sean Manaea have been consistently reliable. It’s been reported that the Mets are in the running to acquire White Sox starter Garrett Crochet, and they could certainly use him. After last season’s trade deadline selloff, the farm system has a lot of attractive prospects they could deal away that don’t necessarily have a direct glide path into the starting lineup. The bullpen needs help too with all the injuries and the uncertainty with Diaz and Ottavino.
WFY: How have the Mets celebrated the late Willie Mays? They only retired his #24 recently — it always seemed like there was some awkwardness given his short tenure with the franchise.
EMc: Perhaps it looks that was from the outside looking in, but Mays became a baseball folk hero playing for the New York Giants. The Mets traded for him in 1972 at the behest of owner Joan Payson. She was one of only two part owners of the Giants who voted against moving the team to San Francisco, and she loved Willie. Part of the deal was guaranteeing Mays a lifetime coaching position with the Mets after he retired, so Willie was on board with returning to New York (that coaching position was terminated thanks to a short-sighted decision by former MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn in 1979, when he banned Mays from MLB when he agreed to become a greeter for Ballys Casino in Atlantic City. Four years later, Kuhn did the same to Mickey Mantle.) Willie’s last season in MLB was 1973 when the Mets nearly pulled off a second miracle after winning the NL pennant and taking the Oakland A’s to seven games in the World Series. Willie’s last hit was a single in Game Two of the series that drove in the winning run. His son, Michael, was back in Queens last weekend for the Mets to honor his father’s memory along with a group of his former Mets teammates. Michael spoke to SNY host Steve Gelbs during the game, and he seemed grateful that the team took the time to remember him.
Willie belongs to New York, and the Mets are the guardians of New York’s history in the National League. Some of the fans who remember Mays in a Giants uniform are still with us, and the retirement of #24 is as much for them as it was for Mays. I’m just glad they did it while Mays was still alive.
WFY: Speaking of retired numbers, have the Mets gone overboard with all the recent retirements? Do Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry all deserve this or are the Mets just mining 1986 nostalgia? Should Gary Carter get his number retired too?
EMc: Cohen said when he bought the team that it needed to reconnect with its former stars. 1986 was the last championship and some of those guys are getting older. My wife and I were at the ceremony for Gooden and it was great to see him back, especially when he let us all know how he tried so many times to return to Queens only to be rebuffed by the previous ownership. As for Carter, if you ask Gooden, Strawberry or Hernandez, they’ll all tell you that he was the final piece in the team’s championship puzzle. While he wasn’t the MVP of the World Series in 1986, he did lead the team in RBI with nine and hit a pair of critical home runs. While his number isn’t retired, like many others, it hasn’t been re-issued to any new players. I’m sure the Carter family would approve and so would most Mets fans.
WFY: What’s your take on the Mets City Connect uniforms?
EMc: I think they look great. I wish they could find a way to win more often when they wear them.
WFY: How does this series go and who gets 3rd place in the division?
EMc: The Mets have some pitching rotation issues, and we don’t know who is starting the games on July 3rd and 4th. I think the Nats get a measure of revenge and take 3 out of 4 this week. As for 3rd place, things can change so much in just a few weeks. If the Mets buy at the deadline, I have them in the Wild Card. If not, take the Nats.
