Mets vs. Nats Notes
I had a long work day, and skimmed through the game quickly via fast-forward on MLB.com, so the notes are extra brief.
Jonathon Niese once again had a solid outing, pitching six strong innings. I am still frustrated by his inability to use gravity to his advantage, and beginning to accept the fact that it will never happen. However I can’t guarantee that I won’t harp on this issue going forward. He’s getting results — now, anyway — so my concerns are likely falling on deaf ears anyway.
The Mets made several defensive mistakes in this ballgame, punctuated by Daniel Murphy‘s miscues in the late innings. It’s looking like the Mets will be a team that will rely almost exclusively on offense to win ballgames. That strategy worked in the late 1990s and through most of the first decade of the 2000s, but may have trouble finding success in this most recent evolution of the game, where pitching is stronger and defense has become more of a priority. Where the Mets are right now may be similar to where the Texas Rangers were in the early 1990s — a team that could score a lot of runs, but gave up just a few more.
Don’t look now, but Jayson Werth is finding his stroke, and, just as importantly, his confidence.
Although Daniel Murphy had two hits, including an RBI single, I didn’t like his facial expressions and body language; he looked like he was unsure and a little less confident than he is usually. I wonder if the fielding issues are weighing on his mind, and if so, could that negatively affect his hitting. Expanding on that point, I wonder if Murphy might put extra pressure on himself to produce with a bat in his hands to make up for shortcomings in the field; if so, he’ll be tense and he’ll have unhelpful thoughts in his mind clouding his focus, which will lead to diminished performance.
Lucas Duda continues to look like a beast in the making. Let’s hope this continues after Opening Day, when pitchers are bearing down. Yeah, it’s that Mets pessimism ingrained in my soul that refuses to let me think positively. But I am anticipating fun and excitement from the Duda – Davis Show this year.
Even though the defense didn’t help, I’m still not seeing anything encouraging from the people supposedly filling the back end of the bullpen.
That’s it for now. Help me out and post more reactions and notes in the comments.
However some people believe that pitching can also be streaky, which if true would hurt that argument. Personally, though I believe pitchers can have bad days on occasion, for the most part there are far fewer “streaky” pitchers than streaky hitters. When pitchers have long stretches of hot or cold, it’s usually due to either a physical/injury issue or a matter of under-exposure / over-exposure.
I don’t see a big difference between the hitter who has two 2-week slumps and the speedster who has one 4-week period where he stops stealing because of an unreported calf strain. Or the reliever who sucks for 4 weeks because of a sore knee.
The end result is that I consider it challenging to find any player whose contributions remain constant. Has any Met done anything well for months on end since ’08?