So How Bad Is It?

How bad is it? As the fat guy Clemenza said in The Godfather, “pretty damn bad”. I say this because the Mets are opening a 3-game set against the Dodgers and they’re still banged up as bad as ever. That doesn’t bode well against Joe Torre’s crew. Pitching and batting, they’ve got it all, and Manny too. Some teams have all the luck.

An analysis of the at-bats for the two teams leading the NL East, the Phillies and the Mets, points to how bad things have really been for our locals. The Mets have only one guy with 300 or more at-bats, David Wright. The Phils have three, Rollins, Victorino and Howard, and four more of their players have 250 or more at-bats. That would be Werth with 289, Feliz and Utley with 282, and Ibanez, who hit the disabled list a couple of weeks ago, with 250.

For the Mets, after David Wright, Carlos Beltran, who hasn’t played in a very long time, seemingly forever if you’re a Mets fan, has a comparatively measly 241 at-bats. Just three other Mets have over 200 at-bats. That would be Castillo, Murphy and Church, not exactly a Murderers Row.

Surprisingly enough, it’s bargain pick-up Gary Sheffield with the next highest number of plate appearances with 185. The other comparative workhorses are Alex Cora, Fernando Tatis, Jose Reyes (in just 36 games) and Omir Santos, all of whom have 142 to 162 at-bats and have appeared in from 36 to 54 games out of the 80 games in which Wright has played. So, all in all, the only regular has been Wright.

And thank the good Lord for that. Wright’s batting .326 with production numbers to match. But of the steadier healthier players this year, only Church and Sheffield have been even somewhat productive with a .290 BA for Church and a remarkable10 homers and 31 ribbies for the dour Sheffield.

The good news is that, in one of those ridiculous statistical anomalies, this banged-up Mets team currently ranks second in the National League in batting average. Their .270 is exceeded only by the Dodgers who collectively bat .272.

The bad news is that it’s a noticeably unproductive .270. The Metsies have scored only 355 runs, ranked 20th among all major league teams. That basically means that not only do the teams with higher batting averages score more than our lovable locals but even the thirteen teams with lower averages all score more than do the Mets.

I would have assumed that it has been the Mets pitching that has kept them respectable. That’s not necessarily the case however. Although their collective team ERA is 4.26, that ranks just seventh in the National League. An even more interesting stat is that their team WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) ranks 14th in the National League. That means that they’ve either been lucky or very good defensively or that their pitchers on average are better in the clutch.

It also means they have more heart-rending moments than just about any other team in baseball, with runners always on base and either strikeouts or double plays required to take them out of troublesome situations.

Without even looking it up, we know the Mets haven’t been very good defensively, or has it just been Murphy? A glance at the actual figures shows the Mets in the middle of the pack defensively but in runners left on base, they rank third, behind only Boston and Philadelphia. And when you think about individual pitchers, Pelfrey’s seemingly always getting out of trouble, Hernandez, Maine and Santana too. So the Mets do seem to have something going for them.

And looking ahead they could get better. Beltran, Reyes and even Delgado will probably return. Oliver Perez, the flaky starter who can dazzle at times, will probably be back. I won’t belabor the point but things can’t really get worse for the Mets and they’ve managed to at least nominally stay in the hunt thus far.

The schedule doesn’t look that intimidating either. In the National League, the only really threatening team is the Dodgers. After this coming series with them, the Mets will face the Reds for 3 games. Then there is the long awaited All-Star Break. Immediately after the break, all their opponents are beatable, especially with a rejuvenated team.

The likes of Atlanta, Washington, Houston, Colorado….these are beatable teams, infinitely beatable. So is San Diego, likewise Arizona. It looks like the Mets could have clear sailing for 33 games before having to face the Phillies again, then the Marlins and the Cubs, who’ll probably be leading their division by then.

But if the Mets can take 22 out of those 33, they should be 18 games above .500 with all of September still left to play, with their regulars rested, with their bench having gained experience, including all those AAA guys playing like AAA guys right now but not necessarily later.

The full complement of the Mets should be very hard to beat. After all, Omar did fill all the holes. He got the depth he needed and he picked up the required relief pitching. He and this Mets team just ran into an incredible string of bad luck. Judging from the schedule, that luck could turn the other way in an awful hurry.

So how bad is it really? It’s easy to despair when the Phillies just kicked your butt and you’re off to face the best team in the league. But if the Mets can play tough headed into the break and not totally lose heart, the post-break picture looks exceedingly nicer.

So as bad as it looks, things are looking up. Could things go the other way and even get worse? Sure. It’s possible but it sure as hell isn’t likely. This could be the year the Mets rise from the ashes after years of coasting through regular seasons only to lose in the end.

And it’s just around the corner, Mets fans.