The New York Mets returned to baseball prominence thanks to the talent and dominance of their starting rotation. A fearsome stable of starters helped them reach the 2015 World Series and weather injuries to reach the playoffs last season. Their starters gave them swagger.
It took six weeks of the 2017 season for that once-vaunted group to deteriorate into the worst in the major leagues.
“It’s been shocking to me,” manager Terry Collins said after struggling rookie Robert Gsellman turned in another rough start in a 11-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday. “We should be pitching better.”
Photo: AP
Mets general manager Sandy Alderson on Friday had essentially conceded that the starting rotation that had been the team’s foundation could no longer be counted on.
The team needs to be realistic about its expectations, including the belief that the rotation — now a shell of what it was expected to be heading into the season — could right itself and pitch deeper into games, he said.
“I think it would be foolish for us to say that the starting pitching is going to have to go deeper,” Alderson said. “It would be nice if it goes deeper. I don’t think we can count on that consistently over time.”
Photo: AFP
The numbers paint a grim picture.
Even with injuries to Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Steven Matz last season, the Mets’ starters finished the year with a 3.61 ERA, third best in the majors. After Saturday’s game, their 5.13 ERA was the worst.
Injuries — including a latissimus tear that will keep their ace Noah Syndergaard out for months — have not been so easily overcome this year. Elbow injuries to Matz and Seth Lugo near the end of spring training robbed the Mets’ rotation of depth.
DeGrom (3.80 ERA) is the best able-bodied Mets starter now, but has piled up unusually high walk totals. On and off the field, Harvey (5.63 ERA) has had problems, but he has insisted that he has felt better mechanically of late despite the results. Backup starter Rafael Montero’s struggles led the Mets to pick up Tommy Milone, who had a 6.43 ERA at the time, off the waiver wire.
There has been at least one hopeful sign: After two years away because of injuries and rehabilitation, Zack Wheeler (4.18 ERA) has been surprisingly effective.
Gsellman’s problems are understandable; he is still technically only a rookie and is learning his craft at the highest level.
However, it has been an abrupt change from the sensational pitching he displayed late last summer in helping save the Mets’ season. After Gsellman was charged with six runs (five earned) over four-plus innings on Saturday, Gsellman’s ERA stands at 7.07.
Gsellman pitched out of jams over the first four innings, surrendering only two runs, but after teetering on the edge with uneven command in that time, he tumbled over in the fifth.
After all four batters he faced in the inning had reached base, Gsellman was pulled for reliever Hansel Robles as the Mets clung to a 4-3 lead.
Robles has pitched well lately, but he quickly stumbled.
He gave up a two-run single to Orlando Arcia, a two-run double to Jesus Aguilar and finally a three-run homer to Travis Shaw.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier