Good Morning,
It stings a bit that we aren’t talking about a four-game sweep to start the season, but the Mets took three out of four from the Nationals in DC, receiving stellar performances from each of their four starters, including a promising return to normalcy from Carlos Carrasco on Sunday.
As you’ve surely seen by now, tensions reached a boiling point over the weekend, with benches clearing after Francisco Lindor became the second Met in as many days to take a ball off his helmet’s c-flap.
If you missed baseball, this upcoming schedule is for you. The Mets turn right back around to play the Phillies on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, before coming home for their Home Opener against the Diamondbacks on Friday.
🎧 PODCAST: You can listen to me break down the first four days of the season on the Simply Amazin’ podcast with Tim Ryder. Also, make sure to check out Tim’s newsletter, The Apple.
IN SHORT: Carlos Carrasco survived a typical first-inning home run to pitch 5.2 innings of one-run ball and looked as good as he as looked in a Mets uniform (more in a bit). Unfortunately, his performance wasn’t enough to lift his team to victory, as the bats fell silent, the defense faltered and a shortened bullpen couldn’t preserve a late 2–1 lead, resulting in a 4–2 loss [Box Score].
↩ TURNING POINT
The Mets didn’t lose on Sunday because of a manager’s decision, which I will discuss in detail below. They lost because the offense only plated two runs and Pete Alonso couldn’t make a few routine plays.
First, Alonso’s throw home on a squeeze play was too high to allow catcher Tomás Nido an opportunity to tag a speedy Dee Strange-Gordon; second, his wide throw to Francisco Lindor turned a potential inning-ending, double play ball into a prolonged inning, leaving the bases loaded with only one out.
Had Alonso made better throws, we might be talking about a Mets sweep. Instead, many are focused on manager Buck Showalter’s decision to pitch Chasen Shreve and Trevor Williams. Let’s discuss.
⚾️ SITUATION
The Mets entered the bottom of the 8th inning, nursing a 2–1 lead with the sixth (lefty Yadiel Hernandez), seventh (righty Maikel Franco) and eighth (switch-hitter Lucius Fox) hitters due up in the Nationals’ lineup. Chasen Shreve had pitched a scoreless seventh. There were several decision points leading to manager Buck Showalter’s choice of relievers to pitch the 8th inning.
🤔 DECISION 1: REST
Before the game, Showalter told reporters he wanted to get both Shreve and Trevor Williams some work. We found out after the game that he also doesn’t want to throw guys three times in four days this early in the season.
In terms of managing workload, I think this is a wise decision. The Mets shouldn’t have to use the back of their bullpen like it’s a playoff series to beat a Nationals team that is projected to lose 90 games. Especially over the first four days of the season. Which leads to our next decision point.
🤔 DECISION 2: Saturday
Before we reached the 8th inning in yesterday’s game, Showalter impacted his bullpen options by whom he decided to pitch in the final innings of Saturday’s game. If you don’t want relievers pitching three out of four days, fine. But you have to take that into account when picking up the bullpen phone in a four or five-run game.
Showalter brought in Drew Smith with a 4–0 lead in the seventh and Adam Ottavino with a 5–0 lead in the ninth. Those two decisions meant neither would be available in a high-leverage situation on Sunday, since it would have put Smith in a position to pitch on three consecutive days and Ottavino three out of four, including back-to-back.
🤔 DECISION 3: Sunday
So now it’s Sunday, and based on the first two decisions, and with Edwin Díaz on bereavement leave, the bullpen looked like this:
Trevor May
Joely Rodríguez (L)
Chasen Shreve (L)
Sean Reid-Foley
Trevor Williams
David Peterson (L)
Trevor May claimed he was unavailable yesterday. But he was warming in the bullpen at one point, and he had last pitched on Thursday, so I’m going to include his name when considering the options available to Buck yesterday.
So who pitches the 8th?
Remember, the Nats had lefty Yadiel Hernandez, righty Maikel Franco and switch-hitter Lucius Fox due up.
