3 Up 3 Down: Mets’ Winning Streak Hits Seven Games

The Mets kept winning this week with a quick two-game sweep of the Orioles, which saw a late-game comeback (and another Patrick Mazeika walk-off) on Tuesday and one of the more comfortable victories of the year on Wednesday.

That’s seven wins in a row for a team that dropped to two games under .500 just a week ago after game one of last week’s doubleheader. The team is now 18-13 and a game ahead of the Phillies in their division. (They have a positive run differential now, too!)

They’ll play the Braves and Marlins next week to hopefully rack some wins up against NL East opponents, but first come the Rays this weekend as the team starts a nine-game road trip.

3 Up

The Bench Mob

The Bench Mob–the nickname bestowed on the backups–have come through for the Mets over their seven-game winning streak. These backups, specifically Kevin Pillar, Jonathan Villar, Tomas Nido, Jose Peraza and Patrick Mazeika, have produced with clutch hits, game-winning RBI and fine defense while guys like J.D. Davis, Brandon Nimmo and Luis Guillorme have been injured.

Pillar, Villar and Peraza combined to go 8-for-21, scoring four runs and knocking in another four in the two games versus the Orioles. Villar scored the game-winning run, which came off the bat of Mazieka for his second game-winning fielder’s choice in less than a week, on Tuesday and stole a base that led to a run on Wednesday. Pillar played good defense in center field and threw in a couple hits and RBI of his own.

Surely the Mets are a better team with Nimmo, Davis and Guillorme ahead of Pillar, Villar and Guillorme in the depth chart, so it’s been great to see the latter step up in the former’s absence. Once the team returns to full health, they’ll have one of the best benches in baseball.

Dom Smith with Runners in Scoring Position

Things hadn’t been going great for Dominic Smith for the majority of the season, looking a bit lost at the plate–especially with off-speed pitches–with an average hovering around the low .200s.

Well, Dom went 4-for-5 over the last two games, including a game-tying hit off the bench Tuesday and three more hits in a start Wednesday. More importantly, two of the hits came on off-speed pitches, which Dom has been struggling with mightily so far this season. He only had one hit on off-speed stuff all year before this series.

His two other hits came on a Matt Harvey sinker and a Shawn Armstrong cutter, and both times, Dom went with the pitch–to left-center on Harvey’s down-and-out sinker, and down the right field line with Armstrong’s up-and-in cutter.

With three hits in a row with runners in scoring position (Tuesday night’s then the first two Wednesday), Dom is now his seven hits in his last 10 at-bats with RISP, as Mike Mayer points out. He’s now 10-for-37 for the year in those scenarios for a fine .270 average.

Marcus Stroman and Taijuan Walker

These dudes have been shoving, as they say.

Marcus Stroman and Taijuan Walker, who have been an amazing second and third starters behind the best pitcher in baseball, combined to throw 13.1 innings and allow just two runs this series. Even though off days bookend this series’ games, Stro and Tai gave the bullpen a much needed rest after they threw over 19 innings in the Diamondbacks series.

Stroman went toe-to-toe with John Means–the ace of the Orioles who was coming off a no hitter–with one run in 6.1 innings, and Walker shut the O’s down Wednesday with seven innings of one-run ball. (The one run came when the Mets were already up 7-0 in Walker’s last inning of work.)

Together, they’ve thrown 81.1 innings this season and combined for a 2.11 ERA.

The duo earned post-game wine on Wednesday.

 

3 Down

The Downs are easy to write when the team’s lost four out of five. Not so much when they’ve won seven in a row. (This is a good thing!) So while we’re nitpicking and making stretches here, there are always things to keep an eye even amidst winning stretches.

Injuries

The Mets put two more players on the injured list between the end of the Diamondbacks series and the end of this one: Jacob deGrom (right side tightness, though he’s fine) and Albert Almora (a shoulder contusion after slamming into the wall trying to catch a ball). Jeff McNeil had to leave Tuesday’s game with cramps, too, though he should be fine.

That makes six players on the 40-man roster on the injured list, and then another four on the 60-day IL. The injuries are really piling up, and as we noted above, the depth is coming through so far. Another week or two of the depth being strained like this, and we may be talking about a different story.

Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Davis are supposed to come back on the upcoming road trip, and Jacob deGrom is expected to come back after the minimum 10 days. More reinforcements (Seth Lugo, Carlos Carrasco, Noah Syndergaard) are expected to come at the end of May and into June. The other positive is, the team has won seven straight games in the time they’ve put four or five guys on the IL.

Team Slugging

The Mets are starting to score a bit. They’ve averaged just under five runs per game during their seven-game winning streak–much better than the three runs per game they were scoring before the streak. But they’re doing it without power so far.

The team ranks second-to-last in slugging at .350, just ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates. While they’re getting on base (they’re third in the league in OBP), they’re scoring by stringing together walks and singles–certainly not the most efficient way to be scoring runs. They remain last in the league in home runs (just 22 in 36 games).

Francisco Lindor in particular has provided little in the name of power so far with just a .275 slugging. He’s certainly come around at the plate in the last week (he’s now batting .202), but just four of his 22 hits this season have gone for extra bases. James McCann has been struggling with power, too, with 16 of his 17 hits landing as singles.

It’s time to start boppin’.

Team Sympathy

The Mets had no care on the field for the feel-good stories of Matt Harvey coming back to Citi Field (rocked him) or Cesar Valdez finding new life as a pitcher with the Orioles (blew a save). This is a good thing, of course, but I told you, we’re making stretches when the team hasn’t lost in a week.

The post 3 Up 3 Down: Mets’ Winning Streak Hits Seven Games first appeared on Metsmerized Online.