Fourteen games in, the 2022 New York Mets look like a different baseball team from a year ago. They have the best rotation ERA in MLB thus far, without Jacob deGrom, the best pitcher in the world. Max Scherzer’s performance in game two of yesterday’s doubleheader was the best pitching performance I have seen so far this year. His location was superb, seemingly hitting his spots without fail against a Giant team coming off a 107-win season. Watching Jacob deGrom pitch in person last year I had the feeling that he was going to throw a no hitter. I had the same kind of feeling with Scherzer last night. Carlos Carrasco seems to have returned to form and the Mets are getting more of the same from Chris Bassitt and Tylor Megill.
Pete Alonso seems to be liking the new Universal DH role thus far, considering his three home runs this year have come at that position. And thanks to the Universal DH, Buck Showalter now has versatility defensively at first without sacrificing a bat in the lineup. Pete Alonso and Dominic Smith can alternate playing first base without losing Alonso’s presence in the batting order.
Francisco Lindor is playing to his ability this year and showing much more passion in his play. After a season of getting booed by the Flushing Faithful in 2021, he appears to be on a revenge tour, with both the game tying and game winning hits in the first game of the doubleheader against the Giants Tuesday afternoon.
The only player dragging the team down is Robinson Canó. Fresh off his second suspension for PEDs, he has had an abysmal start to the year, hitting .198 with an OPS of .558. James McCann has a lower OPS, but he adds value with his catching abilities and the success of the pitching staff is proof positive of that. Canó is most likely in his final year as a player, and it will be a slow crawl to the finish line.
I feel a tonal shift with this team that I must credit to Buck Showalter. I am a big fan of his ability to combine analytics with superb his baseball intuition. He said in an interview when he was managing the Baltimore Orioles that he uses analytics to “verify what my gut tells me.” He also stresses developing personal relationships with his players to better gauge their emotional and mental states. He believes combining that with analytics is a team’s best strategy. Buck Showalter is ushering in a brand-new era of baseball, not just in Flushing, but hopefully across the sport.
Bottom line: this Mets team is off to a hot start and setting their fanbase up for heartbreak…but then again what is Mets fandom without heartbreak?
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