\u201cThere\u2019s just a lot of fight,\u201d said starter Merrill Kelly, who was acquired in a deadline deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. \u201cWith what went on when I first got here, I think that we could have easily said, \u2018All right, it was a good try,\u2019 and just taken the rest of the season for what it was. But we obviously didn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers didn\u2019t seem to need another starter in July, when deGrom was an All-Star and Nathan Eovaldi, the Rangers\u2019 Game 1 starter in the World Series run, was the AL pitcher of the month. President of baseball operations Chris Young got Kelly anyway, a move that looked prescient when a rotator cuff injury ended Eovaldi\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
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Texas turned to a youth brigade to cover for its injured position players \u2014 Marcus Semien and Evan Carter, who won\u2019t come back, and Adolis Garc\u00eda and Corey Seager, who probably will. Kelly has been a co-ace with deGrom, going 3-1 with a 3.19 ERA in eight starts for Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuge, huge,\u201d Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. \u201cGreat job by (Chris Young) acquiring Merrill to help us out there. Starting pitching, they set the tone. So anytime you lose somebody like Nate, it\u2019s hard to recover from that. With Merrill being in the rotation, it helps soften the blow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets, under David Stearns, went big on bullpen help and counted on their farm system to plug a fragile rotation. The decision has backfired: Gregory Soto and Ryan Helsley, who mopped up on Friday, have combined for a 7.03 ERA. Tyler Rogers has been effective since his acquisition from San Francisco, but he came at the cost of reliever Jos\u00e9 Butt\u00f3 \u2014 who has also pitched well \u2014 and outfield prospect Drew Gilbert, now the Giants\u2019 everyday right fielder as they chase the Mets.<\/p>\n
Everything is sputtering now for the Mets, who haven\u2019t drawn a walk since Wednesday. Their last 25 batters went down in order on Thursday in Philadelphia, and deGrom retired his final 15 hitters on Friday. The Mets looked sloppy in the field against Texas, filling the box score with all the wrong stuff: two errors, a wild pitch, a hit batter, an ejection (Jeff McNeil).<\/p>\n
But the rotation is the real culprit of the Mets\u2019 slide. At their high point of the season \u2014 21 games over .500 on June 12 \u2014 the Mets had the lowest starters\u2019 ERA in the majors, 2.79, while averaging 5 1\/3 innings per start. Since then, Mets starters have a 5.26 ERA while averaging 4 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe name of the game is pitching, right, and you\u2019re going to need starters,\u201d Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to sustain and keep (relievers) healthy when you have to keep using them. \u2026 When starters go down and don\u2019t go deep in games, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mendoza said that before the game, and the problem soon grew substantially worse. Before deGrom even threw a pitch, Mendoza had already trudged to the mound, down 6-0, to remove rookie starter Jonah Tong.<\/p>\n
The Mets had gone precisely 1,000 games without a performance like this. No Mets starter had allowed six earned runs without surviving the first inning since Steven Matz on April 16, 2019. Fred Wilpon owned the team, Mickey Callaway managed it, and Brodie Van Wagenen ran the front office. It\u2019s been a while.<\/p>\n
DeGrom was the Mets\u2019 best player that season, as he usually was for most of his nine years in Queens. The start of Friday\u2019s game seemed to make a mockery of how badly the Mets wasted his best years: Sure, now he gets some run support at Citi Field.<\/p>\n
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