“The air was full of rumor, fantastic and credible.”
— “In Parenthesis,” David Jones
The hottest day of the summer suited the Polar Bear just fine.
Pete Alonso cajoled the Mets’ offense out of its midseason hibernation on Sunday night, his three-run laser of a home run sparking an offensive conflagration in an 8-5 win over the Padres. New York thus avoided what would have been its first three-game sweep of the season.
“We needed this one,” Alonso said. “This one was huge for us.”
Just as a storm can break a heat wave, so can one swing ease the pressure on an offense. The Mets had gripped the bats tighter and tighter as their team-wide slump deepened. They’d scored seven runs in regulation in their last five games to begin the night, and Joe Musgrove had sliced through the order, hitless, over the first four frames Sunday night. When Alonso came to the plate with two on in the sixth, the Mets had permitted 18 very good innings from their starting pitchers to pass this weekend with nary a single tally of run support. They were 1-for-17 with runners in scoring position in the series, and they’d plated all of two runs.
One inning prior, they’d bungled one of their best opportunities of the weekend, failing to score after they had two in scoring position with nobody out.
Alonso ensured that wouldn’t happen again. Musgrove’s 2-1 slider was middle-away. Alonso redirected it on a line to the seats in left-center. The Mets could breathe.
“The want-to can get in the way of executing,” manager Buck Showalter said. “You can’t hit a five-run homer and you can’t hit a four-run single. Sometimes you want something too much, and something like (Alonso’s home run) might let you get back in the flow of who you are and who you want to be.”
New York added two more that inning and three more the next, with Alonso’s double off the wall in the center of that rally as well.
“He’s a pretty good hitter,” said Daniel Vogelbach. “You don’t find a lot of guys that do it all — take their hits, walk and slug. They’re the elite of the elite, and I’d put him in that elite group.”
A month ago, in evaluating Alonso’s season, hitting coach Eric Chavez contextualized his place in the lineup.
“He does all the heavy lifting for our team,” Chavez said. “Obviously, numbers-wise, we’re not hitting the ball out of the park like crazy — but Pete does. Pete’s the big punch, Mike Tyson, part of the ballgame where the score can be close and he hits a three-run homer.”
“He’s a power force in our lineup,” said Francisco Lindor. “He energizes us.”
Alonso’s presence can change games, as it did on Sunday. These past couple of weeks have shown, however, that Alonso cannot be called upon to be Atlas, carrying the offense on his own. His home run Sunday was his 25th. The five guys hitting behind him Sunday, including the just-acquired Vogelbach, have combined to hit 25 homers this season.
Vogelbach is the first addition, and he shouldn’t be the last. In his first game with the Mets, he halted Musgrove’s incipient no-hitter with a fifth-inning single, and he walked and scored one inning later. He provides another home-run threat in a lineup lacking them.
“He’s got juice, and his plate discipline is excellent,” Alonso said. “I know he’s going to help us win a lot of games.”
One night, of course, does not heal an offense. Alonso and others pointed to the quality of starting pitching the Mets faced this weekend, with Musgrove following on the heels of Yu Darvish and Blake Snell. But as Showalter has said, that’s the quality of starting pitcher the Mets will have to beat come October. San Diego is the quality of team they’ll have to beat.
New York has spent four months of its season raising the bar for its expectations. Alonso called the Mets “extremely good” Sunday night, and you don’t arrive to the final week of July 22 games over .500 without being that kind of team. To be something more than extremely good, to be great in fact, will require more nights like Sunday, and will require more assistance for the bottom half of the lineup.
THE EXPOSITION
The Mets avoided the sweep on Sunday night against the Padres. They’re 59-37, their lead back to 1.5 games in the NL East.
The Yankees took two of three from the Orioles at Camden Yards, which no longer qualifies as a disappointing series result. Their 66-31 record is the majors’ best, but only by a half-game over the Dodgers. The division lead is a more comfortable 12 1/2 games.
The Marlins broke their long scoring drought on Friday, were shut out Saturday, and won the rubber game with Pittsburgh in extras on Sunday. Miami is 45-50.
THE PITCHING POSSIBLES
versus New York
RHP Taijuan Walker (7-2, 2.55 ERA) v. LHP Jordan Montgomery (3-2, 3.24 ERA)
RHP Max Scherzer (6-2, 2.28) v. RHP Jameson Taillon (10-2, 3.93)
at Miami
RHP Chris Bassitt (7-07, 3.72) v. RHP Sandy Alcantara (9-4, 1.81)
RHP Carlos Carrasco (10-4, 4.07) v. LHP Trevor Rogers (4-9, 5.46)
RHP Taijuan Walker v. RHP Pablo López (6-5, 3.14)
WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT THE METS THIS WEEK?
