THE WHEELS COME OFF!
Mets send Zack down to Triple-A Vegas
PORT ST. LUCIE — Dave Eiland says he lives and breathes with every pitch the Mets pitchers throw in a game. The father of two daughters, Eiland says he feels these pitchers he works with are like his sons. “I love them,” Eiland said earlier this week, “but sometimes that means providing some tough love.”
Saturday, Zack Wheeler got some of that tough love. He was optioned to Triple-A and Eiland sent a message to pitchers throughout the organization. He and new manager Mickey Callaway will not reward potential with a roster spot. “You can only do so much for players. It’s on them. They have to go and get it done. It’s not about potential and (what they are) capable of doing, it’s about the end result,” Eiland said Saturday morning. “With Zack, he needs to go down and pitch every five days, stay on the attack and trust his abilities when he gets hitters with two strikes and put him away.
“So it can come quick for Zack,” Eiland said of a turnaround. “We hope it does for his and our sake.”
Wheeler will head to Las Vegas to pitch in the rotation there, stay stretched out in case there is an injury to the major league staff. He also could be called back to pitch in the bullpen, Eiland said.
And so ends the hype about the socalled Five Aces. They will likely never pitch in the same rotation at the same time. Matt Harvey, the first to arrive in the big leagues and the one who set off the Flushing faithful dreaming of a rock-star rotation, will be a free agent after this season. Soon it will become too expensive to keep Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz on the same team.
But Eiland and Callaway weren’t around when the Mets were hyping these arms as a future “dream rotation,” to get fans through the rebuilding years in Flushing. So, they pushed the Mets to bring in lefty Jason Vargas last month on a two-year, $16 million deal. Vargas fractured his hamate bone last week, which opened the door for Wheeler to slide into that fifth starting spot for at least one turn, leading to that hopeful hype.
But Wheeler, who has made just 17 starts since 2014 because of a complicated rehab from Tommy John surgery, couldn’t earn the spot. He allowed nine earned runs in 10 innings works this spring. He’s walked two and struck out 14. “He needs to go pitch. He was scheduled for 80 pitches the other night — we had to take him out after two (innings) and 58,” Eiland said. “But we’re a better team when Zack Wheeler pitches like Zack Wheeler is capable of. So he needs to go down there and get that process started.”
The Mets’ dream rotation was always about potential. At times the five have shown that at the major league level, but injuries have limited each of them since 2013 when Wheeler joined Harvey in the big leagues.
After missing the two years to rehab, Wheeler struggled with arm weakness and a bone stress reaction in his biceps midway through the 2017 season. Wheeler committed to a healthier diet and six months of injections to try to improve his bone strength this winter. He also changed his workout routine to try to get stronger and shortened his delivery and arm slot.
“There is progress there, but take it into the game and take it into the game every five days and start getting into the sixth seventh and eighth innings,” Eiland said. “Until he does that, it’s going to be tough to be on this team.”
It was a tough message for Wheeler, who has been in the big leagues or on the major league DL since June 2013, to hear Saturday morning. But it was one that he knew was coming. “Of course, going back down isn’t fun or it isn’t easy. Like I said, take it like a professional, go down there and get my work done and prove that I can pitch up here and be successful, like I have been in the past,” Wheeler said. “I really haven’t pitched that much in three years, I am a little inconsistent. I can get that figured out.”
And that is the message Eiland and Mets wanted to hear back from Wheeler, and the accountability they want from every pitcher.