So you’re the Mets and you have a six-run lead with Matt Harvey on the mound. That is a scenario you fantasize about. But the dream situation became a nightmare Sunday.
Losing two very important pieces, catcher Travis d’Arnaud and lefty relief specialist Jerry Blevins, to fractured bones will transform any fantasy into a nightmare.
“First Blevins with a fracture and then d’Arnaud,” general manager Sandy Alderson said, “a bad combo in the same day.”
Or month.
It should have been a day to rejoice at Citi Field Sunday when the Mets, behind an ailing but good enough Harvey plus their biggest inning since July 2013, won their eighth straight game and completed their second consecutive series sweep with a 7-6 victory over the Marlins.
But victories in April, no matter how long they extend a streak, take backseats to really bad news. And the extended losses of Blevins and d’Arnaud qualify as bad news.
Blevins, who hadn’t allowed a base runner in eight appearances covering five innings this season, took a line-drive shot on the left forearm off the bat of Dee Gordon in the top of the seventh inning. Then in the bottom half, d’Arnaud, who tops the team in RBIs, was hit by a pitch from Marlins reliever A.J. Ramos. The Mets soon announced a fractured forearm for Blevins, a fractured hand for d’Arnaud.
“It’s a pretty big letdown,” said Blevins, acquired via trade just before the season to help the lefty bullpen void with Josh Edgin disabled. “I didn’t think it got me that bad. I figured it’s going to swell up pretty quick. I told [manager Terry Collins], ‘It hurts’ and he signaled and I said, ‘Wait give me a second. I might be OK.’ Maybe it was the numbness but it wasn’t hurting that bad until an hour or so later.”
Blevins has been flawless. And d’Arnaud has been pretty good, too, hitting .317 with two home runs and 10 RBIs.
“I can’t stress enough how invaluable Travis has been over the first couple weeks,” Alderson said, “both behind the plate and as a hitter.”
But d’Arnaud, with Blevins, joins the Mets’ lengthy disabled list that includes David Wright (hamstring) who was injured Tuesday. It’s near standing room only with pitchers Edgin, Bobby Parnell,
Zack Wheeler and Vic Black also on the DL. Additionally, closer Jenrry Mejia is serving an 80-game suspension for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
“I got to keep my head high. It will speed up the recovery process,” said d’Arnaud, who delivered two hits in the Mets’ seven-run fourth inning. “I did not [think it was broken.] I thought it just hit the muscle. It’s frustrating at any point getting hurt.”
The Mets said there was no time frame for a return for either player. Both will go for additional exams Monday, an off-day. Immediately after the game, the Mets promoted Kevin Plawecki, one of the top catching prospects in all of baseball, and righty pitcher Hansel Robles from Triple-A Las Vegas.
“It’s really unfortunate. We’re playing good baseball and the last thing you want is for something like that to happen,” said Harvey who fought through sickness to raise his record to 3-0. “As a team we have to pick up with what we have. We had such a good spring training and start to the season. We can’t let it affect us.”
And so the fact the Mets remained baseball’s only unbeaten team at home sort of got lost.
“It’s not a good day,” said Collins, who rated Blevins contributions so far as “tremendous” and praised d’Arnaud’s play as “great” before he brought up the big picture. “In the ninth and eighth innings when we found out both those guys had broken [bones], there was dead silence. … There’s a big dent, but we’ve got to enjoy today. We can’t go home on a sour note.”
So the optimist will look at Harvey pitching into the seventh despite almost being given a sick day. He’ll recall how Ruben Tejada drove in three runs with a bases-clearing double in the fourth inning, which also included RBI hits by Daniel Murphy, Juan Lagares and d’Arnaud plus an RBI walk from Kirk Nieuwenhuis. He’ll point out Jeurys Familia got his sixth save, despite putting on the potential tying run via a leadoff walk.
Yup, the optimist will emphasize all that. And the realist will claim despite all that, a good day really was a bad day, an awful day, for the Mets.
