MILWAUKEE — Such is life with the Mets nowadays — most days? — that they can’t even win the battles they lose. And now their greatest weakness, their pitching depth, appears poised to face its biggest test yet.
Look, if Mickey Callaway’s guys had simply suffered a 3-2 loss to the Brewers on Sunday afternoon, as did occur, and walked out of Miller Park sound in body if not in spirit, that’s an outcome they could have stomached.
In the wake of Saturday night’s gut-wrenching, 18-inning, 4-3 loss that fried their bullpen to a crisp, some guys (Robinson Cano, Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil) rested and one guy (Amed Rosario) rebounded from a brutal defensive performance with three clean plays and three hits, and with the resurgent duo of Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard set to open the next series starting Monday night in San Diego, the Mets could lick their wounds and reload.
Of course it didn’t play out so simply en route to getting swept out of the world’s beer capital. Does anything ever with these guys? Their starting pitcher, Jason Vargas, citing “mild tightness” in his left hamstring, departed after clocking only four innings and 50 pitches.
Even worse, after the game, Callaway disclosed that Steven Matz is headed home to New York, rather than journey onward to San Diego, to have “nerve irritation” in his left forearm examined.
Hence, at a season nadir of 16-18, losers of eight of 11, their offense doing less damage than Tom Brady at an ice cream parlor, and now their best unit compromised, the Mets must somehow right themselves.
“There’s 30 teams out there that want to be a winner,” said Vargas, who speaks like a small liberal-arts college professor who gives guitar lessons on the side in addition to looking like one. “It’s just a matter of who’s gonna be able to deal with those ups and downs the most and battle back from them.”
Props to Vargas for battling back from his awful second start of the season April 13 in Atlanta, when he registered just one out; a balding Post columnist (OK, it was me) advocated that night for him to be designated for assignment. When he struck out Milwaukee’s Travis Shaw to end the fourth, he had registered a 3.00 ERA in his four subsequent starts, totaling 18 innings.
Alas, he aggravated his hamstring on that strikeout, prematurely ending his day. Callaway and Vargas wouldn’t confirm whether the veteran would head next to the injured list, yet it would make sense, given that the Mets, with off days coming Thursday and May 13, don’t need a fifth starter again until May 18.
And maybe the Mets could withstand that, except that they need to wait on Matz, whom Callaway (let’s not forget about his job security becoming an issue if things don’t turn around) wouldn’t scratch from Wednesday’s start at Petco Park before the southpaw gets examined on Monday.
“He’s been battling [nerve irritation] for about two weeks now,” Callaway divulged, which means that — as folks pointed out on Twitter — the Mets knew this as they made a halfhearted effort to sign free-agent lefty Gio Gonzalez, who has looked good for the Brewers. “It’s nerves, so it’s not grave or anything.”
Things have a way of turning grave for the Mets, who simply don’t have the supply of pitchers that contenders typically require to succeed. If the drop-off from the top four starting pitchers to Vargas feels steep, the decline from Vargas to other options (Corey Oswalt? Chris Flexen) can be best imagined by Wile E. Coyote falling off the edge of a cliff. Any time they’re ready to sign Dallas Keuchel, they’ll get widespread approval.
Throw in offensively challenged Keon Broxton muffing Orlando Arcia’s third-inning line drive into a double that keyed the Brewers’ three-run rally and Brandon Nimmo extending his hitless funk to 0-for-25 with three unsuccessful trips to the plate, and the Mets gave themselves plenty to ponder on their long flight west.
It’ll take plenty to go right, for a franchise that has had a rather striking wrong/right ratio for decades, to win this National League East war. This crazy train should post a sign reading “Extreme Optimists Only.”
