Palladino: Mets Need A Citi Field Reboot When They Meet Nationals
By Ernie Palladino
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If Terry Collins had his way, he would have gone into Tuesday's series opener against Washington in the same position the Mets held after their 4-3 win over the Dodgers on May 11.
They were in first place then. Not by a lot. A half game. But better to come home to face their major division rival like that than where they are now -- third place behind the Nats and Phillies, 1 1/2 games off the pace.
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No, it's not exactly the way Collins would have drawn it up. But despite the 4-7 mark on a road trip that ended Sunday with a 4-3 loss to the Rockies, and a fast fall from first, all is not as bleak as some in the media make it out to be.
For one thing, the Mets face the Nationals in six of the next nine games. That's called an opportunity. Two successful series would most likely push them back to the top and make the next stretch of the season a lot more enjoyable.
That's easy to say, however, and not so easy to execute, especially when Tuesday's game has Noah Syndergaard facing Max Scherzer. Everybody knows what Thor can do, but Scherzer is coming off a 20-strikeout game, a performance that put him with Roger Clemens, Kerry Wood, and Randy Johnson as the only pitchers to accomplish the feat.
It won't be a happy start if the Mets don't clean up a few issues, pronto. One of the biggest is David Wright, whose two hits Saturday broke an 0-for-16 slump, but did little to shine up the .148 (4-for-27) batting average he compiled during the trip.
He was out of the lineup Sunday. Collins inserted him as a pinch-hitter in the ninth, but his grounder with a man on produced the final out.
Wright's strikeouts are way up, having whiffed 13 times in his last 36 plate appearances, and Collins seriously has to think about dropping him in the order.
Curtis Granderson has stunk, hitting .154 on the trip and .120 with runners in scoring position on the season.
The bright spot is that the Mets' major stock in trade this year has been the home run. Scherzer has allowed 11 of those so far, the second most in all of baseball. But on the flip side, the Mets have hit only 16 of their second-best 53 home runs at Citi Field.
Since they have clearly grown adverse to manufacturing runs, as their nine in the Rockies' sweep shows, a little assault on the Flushing fences would come in handy right about now.
Matt Harvey is scheduled to take his package of problems into Thursday's contest. It got truly bad for him in Friday's 11-hit loss, and now he admits he's just not feeling good on the mound.
Harvey's mechanics are a disaster, and the scouts have gone so far as to peruse the 2013, pre-Tommy John surgery tapes to figure out where his original arm slot was. The thinking is that a pitcher's delivery plane changes once he has surgery. That could be causing the loss of velocity that has turned Harvey vulnerable in the sixth inning.
At 3-5 with a 4.93 ERA, Harvey needs to find a quick solution that will get him back permanently to the four-hit, 10-strikeout form he showed May 8 in San Diego.
The next three games are rife with opportunity.
A team-wide reboot is in order.
A few adjustments here, a little production there would quickly turn the recent road trip into a memory.
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