This is a week for thrilling, historic comebacks. So, we wonder: Do the last-place, 30-38 Mets have one in them?
It won’t be easy as they’re 5 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot and 15 behind the first-place Braves, who roll into Citi Field Friday.
The Mets’ rotation looks short, their hitting has been terrible (.658 OPS, 29th), and their schedule finally gets hard now. But strange things do happen, as the Knicks showed us. Here’s a closer look at their chances via key categories (with help from an NL scout).
1. Health.
This is perhaps MLB’s most fragile team. They no longer have a dependability champion anymore like Pete Alonso, who didn’t miss a day after rolling his jeep or a game after his first child’s birth (Teddy, get it Teddy Bear) at 1 a.m. last Sept 21 with games Sept 20 and 21. Francisco Lindor, famously healthy in past years but felled by a bad calf, has a secret target return date of June 20. Luis Robert Jr. (back) is making progress, but they should leave speedy youngster A.J. Ewing in CF, anyway. And Clay Holmes (broken leg), who’s an immense rotation absence, is expected back around the Aug. 3 trade deadline. “A killer,” one Mets person called his loss.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