Hernandez is a lefty who has hit lefties better than righties in his young career, but keeping Shreve in to face him is not a ridiculous way to start the frame. Obviously, they could have gone to Rodríguez here, but the three-batter-minimum rule would have meant keeping him in for two righties; whereas Shreve already had pitched in the seventh so could be pulled after just one batter in the eighth.
Of course, Showalter could have ignored that Hernandez was a lefty and simply started the frame with someone fresh in a traditional set-up role. Either way, the decision essentially comes down to who should pitch against the bottom of the Nationals’ lineup, knowing you still need someone else to face the top of the lineup in the 9th inning, assuming the 8th inning goes as planned.
Had the Mets preserved the 2–1 lead, it’s possible Seth Lugo would have been given an exception to pitch for the third time in four days. But that still takes his name out of consideration for the 8th.
FIRST OPTION: Trevor May
We saw on Thursday how Trevor May fared against the top of the lineup. He gave up a line drive out to César Hernández, a bomb to Juan Soto, and two more hits to Josh Bell and Keibert Ruiz, before escaping the inning.
You could argue pitching May in the 8th on Sunday would have given him a chance to have a clean inning and avoid seeing the top of the lineup again. At the same time, if Showalter wanted to avoid using Lugo, and if you’re looking to line up your “best” remaining bullpen option with the toughest remaining outs, it would make sense to hold back May for the 9th and pitch the next best arm in the 8th. Again, this assumes May was actually available at all.
REMAINING OPTIONS
We can cross David Peterson off the list, as he is here to provide length if something had happened to one of the starters.
That leaves Sean Reid-Foley, Joely Rodríguez (whom we already talked about) and Trevor Williams as the remaining options to pitch, given Showalter wasn’t going to pitch someone for the third time in four days.
This all boils down to whether you would have preferred seeing May starting the 8th inning against Hernandez-Franco-Fox, or coming in after Shreve gave up a single to face Franco-Fox-Robles, or if you would have pitched Sean Reid-Foley to those same hitters and brought in May to face the top of the lineup if Reid-Foley had gotten into trouble, or hopefully, not until the 9th.
As you can see, Trevor Williams pitching against the bottom of the Nats’ lineup is starting to look less crazy. And when you look at the match-up numbers, leaving him in to face the top of the lineup makes some logical sense.
Hernández (1-7), Soto (1-11) and Nelson Cruz (1-3) entered yesterday a combined 3–21 against Williams. Was this the time to bring in May, whom all three had just seen a few days earlier and hit hard? I’m not so sure. Not to mention, Williams, once again, held all three hitters in check, inducing three ground balls, but luck (and defense) wasn’t on his side.
BOTTOM LINE
The Mets don’t have an off day until Thursday. They have three tough games coming against Philadelphia. Had Alonso made one more decent throw in the 8th inning, the Mets might have swept the Nationals, while resetting their bullpen for a tougher test in the city of brotherly love. It didn’t work out that way, and perhaps Buck could have used his bullpen differently on Saturday to help his cause on Sunday. I wouldn’t get too upset about it. When you dive into the decision-making process, there was plenty of logic there. On to a positive note about the manager.
It’s not the ideal way to do it, and thankfully nobody was hurt, but if this Mets team turns out to be special and they make one of those Year in Review movies, they will surely highlight this past weekend, when the 65-year-old Buck Showalter proved to his club that when push comes to shove, he is ready to shove.
Nationals pitchers drilled five Mets hitters over the four-game series, making Pete Alonso’s lips look sexy and turning Francisco Lindor’s smile into a hockey player’s. Luckily, neither of them were seriously injured, which allows us to focus on the positive.
While some might have wanted the Mets to throw at a few Nationals hitters in retaliation, what’s better revenge than winning three of four? And most importantly, the situation allowed Showalter to prove to his team that he has their backs, he’s going to be the first one out of the dugout to protect them and what could have been an ugly outcome essentially turned into a team-building exercise.
As soon as someone in our Founder’s Slack Channel noted that Carlos Carrasco might be “done,” the veteran right-hander put forward one of the best performances we have seen since he was acquired alongside Francisco Lindor last offseason.
