Mets Handling the Playoff-race Pressure, Roster Shakeups, Innings Limits, and Headed to Philadelphia Next

from dailystache.com

After last weekend, Mets’ fans had to be questioning where this team would be in a week’s time.

Well, the answer is, much better off.

They had just dropped three straight at home to the Pirates, and looked like the shine was coming off the Mets’ rose, especially with the specter of a road trip.

The Mets had been one of baseball’s worst road teams.

They had a 21-34 record heading into a pair of games at Baltimore and three over the weekend with a Rockies’ team that although in last place, had just won 2 of 3 from the Washington Nationals.

The other negative talk surrounding the Mets had involved innings limits and the notion that the Mets were discussing skipping Matt Harvey’s start in Colorado.

The Mets managed a split in Baltimore thanks largely to another stellar performance by Jacob DeGrom who hurled 7 and 2/3 innings of 1-run ball to get the Mets back on the winning track.

The Mets got awful pitching from Jon Niese and Bartolo Colon which is to be expected at Coors Field, particularly when you are talking about pitchers who rely on ‘touch and feel’ like Colon ad Niese, but the offense erupted for 28 runs between Friday and Saturday’s affairs.

Looking for the sweep, the Mets did indeed skip Harvey for Logan Verrett.

The former Orioles’ farmhand did his best impression of Matt Harvey turning in 8 stellar innings, allowing just 1 run to the Rockies’ offense that had scored 18 runs of their own in the series.

Verrett’s performance turned heads and he may factor in to a bullpen that has been overworked and that workload is starting to show as the bullpen ERA has risen steadily as the season has progressed.

The Mets’ good news keeps coming as David Wright is set to join the Mets in Philadelphia and the Mets have generally had great success in Philadelphia.  Pitchers deGrom and Syndergaard should both get starts in the series.

The Mets demoted Dario Alvarez which will make room for Wright’s arrival which means the Mets will effectively be two pitchers short as Verrett will be in the bullpen, but obviously unavailable after his 8 innings yesterday.

However, Verrett’s steallar performance not only secured his spot over Alvarez (at least until rosters expand September 1), but saved Michael Conforto who seems to have 9 lives as he was set to be sent down for Cuddyer’s activation, Kirk Nieuwenhuis (who instead came up injured), and possibly for David Wright.  Lucas Duda ended up on the DL however for a bad back and the Mets could use the extra bat.

All Conforto has done is respond, homering Friday night and coming up with a  few hits on Sunday as he started two of three in Colorado.

Yoenis Cespedes hit three homeruns on Friday night, and Curtis Granderson also had a big weekend for the Mets going 5 of 13 with 2 walks.

Washington won 2 of 3 from Milwaukee but now sit 5 games back as the Mets gained a game over the weekend with their sweep over Colorado.

It is the team’s first sweep ever at Coors Field, and the first time the team has ever swept a season-series from the Rockies who came into existence with the then Florida Marlins in 1993.