Yo! How much longer do
ARLINGTON, Texas — A six-man rotation is not going to matter. Adding Steven Matz and Seth Lugo won’t make a big difference. The Mets are not going to turn this season around until they figure out how to get their starting pitchers back on track.
And Tuesday night, Jacob deGrom proved that giving them an extra day’s rest is not the simple answer they wanted. He sat in the dugout at Globe Life Park next to manager Terry Collins after just four innings and they could not find the path back to the right track.
DeGrom gave up a career-high tying eight earned runs on a season-high 10 hits as the Mets lost to the Rangers, 10-8. He walked one and struck out two. The 28-yearold went just four innings for the second straight start, the first time in his career he failed to get into the fifth inning in consecutive starts.
The eight runs match one of the worst start of deGrom’s career, last Aug. 18 against the Giants. That was two starts before deGrom was diagnosed with an irritated nerve in his elbow and shut down for surgery.
Now, there are no clear reasons for the fact he cannot control any of his pitches.
“I feel fine. That’s what’s frustrating about it,” deGrom said. “I feel good. Just don’t know where the ball is going right now.”
And without deGrom leading this staff, the Mets aren’t heading in the right direction.
Before the game, the Mets discussed the return of Matz, who started the season on the disabled list with elbow irritation, and Lugo, who is attempting to pitch with a torn ulnar collateral ligament. With Robert Gsellman seemingly have found his footing as a spot starter, they are considering going to a six-man rotation, in part to help deGrom and Matt Harvey get back on track as they try to come back from surgeries. With Zack Wheeler in his first season back from 2015 Tommy John surgery, it would also be a way to manage his innings limit, which the Mets insist has not yet been set.
But mostly, the Mets hoped that the extra day of rest between starts would help their struggling starters find their way back. The only way they dig themselves out of a season-high eight games below .500 is through dominant pitching.
“When these guys have had an extra day be it six or maybe not seven, they’ve been better,” Collins said before the game. “We’ve had maybe two (bullpen sessions) instead of one to where they can iron out any mechanical things they are working on and get a better feel for it.
“So far when we’ve brought them back after four days solely on regular rest it hasn’t been as quite as good,” Collins continued. “So that’s why we’re considering going to a six-man but you end up but you’re still only gonna have seven guys in the pen so we get to make sure we can get us deeper into games because we don’t have a lot of replacements.”
Now, deGrom has a 7.94 ERA with five days rest this season and the Mets rotation’s ERA has ballooned to 5.75.
A team built around strong starting pitching is left stunned by their struggles. Tuesday, deGrom’s two-seam fastball was flat over the plate and he had no control of any of his pitches. A fighter on the mound since he came up three years ago, deGrom has been able to find ways to pitch even when he doesn’t have his best stuff.
Tuesday, he couldn’t even do that.
“When you get out on the mound, you’ve got what you’ve got and you got to figure out a way to get out,” deGrom said. “I’ve done a poor job of that the last couple of starts. I know my front side is flying open, I am just having a hard time fixing it.”
And the Mets are having a hard time fixing their team without their starters.
“It’s stuff big league pitchers have to go through. The hard part is he hasn’t had to do it much,” Collins said of the search for answers. “Last year, when he had the elbow issue was probably the only time he’s really had to dig deep and figure out what’s wrong. But, we found a cause.
“Right now we got to come up with an answer.”
Tuesday night, an extra day’s rest clearly wasn’t the answer.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Yoenis Cespedes is not here. The Mets slugger, who they had hoped would rejoin them in this hitter-friendly ballpark, is still in Port St. Lucie working on running and rehabbing his left hamstring.
The Mets are vague on his rehab, but hopeful.
“He had another productive day down in Florida,” Mets assistant GM John Ricco said Tuesday night before the Mets’ series opener against the Rangers at Globe Life Ballpark. “He continues to progress. He ran at 100% today. He’s feeling good. He was a little limited today because it’s raining down there, but he ran inside and he’s getting close.
“We’re optimistic, he’ll be here shortly,” Ricco continued. “He ran at 100% today which is a real good sign. I don’t think it’s that far away.”
But after nearly six weeks on the disabled list, the Mets are not willing to narrow down “soon,” or “not that far away.” Cespedes went on the 10-day DL April 28 with a left hamstring pull and Met GM Sandy Alderson said at the time that the team thought it was not as bad as they had feared.
But it is clearly more of an issue than Alderson had hoped. TODAY AND AP USA
“We carried him off the field and all of a sudden a few days later it wasn’t a major issue, well it was a major issue,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “Pulled hamstrings are a big thing especially when you have the strength this guy has got in his legs. The guys who have eyes on him have a better feel for it than I do.”
And Collins said he’s not been given much of a timetable. Globe Life Park is a place that Cespedes could rake and playing in an American League ballpark, he would not have to play the field.
“Ten days ago, we were very quietly hoping to God he would be OK to come here and go to Atlanta,” Collins said. “We’re