It’s early, but still Amazin’
The Mets are good. Now they play the season to find out how good. Do you make lasting judgments about anybody before 10 games have been played? Come on. But you can see good things early. We’ve mostly seen good things against the Cardinals and the Phillies and now in Washington, where they’ve taken two straight from the Nationals. In the process the Mets have reminded us that it was just three years ago, hardly a lifetime even though it feels that way sometimes, when they were seven games better than a wounded Washington team in the National League East.
Sunday night, the Mets look for the sweep against the Nationals on ESPN. Matt Harvey gets the ball, and tries to build on the five innings of one-hit, five-strikeout ball he pitched against the Phillies on what looked and surely must have felt to the players like it was the baseball version of that hockey Winter Classic they had not long ago at Citi Field. Now Harvey gets classic Bryce Harper and everybody else around Harper in the Nationals’ batting order. It will be something to see, on a night when the Mets will be the team to watch in town.
More bad than good has happened to the Yankees so far. More good than bad has happened with the Mets. Still early? You bet. Mets fans don’t care. Even in April, MetsNationals feels like a big series. You can have them in April. The Yankees know. They go to Fenway for three this week. It is all part of the fun of the long season. Emotions run hot, even in cold weather. Nobody wins or loses a season in March and April. You can still make early statements. The Mets are making one in Washington.
Of course everything starts with starting pitching, and good health there, and also with the health of Yoenis Cespedes, without whom the Mets cannot be a real contender to win the East. But when he’s the one running hot, you see how different — and even dangerous — the Mets lineup can look, all the way down to the kid at shortstop, Amed Rosario, when Mickey Callaway bats the kid ninth. Always remember that Rosario is just 22. Already he is the most exciting hot kid they have ever had at shortstop, as far back as you want to go.
We know what Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom can do. Everybody sees that Syndergaard has his fastball back, one as big as anybody’s. Everybody saw deGrom go into Nationals Park on Thursday afternoon and outpitch Stephen Strasburg. But it might be Harvey and Steven Matz who are as important as anybody Callaway has throwing for him. Matz bounced back from tough first start to throw five good innings on Saturday, giving up one unearned run and striking out eight.
If Harvey and Matz can stay healthy, if they can pitch to their best, look out. It will feel like October of 2015 all over again.
“When pitchers pitch well,” Buck Showalter was telling me the other day, “we all look smart.” They are all healthy for now. Michael Conforto is back, with one of the sweetest swings around, and it took one game for him to remind Mets fans of his own possibilities. Conforto ended up playing just 109 games last season. But hit 27 home runs while he was still around. Go ahead and do the math on him if he had played a full season. Cespedes played 81 games. Hit 17 home runs. Jeurys Familia, the closer, pitched 26 times. Syndergaard started seven games, Matz started 13, Harvey started 18. Sports always come back to the wisdom of the great philosopher, once heavyweight champ and baddest man on the planet, Michael Gerard Tyson, who once said that everybody’s got a plan until they get hit. The Yankees, clearly, have gotten a little taste of that before the season is two weeks old. The Mets aren’t just healthier than they were in 2017. They are deeper and better. Todd Frazier helps them, and a lot, at third base. It is not unreasonable to assume that Adrian Gonzalez, with so much to prove on the other side of the infield, can produce at least 20 home runs this season, and 80 or 90 RBI. Rosario, if he is another blessed with good health, has a chance to play himself into the conversation about the best young middle infielders in the game.
Nothing has changed from the time Callaway arrived in Port St. Lucie and set about creating his own culture with the Mets: A lot has to break right for them this season. It starts with having their best players in play. Look at the way the Astros were mostly blessed with their own good luck and good health last season. It matters. Look down the road a little and imagine what the Yankees, as talented as they are, continue to have the bad luck they’ve had so far. And when people talk about bad luck already, you see the frame of reference is the 2017 New York Mets. Not everything that could go wrong did. But it was close enough.
Callaway was telling me in February in Port St. Lucie about his formal job interview with Jeff Wilpon and Sandy Alderson and J.P. Ricciardi and John Ricco.
“Going into that interview, my basic thought was this: ‘If I can get this job, we can win next year,’ ” the new Mets manager said.
It was good February talk about a regular season that really did begin in March this time and won’t end until a game against the Marlins on Sept. 30 at Citi Field. Callaway knows that the opponent in the East isn’t just going to be the Nationals. Nobody should go to sleep on the Atlanta Braves. They’re good, too. So are the Mets. New York team to watch on Sunday night.