The Comeback Kings
Morning Dose: Wednesday, April 17
☀️ Good Morning:
Call them the Comeback Kings! After back-to-back eighth-inning rallies, the Mets used the seventh inning to put themselves in the win column on Tuesday and secure their fourth straight series victory.
I don’t know how long to keep leading with the fact this club started 0–5, but I will keep doing it for now: after losing their first five, the Amazins have won nine of 12 to climb above .500 for the first time this season.
The way they have done it is even more impressive, beating some of the top teams in baseball (record-wise) along the way. Their nine wins against clubs with winning records is the most in the majors. They have yet to play a team with a losing record, a trend that will continue when they face the Dodgers over the weekend.
Just as everything has been coming up roses, Brett Baty left the game with a left hamstring injury. While his in-game replacement became a hero on the night, it is tough news to swallow after Baty’s strong start.
He is technically considered “day-to-day,” but if he is forced to miss an extended period of time, Mark Vientos appears more than ready to take his spot, going 3-for-5 with four RBI and a triple last night for Triple-A Syracuse.
☕️ Grab your coffee for your morning dose of Mets Fix!
📣 Rally Kings
The Mets entered play last night tied with the Diamondbacks as the hardest team to strikeout in baseball. That didn’t seem to phase Pirates’ starter Jared Jones. After struggling to make contact off the right-hander, striking out seven times, the Amazins found their footing against the Pittsburgh’ bullpen in the seventh.
Wendle time: A Francisco Lindor walk and Pete Alonso hit set-up Joey Wendle, freshly in the game for the injured Baty, to drive in the tying run in what was a 1–0 ballgame.
“We've found ways to win baseball games in the last two weeks in a lot of different ways,” Wendle said after the game. “To be the guy to help contribute tonight was great.”
Squirrel! Two batters later, after lefty reliever Jose Hernandez balked in the go-ahead run, Jeff McNeil followed Wendle’s lead by poking the ball the other way to put the Mets ahead 3–1.
McNeil is now 6-for-19 (.316) against lefties this season, starkly better than his .152 average against righties. His reverse splits continue a trend from last season in which he finished with a .753 OPS versus southpaws versus .693 opposing righties.
🍎 Is Reed Garrett legit?
It’s time to talk about Reed Garrett. Small sample be damned, he has been unhittable this young season, striking out 17 of the 31 batters he has faced, including six in two innings of work on Tuesday.
Is this guy for real?
More spin: Garrett is the modern pitch design hero.
He is following all of the modern trends, relying less on his fastball in favor of pitches that spin.
Not only does he lead with his slider, but he also throws two very en-vogue pitches: a sweeper and a splitter.
That gives him three swing-and-miss offerings to play off a 96-mph fastball that has turned into a two-plane darling with borderline elite rise and arm-side movement.
Add it all up and you get a pitcher with the second-highest Stuff+ value on the staff.
Tweaks and approach: Garrett isn’t the story of a pitcher who found a new grip or added a singular pitch to turn his career around. After pitching to a 6.41 ERA over 11 big-league appearances last season, while striking out only 19% of the batters he faced and walking 14.5% after arriving from Baltimore during his time in Triple-A Syracuse, Garrett worked with the Mets’ coaching staff to give himself more offerings he can command for strikes.
Release point: It starts with his release point. By throwing his pitches slightly closer to the third-base side, he is able to achieve the intended movement profiles on his spin-based pitches without losing the feel of his fastball/changeup (splitter) combo.
Approach: Both his slider and sweeper land in the zone much more often than you would expect from either offering. Neither generate whiffs the natural way by darting away from right-handed hitters. He likes to locate both of them on the arm-side of the plate.
Platoon neutral: With that ability, Reed is able to use his slider against both righties and lefties. He left Oneil Cruz hopeless on one right over the plate after building a 1–2 count on a sweeper that nicked the outside corner and a splitter that he could only foul away.
When you’re a left-handed hitter, respecting a 96-mph fastball, it’s hard enough to adjust to a slider/sweeper combo from a righty that you don’t normally see, only to get a deadly splitter that disappears down in the zone.
Sustainable? All the underlying metrics look good. Garrett isn’t only striking batters out, he is confusing them with a variety of pitches that can land for strikes and induce whiffs out of the zone. It makes him a difficult match-up for hitters from both sides of the plate.
My biggest concern is how long his command is sustainable. His four-seamer has been hit a bit this year, but he hasn’t had to rely on it (or his sinker) as much with the strike generation of his breaking pitches. If he loses the feel on those pitches and finds himself searching for strikes, as all relievers eventually do, he could run into some trouble. A slider that catches too much plate like the one shown above won’t keep fooling hitters if it isn’t thrown in perfect sequence while ahead in the count.
