The Mets needed this one.
Badly.
The 14-1 win over the lowly Brewers couldn’t have happened at a better time for the psyche of the team, Jacob deGrom, who was going through a sophomore slump, much maligned shortstop Wilmer Flores, and especially the team’s manager Terry Collins.
“We needed it in a lot of ways,” Collins said. “First we needed to get back in the win column. And it was really important to put some big hits up and get more consistent on the offensive side.”
Look, this is just one win, one out of 162. So don’t read into it that much. Milwaukee is a bad team and had a struggling pitcher on the mound with Matt Garza. These are the games the Mets are supposed to win, so let’s not break out with the champagne yet.
But it’s a start of something. After losing four in a row to the Cubs, whom they were compared to and then yesterday’s clunker to the Brewers, it was starting to look like the bad old days in Flushing.
It’s a glimmer of hope for a team that was starting to go south.
It was important for deGrom, who had a few bad starts in a row. The NL Rookie of the Year needed a good start in his pocket to get back on track. Going into this season, he looked like he was going to be the No. 2 started behind Matt Harvey, but after the past few weeks, the youngster was pitching himself out of the rotation.
“It was a big huge night for Jake,” Collins said. “It was a good night for him to pitch well and get a few hits.
“You saw when he’s down in the zone, he gets outs. And then balls down and balls down and he changes eye levels and get strikeouts. That’s what he did all last summer that made him successful. He had a tough time finding the sinker and there were times tonight when there were fastballs up. That’s not him.
“So they are working with him to get the two seamer that he gets the goundballs with. And because he has a good enough arm, he can change it and get the four seam fastball up and strike some people out. That’s what he did tonight.”
Flores also had a big night, going 2-4 with a Grand Slam. When the Mets put him at shortstop, they knew his defense would not be the greatest, but would accept those deficiencies if he hit at the plate.
Unfortunately it hasn’t happened yet and Collins hopes that this may be a start.
“When you are out there and you are supposed to hit and you have a few rough defensive games then you go out and you say, ‘I got to hit. I got to hit,’” Collins said. “You get over anxious and hit some bad pitches and you have a big offensive night.”
Again, this is only one game but the Mets need to build upon that tomorrow for Noah Syndergaard and then the Dark Knight on Monday, who will be facing the red hot Cardinals that come into town for a four game set.
So they are not out of the woods yet.
But for one night, the Mets played like everyone hoped they would.
They needed this.
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