◾️ PITCH MIX: What was interesting about Carrasco’s performance was the way he went about it. He only threw his four-seamer 22% of the time, his lowest usage of the pitch since August 2020.
Instead, he relied on his slider, throwing it 20 times on Sunday, inducing five whiffs and earning two called strikes, while keeping hitters guessing, as he also mixed in his split-change, curveball and two-seamer.
I wrote a few weeks ago about Carrasco’s offseason surgery leading him to feel better about both his slider and split-change. The results didn’t immediately show in Spring Training, but we saw them on display yesterday. While he still lacks the bite that used to make his slider one of the most lethal pitches in baseball, he has added a tiny amount of drop, and he commanded it well, which is a step in the right direction.
◾️ MOVING FORWARD: Carrasco has never had a great four-seamer, but he didn’t need to have one when his slider was basically unhittable. Now that his slider is no longer what it once was, he will need to perfect the right mix of secondary pitches to be effective, which means reaching deep into his repertoire, as he did on Sunday.
Some more news and notes from yesterday…
🔋 DOUBLE A CHARGE: Francisco Álvarez is only 20 years old. It’s important to remind people that before discussing his Double-A debut this weekend in Hartford. It seemed as if every time a Nats pitcher was plunking a Met, Álvarez was collecting another extra base hit. The youngest Top-10 prospect in baseball went 5-9 for Binghamton, with two home runs and two doubles.
“Watching him at the plate is something special. Luckily I get to hit behind him so I get to see him every single night," fellow top prospect Brett Baty told reporters after Friday’s game. “Even in the dugout, he’s awesome. He’s a great teammate, he always brings the energy.”
🐟 BASSITT: How good did Chris Bassitt look on Saturday? I wish I had more space to write about him this morning. You can read how he thrives off traditionally-average stuff here. Today, we will celebrate this:
⚾️ CLEAR: Jordan Yamamoto cleared waivers and has been outrighted to Triple-A Syracuse.
🍎 WHAT IF: If Alex Rodriguez had bought the Mets, he said he would have tried to hire Buck Showalter as manager and David Cone as pitching coach.
🗓 UP NEXT: Taijuan Walker takes the mound for the first time since a sore knee blew up his final Spring Training performance. The Mets will see a familiar face on Tuesday in Zack Wheeler, who missed the entire spring ramping back up from offseason shoulder soreness.
Edwin Díaz was placed on the bereavement list on Saturday following the death of his grandfather. By rule, he can’t return to the Mets’ active roster until Tuesday.
🔗 3 takeaways from Mets' opening series win, by Anthony DiComo, MLB.com: “Even though the ending went wrong for the Mets, plenty did go right over the course of a chilly, wet, sometimes emotional weekend at Nationals Park. And the Mets learned three significant things about themselves.”
🔗 Mets Can’t Win ’Em All, but Signs Point to Winning a Lot, by James Wagner, The New York Times: “The team lost for the first time in four games this season amid encouraging signs that it could contend for its first postseason spot since 2016.”
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I am of the belief that Buck is in a sit back and find out mode with his team. That is, he's not going to rush to PH someone in their first AB against a bad matchup on paper. Give them a chance to succeed or to fail. His treatment of Cano is interesting and defensible, but one wonders how long it can last. The power outage is a concern; I really don't like him vs. LHP; and it's insane to bat him 3rd. Davis is a better hitter and Dom might be, too. That said, we're early and Buck has gone out of his way -- and so has the Mets media, too -- to treat Cano with out-sized respect and deference. Okay, fine, give him an opportunity to contribute, earn playing time. Get a good look at who you've got. I see him getting less as the season moves forward and there may be a point where he's not valuable at all. Before you make that move, you'd want to know for sure what you've got. 50 ABs? 100 ABs? I don't know.
Very productive weekend. Always like to win the last game of a series, but 3-1 and a completely reset pen is a good weekend. Nice to see Carrasco pitch so well, they need him to be good.