Only thirteen Mets home games left in the season. The Mets are battling the Phillies to stay out of last place in the Eastern Division. Time to give some young players some time in the lineup and figure out who will be on this team next year. The Mets best hitter, Daniel Murphy, is on the disabled list with a calf injury. With 25 more games left in September New York needs wins to stay out of the basement of the division. They need to go 10-15 to at least have the same losing record that they have had the last two years [74-88].
End of September Update
The Mets ended September with a 15-10 record with 5 of the 10 losses coming at the hands of the division champion Washington Nationals. The Mets were 4-15 against the Nationals and 75-68 against everyone else. Had the Mets gone just 9-10 versus the Nats, they would have had a 84-78 record and would have been the best team to not make the playoffs. The Mets were the NL's only under .500 team that scored more runs (629) than it allowed (618). And that was while only getting 4 hits in what seemed like every other game. Good pitching does dominate good hitting. There was a time at the beginning of the month that it looked like the Mets would be battling the Phillies for last place instead of battling the Braves for 2nd place.
There were a lot of pluses for the Mets at season's end. Many of the younger players from the minors got to play at the big league level. Jacob deGrom was the biggest highlight with a 9-6 record and an ERA of 2.69 while leading all NL rookies with 144 strikeouts. The bullpen started the season rough but took shape as the season went along and were a major strength for the Mets. Injuries to Matt Harvey (arm), David Wright (shoulder), Juan Lagares (elbow), Travis d'Arnaud (elbow), Bobby Parnell (arm), Dilson Herrera (quad), Dana Eveland (elbow), and Vic Black (rotator cuff) allowed many youngsters an opportunity to get some playing time. Hopefully all of the above will be 100% by spring training 2015.
