Tommy Lasorda once said that you are going to win a third of your games no matter how little work you do and you will lose a third of your games no matter how hard you try.
It’s the other third of the games you have to worry about.
So for those of you who live and die by every single win or loss, take some perspective. Sunday’s one-hitter at the hands of the Braves falls into the second category, while Saturday’s loss goes into No. 3.
And you could probably say that tonight’s 2-1 win over the Royals counts as a quality win as well.
The Mets had no business winning this game. They lost Bartolo Colon after four pitches after taking a line drive off the thumb. Manager Terry Collins had no choice but to go to Hansel Robles, who surprisingly took charge of the evening, going 3.2 innings, allowing one run on five hits.
From desperation comes success.
“Those are the kind of games you should grow from,” Collins said. “Our bullpen had a tough weekend and came back tonight in unexpected situations. Hansel was outstanding. [Eric] Goeddel gave us an inning. Everyone pitched great. To hang on in that situation, that was a great outing by our ‘pen”
Home runs by Asdrubal Cabrera and Yoenis Cespedes gave the Mets their two runs that held up.
Look no matter what the Mets are trying to do to improve this club, the team they have should be good enough to win ballgames. It’s just that simple. Getting Travis d’Arnaud back is just one more piece closer to becoming whole, but the club knows there’s more work to do.
Even if the Mets bring back Jose Reyes and even if they sign Cuban third baseman Yulieski Gourriel, you have to understand that the Mets still will have to rely on many of the players on this roster.
That includes Robles, who’s biggest contribution this season came when he kept encouraging Cespedes to come back to New York, which earned him the nickname “Cespedes, Jr.” in Spring Training.
However, more recently Robles looked like Mel Rojas out there over the past month.
But today the righthander did something different.
“He threw strikes,” Collins said. “Other than the last inning he had the base on balls, he threw strikes. That’s always the key throwing the ball over the plate.”
He was good with pace and used all his pitches, which the reliever needed because he was asked for some length tonight.
“I wanted to do my job and get the game rolling,” Robles said. “I had to try to mix up pitches to reach the fifth inning to give help to the bullpen.”
Robles knew he was needed tonight. If he got lit up, there was a strong possibility of Collins leaving him out there, because he had no one else. According to Collins, Matt Harvey offered an inning, because he was on his throw day, but the Mets manager knew not to mess around with his stud rotation.
So Robles it was and he came through.
On a night where the Mets looked like they had another loss in their pocket, out comes a quality win.
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