Subway Series Do-Or-Die For Mets' Big Guns
Time for the stars to start playing to the back of their baseball cards...
It isn’t about bragging rights for the New York Mets anymore. It is about mere survival.
And, for their collection of incredibly well-paid veterans and high-profile stars, it is about showing they are up for the fight. It is about forgetting the recent past and instead elevating their games to the level that is required.
It is about getting back to playing to the back of their baseball cards.
And it has to start in the Subway Series.
The Mets and the Yankees open up the second Subway Series of the season on Tuesday. We will arguably have a much better idea of where the Mets stand prior to the Trade Deadline once the two-game set is done with on Wednesday night.
Of course, with just a 16.2% percent chance of making the postseason at the time of writing this, per FanGraphs, coupled with the fact that there is an insane logjam of teams in-front of them for the final wild card spot in the NL, anyone with half a brain would be able to tell you that the Mets are all but cooked.
They’ve been an inconsistent hot mess of a team for the entire first-half of the 2023 season, and they have hardly displayed any kind of fighting spirit having gone 4-5 since the All-Star break.
As the great Yogi Berra once said - it feels apt to quote the legendary Hall of Famer this week - it is getting late early and time is rapidly running out for the Mets to get their house in order. Their margin for error is razor thin and, with a 99 game sample size on which to go by, they have shown very few signs of being capable of playing at the kind of insane clip they’ll have to play at in order to snatch a wild card spot.
At the end of the day, you are what your record says you are (to quote another New York sporting God in Bill Parcells), and the Mets are a fundamentally flawed baseball team that don’t belong in the Playoffs.
However, there’s still a chance and as long as there’s hope then this team need to keep fighting until the very bitter end. That’s exactly what the front office are doing. According to multiple reports, including from Andy Martino of SNY, Owner Steve Cohen and GM Billy Eppler are refusing to pull the trigger on becoming sellers. They want to play the waiting game for as long as possible before declaring themselves open for business. Depending on what happens over the next couple of nights, that decision could come as soon as Thursday in which case the likes of Mark Canha, David Robertson, and Tommy Pham may just be preparing for their final games as member of the Mets. Maybe count José Quintana and Brooks Raley as part of that equation too.
For that particular can to be pushed even further down the road, however, the Mets are going to need their most accomplished stars to step up to the plate and really, really deliver in the clutch. And it has to start on Tuesday night in the Bronx.
It all starts with Justin Verlander. The sure-fire future Hall of Famer has been as much to blame as anyone else for all of the Mets’ troubles this year, with the starting pitching, outside of Kodai Senga, largely sucking for the most part. Verlander, after signing a big-ticket, two-year, $86 million contract during the offseason, has failed to meet his own lofty standards thus far in his debut season in Queens. Inconsistency has been the biggest factor, while the 40-year-old has already allowed nearly as many walks as he did during the entire 2022 season. His strikeout percentage has also dropped at an alarming rate, from 27.8% in 2022 with the Astros to just 20.6% this season.
There has been some light at the end of the tunnel for Verlander, recently, though. He boasts a stellar 1.74 ERA through his last five starts, looking more like the vintage Verlander we have all become accustomed to. That culminated in a gem of a start in his last outing against the White Sox last week, where he allowed just one earned run on three hits while walking one and striking out seven in eight productive innings of work. If Verlander can bring similar heat to the Yankees on Tuesday, it would give the Mets more than a fighting chance to get a crucial week off to a winning start. It could also drive up Verlander’s own trade value.
With starting pitching at such a premium as we edge closer to the Trade Deadline, it is feasible that Verlander could be high on the shopping list of certain teams with a real need to bolster the top of their rotation. MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported over the weekend that the San Francisco Giants are among the teams currently assessing Verlander’s suitability as a potential Trade Deadline candidate. There would be a lot of obstacles to clear before getting to that stage, though, with Verlander required to waive his no-trade clause before the Mets can even begin to engage in talks with other teams. Given the fact the Mets would probably need to eat some salary, coupled with Verlander telling The Athletic recently that he remains committed to winning a championship in Queens, it remains unlikely that the veteran ace will be bolting out of town anytime soon.
But, hey, stranger things have happened I guess.
Even if Verlander delivers another masterpiece on Tuesday, followed by a solid outing from Quintana on Wednesday, that won’t be enough if the offense doesn’t start to figure it out. And, in that department, the buck lies with Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo.
McNeil, just a year removed from winning the Batting Title, has been an absolute disaster and has looked a depressing shadow of his former self in 2023. Lindor and Nimmo have arguably been the most dependable bats, but what has really hurt the Mets the most has been Alonso’s descent into mediocrity. Despite getting off to a hot start, the slugger has been mired in an all-time slump for quite some time, and he’s on pace to record career lows in a number of offensive categories.
After going a miserable 10-for-66 in June, Alonso followed that up with a meager 5-for-44 stretch in July, batting just .113. He’s also without a home run in his last 12 games. There is some room to be encouraged, however. The righty masher has begun to show signs of coming back to life, going 5-for-11 at the plate with two doubles and a triple in the series against the Red Sox over the weekend. Two of those extra-base hits nearly went for homers, and if Alonso can rediscover some power over the next two nights, then Yankee Stadium could prove to be the perfect launching-off point for both Alonso and the Mets to rescue their respective seasons.
Again, the whole reason why the Mets are in this mess to begin with is because their slew of big hitters have failed to deliver on a consistent basis. Nor have they shown any evidence of being able to put it all together and play to the back of their baseball cards anytime soon. If they can tick those boxes, then there is no doubt that this collection of players are more than capable of heating up, going on an absolute tear and propelling their team firmly back into the wild card picture.
That is a big if, granted, based on all the evidence we have in-front of us so far, but if it’s going to happen, then Tuesday and Wednesday night in the Bronx would be the perfect starting point. It won’t be easy given that the Yankees are also fighting for their lives. They too are on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoff picture, although they have better odds than the Mets. With superstar slugger Aaron Judge nearing a return and having swept the shockingly-bad Royals over the weekend, the Yanks are certainly playing with house money right now and a sweep in the Subway series would only embolden GM Brian Cashman to go out and bolster his roster at the Deadline.
For the Mets, currently seven games out of a wild card spot heading into Tuesday night, they are operating from the seat of their pants and the light at the end of the tunnel is now more like an oncoming train. In other words, the overall picture is bleak and it is getting near time to pay the piper in terms of committing to being sellers. These next two nights in the Bronx could persuade the front office to delay that decision a little longer, though, and it will be up to the so-called behemoths on this roster to lead the charge and play their part to ensure the Mets live to fight another day.
Because, if they don’t start going on a tear now, it will ultimately be too late when they do eventually figure it out. We’re officially in do-or-die territory. And that makes the final Subway Series of 2023 that little bit more interesting, at least.
