Ugly Mets head west for needed makeover
IT ACTUALLY felt like a moral victory here at Citi Field. A dignified death at home, preceded by so much chaos and unintentional comedy.
What it must feel like, by season’s end, is a springboard to something better.
The Mets failed to sweep the lowly A’s on Sunday afternoon, falling short by a 3-2 score, and then they boarded a flight to San Diego, where they’ll kick off a 10-game trip Monday night. They knew darn well, as they packed their stuff, that this team will look markedly different for its next home game, Aug. 4 against the Dodgers.
That should be Amed Rosario’s Citi Field debut, assuming the poor guy can get his act together over the next week after stomach problems and a bruised right index finger have kept him off the field for Triple-A Las Vegas. At a minimum, Addison Reed and Asdrubal Cabrera should be ex-Mets, with Lucas Duda, Jay Bruce, Curtis Granderson and the rehabilitating Neil Walker (in that order, I’d handicap it) possibilities to join them. Once Duda’s departure frees up first base, Dominic Smith will be ready to step in his place.
“We knew what situation we were in,” Bruce said Sunday. “We knew what we were up against. We’ve played better baseball of late, but I’m not really able to say yet whether that’s going to be enough or not.”
Sandy Alderson said on July 14, hours before this homestand’s opener, that the Mets would need to play “exceedingly well” in order to shift the front office’s stance from sellers to buyers. Sunday’s loss tagged them with a 6-4 mark, with series victories over Oakland and the Rockies and a fourgame split with the Cardinals.
“Six and four, sometimes that’s not good enough,” Terry Collins said, letting some reality seep through his public optimism. “Eight and two is good enough.”
So count on Reed, the guy likely to get the biggest return, to go by the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. Cabrera, despite saying, “I hope [I’m]” still a Met upon the team’s return home, has to know in his veteran heart that he’s a goner. A crowded scout area here Sunday featured eyes and ears from the Dia- mondbacks, Red Sox, Indians, Dodgers, Mariners and Yankees; the Dodgers and Red Sox make plenty of sense as a landing spot for Reed, and the Sawx, Cleveland and Seattle all could use Cabrera to upgrade their infields.
(The Yankees could still wind up with Duda, or his Sunday counterpart Yonder Alonso of the A’s, if the price drops low enough. Duda — or anyone besides Reed or Cabrera, really — could wind up as an August trade.)
None of these trades will bring back the sort of talent to energize a fan base, as Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier did for the Yankees universe a year ago. This will not be a satisfying week for Mets fans in that vein.
The satisfaction, the Mets hope, that will keep this team above its 1992 and 2002 ancestors on the “all-time disappointing Mets teams” lists, will be Rosario and, to a lesser degree, Smith. Rosario, who missed a sixth straight game for Las Vegas on Sunday yet intends to return to action shortly, will bring athleticism, excitement and optimism if all goes well. He’ll allow Mets fans to dream of a 2018 with him leading off for a lineup featuring Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Conforto and Smith — and perhaps Wilmer Flores and T.J. Rivera, with Jose Reyes playing a blend of Ben Zobrist and Yoda.
That vision awaits the Mets. For now, “Certainly the next week’s going to be hard,” Collins said. “I will do the best I can to try to keep their mind on the game and [not] worry who the trading talks are about.”
The Mets dropped to 2-7 in Sunday afternoon home games, yet this marked the only one of those seven losses in which they kept the game remotely close. Rafael Montero pitched respectably, offering another signal that he might actually have value moving forward.
Now, the whole organization moves forward. Even as it’s almost certainly too late to achieve the top goal of 2017, it’s not too late to make something of this season. You didn’t want to see such an ambitious club enter Phase 2. But it’ll be here when the Mets return home.