Despite loss to Marlins, Mets give fans plenty of reasons to be hopeful for rest of the season
Mets' Jonah Tong is all smiles during his on-field workout on Thursday at Citi Field. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Mets lost a game in the standings on Thursday night and are five games back in the NL East after following up their three-game sweep of the first-place Phillies with a predictable letdown-game 7-4 loss to the Marlins at Citi Field.
If the season ended on Thursday, the Mets would open a Wild Card Series in Philadelphia.
Think that would scare the Mets, who are 7-2 against the Phillies this season?
Not if Nolan “Ryan’’ McLean and Jonah “King’’ Tong are in the rotation.
OK, maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves here. But the mojo definitely seemed back at Citi Field during this week’s wipeout of the Phillies.
Throw Thursday’s performance, in which the Mets committed three errors and allowed five unearned runs, in the trash can. That’s where it belongs.
How many of us have staggered a little after three days of non-stop partying? That’s what the Phillies series was in Flushing.
Despite Thursday’s ugliness, the Mets have plenty of reasons to be confident.
No. 1 is the superb performance by McLean in his first three starts (3-0, 0.89 ERA).
No. 2 is the sudden surge in the team’s hitting with runners in scoring position, which has been a season-long concern. In the sweep of the Phillies, the Mets hit .568 (21-for-37) in those situations. That’ll do.
No. 3 is Tong, the baby-faced 22-year-old who is going to make his big-league debut on Friday after dominating in the minor leagues.
King Tong is not his actual nickname. We’re just offering up a slam-dunk idea for our beloved back-page headline writers if Tong pitches against Miami the way he did against minor-league competition this season.
Tong, whose real nickname is “The Canadian Cannon,” went 10-5 with a 1.43 ERA combined in Double-A and Triple-A this season. He leads the minor leagues in strikeouts with 179 in 113 2⁄3 innings.
Tong told of his anxiousness when he first met manager Carlos Mendoza in spring training.
“ ‘Hi, I’m Jonah,’ ” Tong recalled saying once he was able to speak. ‘Nice to meet you. ’ ”
Said Mendoza: “Talking to him . . . he’s a kid. But excited.”
Mendoza meant he was excited to see Tong, and who can blame him?
The manager spent months trying to coax his veteran starters through five innings, and now he has the promise of McLean and Tong — and Brandon Sproat down on the farm perhaps to follow.
“It’s always good to get the youth in there,” Mendoza said. “You’re competing for a playoff spot, but familiar faces, new faces, it creates a little bit of competition within, which is important.”
That’s why Clay Holmes, Thursday night’s starter, might have been pitching for his rotation spot. Someone has to head to the bullpen if the rookie starters pan out, and Holmes is a converted reliever who is way, way over his career innings total.
Also, while Holmes was inconsistent as the Yankees’ closer, he has been fearless in the postseason, with a 1.35 ERA in 19 appearances. The Mets can use some setup help ahead of Edwin Diaz.
Holmes went five innings and allowed four runs (two earned). His error in the third when he failed to catch a throw from Pete Alonso at first base led to the unearned runs.
Alonso, who tied the score at 4 with his 30th home run, a two-run shot in the fifth, committed an error (as did Brandon Nimmo) in Miami’s three-run seventh.
You can’t give good teams extra outs. Or the Marlins.
“Sometimes these games happen,” said Holmes, who did not discount the letdown-game theory. “That’s baseball.”
Again, it’s one game. “Flush it,” Alonso said.
Sorting out who starts and who relieves down the stretch and in the postseason is going to be Mendoza’s top job over the next four-plus weeks.
Yes, we’re giving the Mets a virtually guaranteed postseason spot thanks to their recent surge and the lack of decent teams in the NL.
Reason No. 4 the Mets can be confident is that only the Reds stand between them and October (or, more accurately, Sept. 30, which is when the playoffs start). The Mets hold a four-game lead over Cincinnati in the race for the last wild-card spot.
Even the division is still in play, even if Thursday’s results made it less likely.
You can’t count out the Mets because of their recent success against the Phillies (ousting them in the Division Series last season and this season’s head-to-head record, which gives the Mets the tiebreaker).
The teams will meet for three more games in Philadelphia on Sept. 8-10. Maybe the Mets will pitch McLean, Tong and Sproat!
All we have to do is think of a nickname for Sproat. How about “Sproat the G.O.A.T.?”
No, that’s really getting ahead of ourselves.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
