On perfect day, a brutal reminder of challenge ahead
only so many gut punches you can take before you go to your knees.”
It was an odd homestand for the Mets. It started well, taking two out of three from the Cubs, but in rapid order Matt Harvey, Neil Walker and Juan Lagares all landed on the DL.
“And who shows up next,” Collins said, “but Max Scherzer.”
When you’re this far back in the race, the temptation is to try to get three and four games back at a time, and that’s not possible no matter who you are. The math forbids it. So you have to start small. You have to hand the ball to some- one like Jacob deGrom, who only two weeks ago looked as lost as a starting pitcher can possibly look, and hope he can look like an ace again.
Which is what happened this time around, same as it happened last time around against the Cubs. That night his 116th and final pitch of the night had been a 97-mph heater to whiff Willson Contreras for a complete game. This time it was his 105th pitch that smacked Travis d’Arnaud’s glove at 98, fanning Bryce Harper to finish his day after eight, and make his line for the homestand 17 innings, one earned run.
“I felt good,” deGrom said. “Felt I was working both sides of the plate, getting ahead. A good day.”
Oh, did we mention he hit a home run, too, the f irst of his career? With his father, Tony, in the stands, as well as his son, Jaxon? With David Wright’s bat! (No, it wasn’t etched “Wonderboy” …)
“I got lucky,” he said sheepishly. “I was running pretty hard so you know I didn’t think it was going out.”
It was a nice day for deGrom. It was an essential day for the Mets.
“You’ve got to have that guy,” Collins said. “You have that guy and you have a chance to compete.”
It’s a start, anyway, with an awful long road ahead. Baseball Prospectus lists the Mets with a 4.1 percent chance at making the playoffs, and that actually seems a little high.
Only twice in their history have the Mets been double-digits out of an available playoff spot and come back: 1969, when they trailed the first-place Cubs by 10 with 49 to go (and had to go 38-11 to get there) and 1973, when they were as far as 12 ½ back in July and still 10 ½ behind the Cardinals with 53 to go (and went 33-19).
“You’d better not feel sorry for yourself,” Collins said.
Good strategy. Of course, in the next breath, he mentioned the pitcher lurking for them Monday night at Dodger Stadium, some southpaw named Kershaw.
Our advice to the Mets? Listen to half of what the manager says. Keep picking up a newspaper
(Thank you!). Just avoid the standings page. We on board with that?