Keidel: Early Or Not, Mets' Season Is Teetering On Brink Of Destruction
By Jason Keidel
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In a game that has become somewhat symbolic of the season, the Mets took a biblical beating from the Washington Nationals on Sunday.
The 23-5 final was more representative of a Big Ten football game circa 1979 than something you'd see from our national pastime in our nation's capital.
You'd think Bryce Harper or former Met and current Mets tormentor Daniel Murphy would be the one who wielded the most nuclear bat. But it was Anthony Rendon who had a week in a day, and a day for the archives. Rendon had six hits, three homers, and 10 RBI.
Insane, right?
MORE: Schwei's Mets Notes: Sunday Loss To Nationals Was Historically Ugly
The game was so swathed in symbolism it had to make every fan wince. Not only did the Mets get crushed by their divisional foes, the team currently atop the NL East, they got smoked following such a promising start to the series. Despite a six-game losing streak and a laughable litany of injuries plaguing them, the Mets actually won the first two games of the set, including a victory over Max Scherzer, perhaps the best pitcher not named Kershaw on the planet.
And it's not enough for the Mets to lose on the scoreboard. They also lose their ace, Noah Syndergaard, who left the game in the second inning, grabbing his side. But not before issuing his first few walks of the season. Syndergaard was already scratched from last Thursday's start because of a bicep problem. After the big right-hander refused to take an MRI, the fans, at least, had no reason to worry. Even the beginning of Syndergaard's fine young season was streaked with issues on his pitching hand.
If Syndergaard has to spend any time on the disabled list, that will make 40 percent of the Mets' rotation on the shelf. Fellow young star Steven Matz has yet to pitch in 2017.
By any objective measure, Sunday's game was simply a disaster. It italicized the Mets' sprawling list of injured players. (Don't forget their best non-pitcher, and most expensive player, Yoenis Cespedes, is also injured.) And it was another haunting reminder that the Mets never seem to catch a break.
On Saturday, The New York Times ran a piece suggesting the Yankees have stolen the early season from the Mets. (Stole their thunder, to be exact.) And they have. While the Mets are crumbling in the vise grip of expectations and bad luck of injury, the Yankees are blooming just in time for the May metaphor.
This was supposed to be the Mets time, their turn in the sun, their time to bask in Broadway's glow without burning in its glare. Maybe the Mets didn't have the sprawling lineup, filled with epic lumber, but they had the thing that mattered, young, gifted pitchers, who ticked triple digits and short-circuited radar guns. When healthy the Mets could trot out four to five baseball unicorns to the mound. When healthy.
Meanwhile, the Yankees may be the surprise of the sport. With their sturdy pitching, sizzling bats, and stirring comebacks, they continue to defy preseason logic. Their electric win on Friday, vanquishing the Baltimore Orioles after trailing by eight runs, has been emblematic of their opening month of 2017.
Which can only offer a nauseating, chilling, haunting, yet familiar feel for the Mets and their fans. The Yankees were supposed to be a year or so away from realizing their potential, ceiling, roof, or whatever exalted level Michael Jordan was fumbling for. Then this.
The Mets come tantalizingly close to the apex, then find their nadir, a historical pathology of losing. It could be taking the mighty A's to seven games in 1973, only to lose. Or heartbreak in 1985, 1988, 2000, the 6 million times they seemed to lose to the Atlanta Braves during the Chipper Jones era. Or in 2006, when Endy Chavez made that breathtaking catch in the sixth, only to see the Mets lose in the ninth. Or all the late-inning leads they had in the 2015 World Series, only to lose to the Royals.
Maybe Matz and Syndergaard and Cespedes and Lucas Duda and the rest of the walking triage come back to full health and old form and the Mets turn this thing around. It's certainly early enough to keep dreams and hopes alive. But it better happen soon, or, to quote a famous Yankee, it could get late early around here.
Please follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