The offense had two big innings out of 26 against San Diego’s very good pitching staff, and the task does not get easier this week. While the addition of Vogelbach helps the lineup a bit, there is still room for improvement here, be it internal or external, including against lefties.
RECENT SERIES HISTORY
The Mets took four of six from the Yankees last season, winning a series in each ballpark. The Yankees haven’t won the season series from the Mets since 2017, and the Mets are 58-76 in their history against the Yankees.
New York is 7-4 against the Marlins this season, including 2-1 in Miami.
INSIDE BASEBALL
On Friday, as the season’s second half officially started, Taijuan Walker sought out pitching coach Jeremy Hefner. His question: What could we do differently this year?
In 2021, Walker followed up an All-Star first half with a nightmarish second half. His home-run rate more than quadrupled, and his ERA went from below three to above seven. So in the wake of a similarly productive first half of 2022, Walker wants to make sure he avoids what befell him last season.
“What it was, was my pitch selection. I just threw too many fastballs,” Walker said of his second half in ’21. “I just started throwing more four-seams and less sliders, so I became fastball-splitter, but the splitter was inconsistent.”
Hefner and the Mets had wanted Walker to curtail his two-seam usage a bit last summer. But the byproduct was a jump in four-seamers (from about 30 percent before the break to 40 percent after), and it was that pitch that was routinely getting launched over the wall. Walker didn’t have enough confidence in his other offerings, especially that splitter, to compensate.
“There’s these normal things that guys go through, whether it’s small injuries or their mechanics get out of whack or they try to work too hard in the second half between starts, and Taijuan kind of hit on all those,” Hefner said. “These little ailments, for Taijuan they caused his stuff to regress a little bit, and that’s why we saw all the home runs.”
Both Walker and Hefner think his pitch distribution is in a better place right now, and a big part of that is the right-hander’s confidence in a revamped splitter. Late in spring training, Walker adopted the splitter grip that teammate Carlos Carrasco uses — more of a one-seam changeup than the two-seam grip he had been using. His previous splitter moved less predictably, Walker said, sometimes darting more to his arm-side than down.
“I know what it’s going to do,” Walker said of his new splitter. “It might cut and go down, it might go down and in to a righty, but I know it’s going to go down.”
Carrasco said it’s not just the grip but the mindset throwing that pitch: “Just make sure you think about fastball, fastball, fastball,” Carrasco told Walker. Think you’re throwing a fastball and then, at the last minute, pull it down like you’re closing a garage door.
Walker had tried that same Carrasco grip last season, and it didn’t stick. This time, he used his time on the injured list in April to emphasize that pitch.
“The plan was to use both (splitters), but I liked what I was seeing from Cookie’s grip, the action on it and the swing-and-misses, so I stuck with it,” he said. “I tried to do it last year with the same grip and couldn’t get it. It’s one of those things where you just have to stick with it and play with it. I threw it playing catch, I threw it a lot in the bullpens and just got real comfortable with it.”
“It’s a completely different grip and a completely different comfort level,” Hefner said.
By FanGraphs’ pitch values, Walker owns the best splitter in baseball this season. He’s getting a swing-and-miss 16.5 percent of the time, and 72 percent of the time it’s hit in play, it’s on the ground.
You can make a strong case for Walker as the Mets’ first-half MVP, given the way he’s anchored the rotation through injuries and undulations since he came off the IL at the end of April. If he can maintain that consistency with Max Scherzer back and Jacob deGrom on the way, the rotation can look even better than it has of late.
INSIDE BASEBALL II
Given the way Walker admitted fatigue in last year’s second half, given the eventual return of deGrom to the rotation, given a whole lot of other aspects of their rotation, don’t be surprised if the Mets build in extra off-days for starters by occasionally using a sixth starter over the final two months.
New York has leaned heavily on Walker (91 2/3 innings), Carrasco (99 innings) and Chris Bassitt (109 innings). Scherzer turns 38 this week. DeGrom hasn’t pitched in more than a year. The Mets have David Peterson, Trevor Williams and possibly Tylor Megill as reasonable options to start games for them.
Regardless, the Mets will need a sixth starter in their rotation twice in August, for their pair of Saturday doubleheaders with Atlanta and Philadelphia. If they slot in a sixth starter just two other times between now and the rest of the season, they can provide an extra day of rest for their starters more than two-thirds of the time.
