Tinged

You really didn’t think Jacob deGrom was going to bomb three times in a row, did ya?

You probably also didn’t think that deGrom would go the distance either. That’s okay, because even for Generation 2.0 the complete game is the white whale. But Jacob, as it turns out, had some mechanical flaws that needed ironing, and not only did he throw 116 pitches, but ended a complete game victory against the champs with a 97 mph fastball to Willson Contreras. The contrast from the Matt Harvey start on Friday to what the rest of the rotation has done since has been stark, and illustrates the importance of what the Mets need to keep this win streak going. The last four days are what we expected all season. If this is indeed the ship being on the right lane or just a broken clock being right for the first of two times this season, we don’t know. But in this relatively young season, there’s a small bit of hope.

Unlike ’15 and ’16, this season depends more on the starters and less about Yoenis Cespedes. And it’s a good thing because guess what! He’s hurt again. This time, a bum heel lifted him from Monday’s victory, although Cespedes says he should be good to go tonight against Jon Lester. Now Cespedes also says that the heel is an issue that he had since Cuba, so this is possibly not a residue of running at less than 100%. But whether it is or whether it isn’t (and I’m not so sure it isn’t) what can’t be denied is that once again, the Mets have a different public statement about a player’s injury than the player himself. I won’t even delve into the worst case scenario, but the best case scenario is that the Mets continue committing the baseball equivalent of burning your breakfast when you’re making Fruity Pebbles. The pattern of miscommunication continues, and this will fall somewhere on the scale between having egg on your face and amputation. I can’t wait to find out.

And by all means, continue to put him out there at less than 100% so he can get hurt multiple times and have fans complain about him that he’s injury prone.  Then you can have anonymous sources complain about him and stoke that fire after you buy him out of the last season of his contract and throw him on the pile with David Wright, Jason Bay, Generation K and the rest of the 2017 Mets who are currently recovering from torn muscles and strained karma. Maybe a new between innings feature can be a race where you give a Mets player a 200 foot head start before having Ray Ramirez chase them down and run them over with an ambulance. It’s called “Beat Death”. (Spoiler alert: You can’t beat death.)

Today’s Hate List

1. Tuffy Rhodes
2. Rick Sutcliffe
3. Jody Davis
4. Joe Barry Carroll
5. Hunter Pence