The New York Mets‘ starting-pitching experiment has started to go sideways.
A catalyst of New York’s 45-24 start, its starting staff, and especially its ability to go deep into games, has become a huge liability over its dumbfounding slide, which reached seven straight games after its 7-6 walk-off loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday.
The Mets are 18-31 in their past 49 games — which constitutes more than 30 percent of the season. Their 5.5-game deficit behind the first-place Philadelphia Phillies is the biggest deficit in the National League East standings this season — and marks a six-game loss in the standings over the past nine days.
Why Are The Mets’ Starting Pitchers Struggling?
The Mets loaded up their bullpen at the trade deadline by adding Tyler Rogers and Ryan Helsley but did nothing to address their starting staff, which is on a two-month swoon.
With Sean Manaea’s four-inning, six-hit, four-run no-decision Sunday, the Mets continued their dubious trend of short outings — outside of David Peterson’s exceptional year.
Outside of Peterson, the Mets do not have a quality start since June 7 — more than two months ago — and they rank 27th in MLB in starters’ innings pitched (587 1/3) and 24th in batters faced (2,514).
“We got to get our starters going,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Sunday. “We got to go out and do it. We’re going to keep saying it, but the bottom line is: We got to go out and do it.”
It isn’t as if the Mets starters have been bad, since they rank fifth in ERA (3.65), tied for 10th in FIP (4.01) with the Seattle Mariners and tied for 11th in starting-pitching wins (39).
But their inability to go deep has taxed a fragile bullpen, which ranks third in the MLB in innings pitched (458 2/3) — trailing only the injury-plagued Los Angeles Dodgers and the pitching-starved Chicago White Sox.
Some of the club’s bullpen struggles can be traced to bad luck — they have a .304 batting average on balls put in play and the discrepancy between expected FIP (3.96) and actual FIP (4.17).
Still, no team has more bullpen losses than the Mets (7) over the past three weeks — including two walk-off losses, like Sunday, and a home extra-inning defeat against Cleveland last week.
“I know it’s tough right now,” Mendoza said. “It’s very frustrating. We’re all very frustrated, but you got to keep going. We got to keep going. Nobody said it was going to be easy.”
What Can The Mets Do To Fix Their Starting Pitching?
The trade deadline has come and gone, and the post-Aug. 1 waiver claim era is over, so the only pitching reinforcements can come from within the organization — unless the Mets decide to take on a project if a rival club decides to cut bait with a struggling, highly paid starter (like if the Miami Marlins designating Sandy Alcantara for assignment for some reason).
But as president of baseball operations David Stearns intimated earlier this month, the Mets are likely to call up a pitching prospect, like Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat or Jonah Tong in September — assuming the club can wait that long.
“I don’t think we’d close the door on anything right now,â Stearns said Friday, per MLB.com. âEspecially as we get into the second half of the month, into September, where you have a little more roster flexibility, you have the extra pitcher, I think it opens up a variety of different possibilities.
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