Mets Enter Hardest Part of Schedule at Their Weakest

Pity the Mets! Beginning with tonight’s game, they will play only teams that made last year’s playoffs for three weeks. That’s 19 games against the Tigers, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Twins, the Athletics, and the Cardinals. After that it’s a four game set with the same Phillies who vanquished the Mets on their own ground this week. Even though the Yankees and Cardinals have been wretched this year, while the Twins and Athletics have been mediocre, it’s the schedule from hell. Fans have every right to feel aggrieved over it.Making everything worse is the team’s outfield situation, which has moved past the comical and become merely depressing. The Mets were overprepared for contingencies, and it did them no good. It was one thing for Carlos Beltran, Shawn Green, and Moises Alou to all have been simultaneously too injured to play at one point this week, and for Lastings Milledge to have been too hurt to take advantage of a chance to show that his on-field skill outweighs his off-field shenanigans. It was even one thing for them all to go down with leg and foot problems. When Endy Chavez, too, went down Wednesday, with a hamstring pull, in a game in which Damion Easley (of all people) couldn’t take a start in left due to a knee problem, the whole thing took on a sinister air. Where is Marty Miller, the Yankees trainer who was fired over the leg injuries that ruined the Yankees pitching staff in April? The Mets ought to hire him quickly, and then fire him. It might do them some good.As of now, the situation is this: Beltran will play, even if he looks like he could probably use a few more days off; Carlos Gomez will play, even if he looks like he could probably use a few more months in Class AAA; and anyone with two functioning legs, including, Easley, Ben Johnson, David Newhan, and possibly Ricky Ledee will all have their chances to make themselves useful. Meanwhile all interested parties will cross their fingers and avoid walking under ladders while thinking about Green, who’s due back over the weekend.This makes for a pretty ugly mess. Alou is an old man who could be out a long time yet, and Milledge isn’t due to even start baseball activities until next week. In the best case, the Mets will have a banged-up Beltran and Green and a green Gomez hunting down baseballs, and in the worst case more injury and calamity will befall them and the best team in the National League will be sporting an outfield unfit for Norfolk while playing three weeks’ worth of games against the elite teams in baseball. It all calls “The Warriors” to mind, maybe with the Dodgers playing the role of the Baseball Furies.At least the beleaguered Mets fan can cling to a bit of hope, though —things aren’t as bad as they seem.The Mets, structurally, aren’t nearly as reliant on their outfield as most teams are, at least on offense. Jose Reyes has been the best offensive player, relative to his position, in the National League this year. Having a shortstop who hits like he does gives the Mets a huge advantage, and they also get some offense from Paul Lo Duca. That lessens the pressure on the Mets to put thumpers in the outfield corners — more offense is always good, obviously, but they can get along without some hits for awhile without dropping behind the Braves.Keep in mind that while it’s a great thing that Shawn Green was hitting so well before he broke his foot, he was basically just replacing the offense the team had expected to get from Carlos Delgado — if the first baseman gets on another hot streak and Beltran gets over his bone bruise, the Mets won’t need great production from right field. And they don’t need great production from left field at all — the team has done just fine as their left fielders have compiled a .259 BA/.320 OBA/.399 SLG line this season, 14th-best in the league.That’s the offensive side of the story. The defense is another story. The reason the Mets are riding high this year is that they’ve been phenomenal at turning balls in play into outs — far better than any other team in baseball. Their recent stretch of two weeks in which every start save one was a quality start of six or more innings and three or fewer earned runs is attributable, in large part, to that excellent defense, and in no small part it’s been due to having three center fielders in the field at one time when Beltran, Gomez, and Chavez have played at one time.Are a variety of injured regulars, pinch hitters, and utilitymen going to match the kind of play the Mets have become used to? Of course not, and that’s the real worry. Lesser defense means shorter, worse starts, which put more stress on the bullpen and more strain on the offense — and when a team is strained at every point, sometimes something snaps. I wouldn’t worry so much about the specter of Carlos Gomez at the plate over the next stretch of games. The diabolical sight of him being the only outfielder with a real set of wheels under him, though, is something else entirely.tmarchman@nysun.com

Mets Enter Hardest Part of Schedule at Their Weakest

Mets Enter Hardest Part of Schedule at Their Weakest

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