INSIDE BASEBALL III
The deadline for Major League Baseball and the Players Association to agree to terms on an international draft is Monday. As of late Sunday, the two sides appeared distant.
If the international draft is not implemented, then the qualifying offer system would remain in place this winter. That would be a good thing for the Mets front office, given the number of impending free agents they have who would merit the QO. That list could include Jacob deGrom, Edwin Díaz, Chris Bassitt, Brandon Nimmo and Taijuan Walker. However, since the Mets are miles beyond the luxury tax threshold, the compensation picks they’d receive if those players sign elsewhere would come after the fourth round — not after the second like their recent comp picks for Noah Syndergaard and Zack Wheeler.
In the decade-long history of the qualifying offer, no team has ever issued more than three of them.
INJURY UPDATES
|
Player
|
Injury
|
Elig.
|
ETA
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Right ankle sprain |
7/27 |
8. August |
|
|
Stress reaction in right scapula |
Now |
8. August |
|
|
Right triceps inflammation |
Now |
8. August |
|
|
Left oblique strain |
Now |
8. August |
|
|
Right shoulder strain |
8/16 |
8. Mid-August |
|
|
Tommy John surgery |
Now |
9. Late 2022 |
|
|
Tommy John surgery |
Now |
X. 2023 |
|
|
Tommy John surgery |
Now |
X. Late 2023 |
Red = 60-day IL
Orange = 15-day IL
Blue = 10-day IL
Gray = COVID-19 IL
• Jacob deGrom is going to make another rehab start this week. Wednesday makes the most sense; the team hasn’t announced where it would be. While the team hasn’t said this is slated to be deGrom’s last rehab start, the pitcher’s rehab clock expires on Aug. 1; he cannot make another rehab start after that day unless the team acknowledges a setback. (Yes, the Mets could have deGrom make a second rehab start on Aug. 1, but they’ve been reluctant to have him pitch on four days’ rest thus far.) So, signs point to deGrom debuting in the majors the first week of August in Washington.
• Trevor May had his first rehab appearance on Sunday with Double-A Binghamton. He’ll need a handful of games in the minors, but as a reliever he can do them in pretty short order.
• Dominic Smith will be out for at least a couple of weeks, GM Billy Eppler said Friday. The trade for Daniel Vogelbach that day, of course, puts a big question mark around Smith’s tenure in Queens.
• Tylor Megill has started his throwing progression, as he threw out to 60 feet on Sunday. That was about the fourth time Megill has thrown, he said. He isn’t eligible to come off the injured list until mid-August.
MINOR-LEAGUE SCHEDULE
Triple A: Syracuse vs. Omaha (Kansas City)
Double A: Binghamton vs. New Hampshire (Toronto)
High A: Brooklyn at Hudson Valley (New York)
Single A: St. Lucie vs. Palm Beach (St. Louis)
LAST FORTNIGHT IN METS
• We have a new Mets writer! Will Sammon, who previously covered the Brewers at The Athletic, explains why he’s coming home to Queens.
• Will’s first feature was this outstanding deep dive into Francisco Álvarez’s “Wow” moments.
• Andy McCullough wondered whether the NL East’s final standings could spark a crosstown bidding war for Aaron Judge.
• The challenges the Mets face in upgrading their bullpen.
• How the Mets restocked the prospect cupboard in the amateur draft.
• How Pete Alonso has evolved to put together his best season yet.
• Keith Law’s MLB Draft report card.
• How can the Mets get creative at the trade deadline?
• Ken Rosenthal on why Edwin Díaz didn’t pitch in the All-Star Game — and it’s just about the best reason.
• Can the Mets actually acquire Juan Soto? We asked around front offices.
• The Mets made their first move ahead of the trade deadline Friday: In adding Daniel Vogelbach, they acquired a hitter who “fits their offensive philosophy.”
• Buck Showalter set the tone for the second half on Friday, emphasizing both urgency and carefulness.
A NOTE ON THE EPIGRAPH
I don’t use this line for every trade deadline, but this isn’t the first time, you know? I read David Jones’ “In Parenthesis” when I was on a World War I kick — which I’d rank below my World War II kick but above my dystopian kick in terms of “What My Reading Says about My Current Mindset” — and really enjoyed the different stylistic approach. It made for a good companion with “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Guns of August.”
PREDICTION TIME
It will not be all quiet at Citi Field on Tuesday and Wednesday.
(Photo of Pete Alonso: Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)