SAN DIEGO — It’s an age-old adage in baseball: One can never have enough pitching. In the midst of a do-or-die stretch of the season, the Mets are about to find out if they have enough pitching to get them to the playoffs.
After walking it off over the Baltimore Orioles twice last week at home, the Mets will now try to knock off the top two NL Wild Card teams on the road, the San Diego Padres and the Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s a tall task. The Padres have gone 22-6 since the All-Star break. Arizona and San Diego have led the NL in OPS over the last month.
The Mets enter the series 1.5 games out of the third NL Wild Card spot and the Atlanta Braves, who hold the spot the Amazins’ are after, are banged up and vulnerable. But the Mets’ pitching staff has also proven to be vulnerable since the All-Star break. At this point in the season, it’s fair to ask if some of their arms are running out of gas.
“You’re always concerned about whether you have enough depth and starting pitching,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said last week. “I will say, I think our medical staff and our strength and conditioning staff have done a really good job with all these guys. They are monitored regularly, and we haven’t seen anything of concern at this point. Doesn’t mean something won’t pop up, but I think we’re in a pretty good spot at this moment.”
Stearns is going to back the roster he put together. However, the head of baseball ops has not shied away from saying he expects more of his team at certain points of the season, while still giving them a vote of confidence. It’s accountability with gentle, public encouragement.
They need all of the encouragement they can get right now.
The Mets will pitch right-handers Luis Severino and Paul Blackburn in the first two games, and left-handers David Peterson and Jose Quintana in the second two. They’ll face Dylan Cease, Joe Musgrove, Michael King and left-hander Martin Perez.
Severino is coming off of his best start of the season, a complete-game shutout over the Miami Marlins at Citi Field last weekend. But in the four games that preceded that start, the Mets went 1-3 and he went 0-3 with an 8.00 ERA in only 18 innings.
Blackburn, who was traded by the Oakland A’s on deadline day, was good for the Mets in his first two starts before tossing a dud against his former team last week. Peterson will always allow baserunners, but he usually gets himself out of trouble, Now healthy, he may quietly be emerging as a somewhat reliable innings-eater, having gone six or more innings in three of his last five starts by being able to keep the ball on the ground.
“He’s walking guys, and his strikeouts are OK, but I think it’s the ground balls,” pitching coach Jeremy Hefner recently told the Daily News. “He’s getting strike one [on the first pitch] for the most part, so I think that’s helping him have the success he’s having. And he’s able to reach back for 96 when he wants. He’s not trying to pitch at 96 every single pitch, but he’s got stuff in the tank when he needs it.”
Quintana is the wild card. The 35-year-old veteran was practically the model of consistency before this season. He isn’t a hard thrower, so he relies on mixing speeds and working the corners. But over his last four starts, he’s left balls up in the zone and walked too many hitters. Quintana isn’t getting the soft contact his stuff typically induces.
The Mets say he isn’t showing any signs of fatigue based on their strength tests and Quintana himself is frustrated with his results considering how good he says his body feels.
There is little choice but to roll with Quintana. Moving right-hander Jose Butto back to the rotation would be ideal, but the bullpen is too shaky without him, even with the addition of Dedniel Nuñez, who is set to rejoin the team this weekend. Rosters don’t expand like they used to so the Mets can’t rely on young relievers to eat innings.
Christian Scott is still injured. They won’t find anyone off the waiver wire who can make a difference. Tylor Megill has not proven to be reliable enough to use during a playoff push and the Mets have shown no desire to bring him up from Triple-A.
The bullpen badly needs the starters to give them some length. Someone other than Edwin Diaz has to step up.
If the Mets have enough pitching, they’ll come out of these next two series in position to continue their quest for a playoff spot. If not, they may be in for anticlimactic September.
