By Joe McDonald
“What outfield?!”
That’s what Sandy Alderson must be thinking with what happened over the last week with his outfield corps.
When he said it back in 2011, it was because the Mets were broke and couldn’t afford it, now the Mets are just broken.
Count them: Brandon Nimmo (finger), Albert Almora, Jr. (crashed into the fence), Michael Conforto (hamstring), and Kevin Pillar (beaned in the face) are all now on injured list.
If you are Dom Smith, you better be wearing bubble wrap or something.
Oh, and let’s not forget the pitching staff, which currently has Jacob deGrom (side tightness), Carlos Carrasco (hamstring), Noah Syndergaard (Tommy John surgery), and now Taijuan Walker (side tightness) on the shelf.
That leaves the Mets rotation with David Peterson, Marcus Stroman and praying for a few days of rain.
Ouch!
The bottom line here is the Mets are going through a tough phase here with players going down like it’s an episode of Survivor.
And the players even know it, hoping to play through some of the injuries.
“I feel real good, actually. Despite not looking so good, I feel as close to normal as possible,” Pillar said Tuesday. “The only tough thing is my right eye a little bit right now is suffering from a little bit of swelling and I can’t really breathe out of my nose, but besides that I feel good. I feel lucky and I’m just kind of excited to start this recovery and get back doing what I like doing.”
However, there is good news during all of this. The Mets are 9-3 over their past 12 games and sitting in first place in the NL East.
Even better news is that all these players have injuries that will have them back sometime soon, meaning they will have their full complement by hopefully the middle of June.
Although that means right now. they will have to persevere. Most importantly, even more than the outfield, they need their top four starters back.
You see, right now, the Mets are doing with their bullpen, which has been outstanding, but they won’t be able to have continue bullpen games for three slots in the rotation. It will just burn out the arms.
What they are doing now, will affect them in August and even September, when these games will be more and more important.
And the other issue is that it’s just too early right now to make any kind of trade to get some help. Too many teams are still in it and just don’t want to give up what they have.
The Mets will have to endure and hope one of these kids called up from Syracuse will step up and possibly do something.
If it makes you feel any better, though, there is some hope here. Other teams are also feeling the injury bug as well and there isn’t anyone running away with anything right now.
So you gotta have hope and pray the Mets can get continue on their winning ways for the next few weeks as those on the mend come back.
And of course, pray no one else gets injured.