🎧 Mets Fix Podcast
Make sure you’re subscribed to the Mets Fix Podcast on your favorite platform (Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud).
🏁 START ‘EM UP: Jose Quintana was far from dominating, but kept the Mets in the game last night, allowing only one run over five innings. He has allowed two or fewer runs in 11 of his 17 starts as a Met.
🗓️ DELAYED: J.D. Martinez’s Met debut is on hold, yet again. The veteran slugger won’t make the trip out west this week. He hopes to start swinging again over the weekend. At best, he will join the team during their next homestand.
⏳ MAY RETURN: Meanwhile, Kodai Senga threw off a bullpen mound for the first time on Tuesday. The Mets believe his return date shouldn’t be “too far after” he is eligible to come off the 60-day IL on May 27.
👍 GETTING CLOSER: Sean Reid-Foley is set to pitch in back-to-back games for Double-A Binghamton on Wednesday and Thursday. If all goes well, he could be ready to return from the IL. That will set up a roster decision for the Mets since Reid-Foley must be added to the active roster since he is out of options.
🤺 D-FENCE: Having allowed the second most unearned runs in baseball, it’s no surprise where David Stearns thinks the Mets need some work: “That’s an area we can get better and we will from a defensive standpoint,” Stearns said Tuesday in his first news conference of the season. “I think we’ve probably had a few too many lapses there — more than we would have expected coming into the year.”
🥊 BOXED OUT: Mets officials decided against letting fighters Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia throw out the first pitch on Monday, worried there could be an on-field incident, as the two prepare for a fight at Barclays on Saturday.
🗓️ UP NEXT: The Mets will try to sweep the Pirates in an afternoon affair before they head out west to take on the Dodgers and Giants. Luis Severino (1–1, 3.00) takes on left-hander Bailey Falter (1–0, 4.20).
◾️ Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a fractured big toe on his right foot.
◾️ Hall-of-Fame skipper Whitey Herzog passed away at the age of 92.
◾️ Dodgers legend Carl Erskine passed away at the age of 97.
🔗 Trio of Mets pitching prospects dominate up and down the system, by Michael Avallone, MLB: “While we might not see comparisons drawn to the likes of homegrown aces Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden or Jacob deGrom, the Mets' pitching pipeline is beginning to flow freely once again. On Tuesday, three of New York's top four pitching prospects stood tall on the mound, providing a pleasant glimpse of what the future might hold in Queens.”
📺 ‘The Show’ Episode 97: Keith Hernandez Talks Mets, Herzog, Broadcasting, via Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman, NY Post:
Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter for regular updates until our next newsletter.
And please check out our newsletters about the Knicks and Isles, too.
JB, what do you think of adding the box score from the previous game to each newsletter? I think its good to reference back to since your have a game summary.
Three games in a row where the Mets bullpen won it, out-performed the opposing team's bullpen. The opposing pens are walking guys with the bases loaded, balking, giving up hits, while the Mets pen is holding the line. It is the story of the season.
In the past, Buck and the Mets had two bullpens: He'd go to his "B" pen when the team was down. And we'd stay down. The 3-1 deficit became a 6-4 loss.
In today's MLB, it kind of made sense. Analysts look at the season and say, "We've got to throw 1,400 innings this season." Then they say that given scores and situations, 250 of those innings don't matter. Going to lose anyway. So the strategy has been, "Well, you don't want to use a good arm in that situation. Need some bums around to eat that garbage."
And it sort of makes sense. But we saw Buck do it endlessly in 2022, going to the "B" guys in Pittsburgh late in the year, the Mets down 3-1 in the 6th. He conceded a lot of games, playing for tomorrow, making it extremely unlikely the Mets would pull out a come-from-behind victory. It was his big mistake late in the year, IMO.
Which leads me to Tonkin and Ramirez. Stearns DFA'd those dudes in early April. Whereas in the past it might have been argued that we need a guy like Tonkin -- to pitch all the meaningless innings. Stearns watched us lose two games that way and thought, "Nope."
A bullpen with depth and quality, up and down.
There's that old joke about not needing to outrun a bear, you just have to be faster than the person you are with. That's today's bullpen. You just need to be better than the other's team's pen. And honestly, that's what I wondered going into this season, and what I asked here before it began:
What is the value of a great bullpen? How many wins does that get you?
I love what I am seeing so far and I think it will endure, because there are quality guys down in AAA and Stearns has a knack for the wise pickup.